I wonder whether any parents would be willing to share what they pay for their children's lessons in school? I thinking specifically about peri lessons rather than private teachers teaching in a school. I'm interested to know how much is paid, for how long a session and whether it's shared or not.

Thanks in advance!

Daughters school charges ?22 for a 30 min private lesson. My daughter no longer has lessons in school, the same teacher now teaches her privately. This arrangement means that we are now both far better off (he wasn't paid that rate!), 30 mins wasn't long enough, especially when some teachers were difficult about allowing daughter out of lessons for a violin lesson! so lesson time now varies between 1-1.5 hours - everyone happy!

I don't have any children but my friends daughter is being charged ?14 for 30 mins.

But on average around here its about 20-30 per hour.

hope this helps

Wow, those prices surprise me. I pay ?30/hr for a private 1 hr lesson with a specialist oboe teacher in London. I would have thought 30 min peri lessons would be considerably cheaper than that!

I'm not quite sure what distinction you're trying to draw here. However, we pay ?15 for a half hour lesson at school. We pay the teacher directly. I regard her as "peripatetic" as she is not on the school staff.

The distinction I'm making is between peri teachers who are provided by the music service, and private teachers who teach in the school on a self-employed basis (presumably what you're referring to here).

Our school music teachers are employed full time by the schools, nothing to do with the music service. (Or part time for some instruments)

I was paying ?18 for 40 mins for my son about three years ago, but he no longer has lessons in school.
The girls' school charges about ?450 for the year and guarantee at least 30 lessons of 30 mins each.

As far as I know peri lessons here are ?14 per half hour.

Wow! Looks like these days it's cheaper to have lessons outside school. Apart form not having to come out of class for lessons it could also have among the advantages better parental contact with the teacher and more lessons in a year.

I am staggered by some of these prices!

?65/term for a 20 minute shared lesson (usually 2 or 3 pupils), with reductions for endangered instruments (cello was free for a couple of years and is now half price). I don't know if they charge more if someone ends up being in a class on their own.

The going rate for private lessons locally is ?30/hour; some pro-rata for 1/2 hour, some not.

Well it definitely works that way for us, it's a great arrangement, and we are lucky that daughter's teacher is very flexible with lesson times / lengths etc. She has lessons every week, including all through the holidays (daughter's choice - she loves her lessons!) and more if/when she needs them. There is time to cover everything, whereas school lessons were so rushed. And we are both better off - bonus!

Which ones are staggering you? The ?22 per 30 mins is the only one that seems to be above the going rate for private teachers, and it's standard practice in a lot of schools for the school to take an admin fee. This means that the teacher doesn't have to chase the money or do any of the admin, and has no overheads, and the parents don't have to take their children to an after school lesson (presumably saving time and petrol).

I've worked in schools as part of a music service, as employed by the school and as self employed, as well as teaching at home. Every system is slightly different. If you're self employed within a school, you usually have to pay a room rental fee. In some schools this is a very nominal amount (in a very few they bill you but don't expect you to pay it), and in others it's considerably higher - so teachers will need to raise their fee accordingly. Some schools will do more than others to help you collect fees from parents. Some schools will subsidise lessons for less well off families. And so it goes on.

But the ?14 - ?15 per half hour is the same as the private teachers, surely?

I accept it is in some places, but it certainly isn't round here. I think the surprising thing for me is that my experience has almost been exclusively that school peri lessons have been cheaper than private lessons - recent encounters have suggested otherwise, hence my question here - I wonder whether this divide has closed somewhat, and in some cases, private lessons are now cheaper? From a business point of view, this is definitely something worth keeping an eye on, and in some ways, it leaves one in an interesting position.

I'd say it was top end around here.

Round here private and school peri lessons are roughly the same. The music service makes peri lessons look cheaper because the basic price is for a twenty minute shared lesson and you can only have 30 minutes or a single lesson if the teacher can fit you in (and you pay proportionately more). But I reckon the peri lessons are actually more expensive because the twenty minutes is the absolute maximum, whereas our private teachers have always been very generous with their time. The music service guarantees 'at least' 30 lessons a year, but it's always exactly 30 and that's not really enough.

Just looked on the Berkshire Maestros site and the cost of individual lessons is now ?47.20 per hour. Of course, there are group options which are cheaper. Here in Berkshire it's for a long time been cheaper to have private lessons than to use the music service, but then again Maestros do employ very good teachers who will travel to Newbury, so unless you know someone in the town who teaches your instrument well, you tend to stick with Maestros.

DS has Viola lessons in school organised by our Music Trust (Richmond on Thames). He started with group (4 kids) lessons 30 mins for ?8.50, which his teacher swapped to 15 minutes individual as he was 'above' the group (without telling the trust!). Last October I managed to persuade the Trust to allow him 30 minute lessons and we pay ?17.20 for each. His teacher has also done some private lessons for us which he charges ?32 per hour.

I'd be happy to swap to only private lessons but his teacher is a professional musician as well as teaching and sometimes finds it hard to fit it into his schedule! Teacher and DS have a very good relationship, so we're happy to stick with him wherever he teaches

My friend's DD recently swapped to private as she didn't like the trust's flute teacher, she's paying similar price private as at school.

Where I live, the music service's lessons cost way more than private teachers.... in or out of school, and you can't have individual lessons etc. I charge the same in school as I do at home.

The independent schools charge a lot of lessons. I think I pay ?275 (twice) for 10 x 45 min individual lessons for DD flute and piano lessons.

One prep school I teach in charges ?20 for 30 mins individual and we get ?26 per hour! So I presume the rest is for the 'admin' the school does!

Our music service is heavily subsidised, so lessons are very cheap for pupils learning at school. They were in fact free when I was taught by them - but by 6th form I was paying about ?15 per term for an individual lesson.

I think it's around ?60 a term now...so way way below what private teachers charge.

When you've had to pass through the room where keyboards are being taught in school and witnessed not only the children but the teacher using the one finger method of playing you wonder whether ANY price is too expensive........
The keyboards are only 4 octave and less than full size keys too.

Not sure off the top of my head what it works out as per lesson, but for individual 20 min lessons (31 per year, so basically 10 per term) our LA charges ?123.50 per term. Group lessons are about half that.

I currently pay three teachers - 1 comes to the house (30 minutes - 10 pounds), 2 is a private teacher who gives lessons in school (20 minutes - 6 pounds), is a Music Services peri who comes into the school (30 minutes - 12 pounds - and charges the same if she is ever available for lessons in holiday time - in which case she comes to the house). Very low waged parents (I was one for a while) get a discount of about 4 pounds a lesson from the peri.

They all deserve to be paid far more - but don't tell them I said that .

My sister, who lives nearer to London, pays 14 pounds per 30 minutes to a private piano teacher (they travel to her) because it is cheaper than her daughter having lessons at her (independent) school - but I don't know by how much.

I have just looked at the fees for school and we pay ?22.15 for half an hour and he does three instruments at school. I am not happy and this may well give me the excuse I needed to take all lessons outwith school.

That's shocking!

That was pretty much my reaction too when I stopped to think about what they were actually charging! Private lessons now and so much better. Hope you manage to sort too!

I have just realised that we may need to stick with them for two reasons:

1) His pre-test in November so I don't want to annoy the school in any way.

2)If he gets a music scholarship in January for the final two years in the prep school the music tuition is free. The minimum music award is free tuition and I would be very surprised if he didn't get at least that.

Re the first point: The musical staff may already read these threads and have already blacklisted me!

I'm not a parent but I pay my own lessons and for lessons from August - Christmas Break I pay ?72 these are 30 minute lessons once a week during term time

We don't do school lessons anymore but the last ones we did (private school) were ?30 ph. The current (state) school ones I believe are ?28ph.

Claudia does lessons outside school and we pay ?25 and ?38 per hour - and ?30 per hour if we need an accompanist. We used to pay ?45 per hour to one teacher (worth every penny!)

Beds county council have scrapped the subsidised lessons so I have just found out that next term a 20 min lesson is ?21 . Most private lessons cost ?15 per half an hour. It's an absolute disgrace!

I have complained to school, the council and filled in a survey to have a good moan. Apparently a solution is being worked on from September so we will have to pay the high fees for this term.

Just what I need now I am officially redundant!

All this is a far cry from when I learned an instrument in a state school (primary and secondary level) as a child. ALL peri tuition was free, to any student who attended and practised and joined the school ensemble / orchestra as well as the local county ensemble/orchestra. So I enjoyed 7 years of free , weekly violin lessons of 45 minutes duration - firstly as part of a small group at the early grades, but later I benefited from one-to-one tuition from Grade 5 onwards.
However, we now have, here in Wales, creeping charges, and the cuts are biting the provision of peri instrumental tuition. The Beeb has revealed that most Local Authorities here are slashing their music budgets, by over ?100,000 in some cases. So the charges are set to rise dramatically, or the school music service may be cut in some areas altogether. Had this been the case when I was a pupil, my family could not have afforded to provide me with any instrumental music tuition, and I would not have a career in music now. How many are going to miss out now on this opportunity, as a result of the rise in tuition fees in schools?

Sad indeed.