Debby Kirby is a qualified and experienced primary school teacher. She graduated from Exeter University in 1988 with a B.Ed (Hons).

On graduating she taught for more than a decade in a variety of primary schools, including a year in a British school in Barcelona!

As a child (and teenager!) Debby studied the piano and recorder, sung in a choir and took part in many types of dance classes, including  ballet, modern and tap.

Noticing how much her own two children seemed to enjoy and engage with musical activities when they were very young, Debby decided to use her love of music and dance - together with her parenting and teaching knowledge to develop a Music and Movement course for pre-schoolers. She began running her first music class for young children in the summer of 2001. This quickly grew to be several classes catering for babies, toddlers and pre-schoolers.

After a couple of years, Debby began taking Rhyme Time into Early Years settings and then running training courses for Early Years staff.

In the course of the last few years Debby has run several training workshops on behalf of the Early Years team in BANES and also South Glos. Music Service. She has been a guest lecturer on the EYPS (Early Years Professional Status) course at Bath Spa University and also at Norland (Nanny) College. In November 2010 Debby was asked to lead a session on Early Years Music at the National Gathering of "Sing Up" which took place at the Sage Gateshead, a national centre of excellence for EY music making.

Debby has also run a series of singing sessions as part of the "Stay and Play" initiative for children and their carers in local Children's Centres on behalf of "Sing Up". This included providing training for staff who work in the centres. She has also run sessions for groups of childminders and run several large singing events for parents and their children.

Debby was the lead teacher on the highly successful "Every Child a Singer" project which worked with 13 Early Years settings in South Gloucestershire over 15 months, to help develop children's language and communication skills. Since January 2010 Debby had been acting as project facilitator for the "Voice Play" project on behalf of BANES EY advisory team. This project is also connected with the "Every Child a Talker" DCSF strategy and is especially designed to build the confidence of Early Years staff in delivering musical activities that help develop children's communication and language skills.