I was talking to somebody whose children go to music centre in a different county the other day, and she said their Music Centre was free, but they were thinking of introducing charges of ?20 a term. We pay ?47 a term, and I have been paying for eight years now. It hardly seems fair that other authorities haven't been charging at all.

How much do you think it is reasonable for an LEA to charge, and how much do you pay for Music Centre?

?50 for the whole year, which is very reasonable, it hasn't changed in the 6 years we've been involved with them.

By music centre do you mean county orchestra? (or similar)

?35 a term for fortnightly county orchestra including coach travel to get there. They have now cut the coach out, but price has stayed the same. Coach didn't always turn up.

?60 per year for once monthly orchestra (3 times a term on average)

For the weekly ensembles there is a charge of 22 pounds per term, or 60 pounds if you pay for the year upfront . This covers all your children and all the ensembles they go to, so 3 children doing 2 groups each would pay the same as one child doing one group. I don't think this is sustainable though, certainly last year they asked for a voluntary extra contribution if you had several children involved or even one child in lots of different groups. I don't know how many voluntary contributions they got though.

County orchestra is different, that only meets 3 times a year for a week each time, the charge for that is 199 pounds or 70 pounds per session. There is an extra charge for those that use the coach.

Current Berkshire Maestros fees are ?56 per term for ensembles lasting up to 1 hour and ?85 per term for anything over an hour. Many children are in one chamber group (?56) and one band/orchestra (?85) which comes to ?141 per term per child. There is a 25% discount for those who receive lessons through Maestros, but as the lesson fees are considerably higher than going privately (see below) the ?35 saving isn't as good as it sounds. Fees are paid termly in advance.

Individual lessons are charged at ?48 per hour (pro rata, so ?24 for a 30 min lesson); standard group 30 min lesson costs ?8.60. There are 30 lessons per year.

As far as I can make out, Berkshire fees are about the highest in the UK. Lucky us!

Edit: I feel these fees are too high, and I'm sure many parents are put off, particularly if they have 3 or 4 children. When my children started having lessons, the LEA subsidised them, and fees were much more reasonable; I'm not sure I would have ever started my children on lessons at the price they are now.

Our County orchestra was 3 hours every other Saturday in termtime. It varies so much from one area to another. If you pay more you possibly have lower council tax or more or less services elsewhere. you really can't compare from one authority to another.

I wonder if part (I stress part) of the reason for the high fees is that 'Berkshire' as covered by the music trust doesn't exist as an authority and the trust has to deal with the five unitary authorities, who may or may not buy into services? I don't defend the high fees and agree it must put parents off, or at least force them to limit number of ensembles, but what used to be provided was fantastic in terms of ensemble/chamber music opps, for which I will always be grateful - if a lot lot poorer (but then, I'm not sure so much is available now).

EDIT: or is it six unitaries?



Does level of subsidy affects level of fees? Fees for various activities in the 'Berkshire' unitaries used to vary according to how much each council stumped up - and for what. No idea if that is the case still. (I wish our council taxes were lower than average but sadly that is not the case)

I'd better explain what our Music Centre consists of, as they seem to differ considerably around the country. There are several music centres in our LEA, which is a large very rural county. Son started off in Junior Band, which is grade one to grade three, and there was also junior strings at the same level. Intermediate Band and Intermediate Strings were grades 3 to 5, then Senior Wind Orchestra and Senior Orchestra were grade 5 upwards. These were for three hours on a Saturday morning. He has now transferred to a different county music centre to play in a jazz band ( grade 7 upwards). All the music centres are slightly different, and I think there are five across the county.

The County wind orchestra/ orchestra is only held once a year, and is a residential course. This costs extra.

Ours is 59.50 a term for your first child for up to 2 ensembles, and 13 pounds extra for 3 or more. 2nd child is 50.00. 20 minute lessons are 124 pounds a term, 30 minute lessons 185..theory classes 33 pounds.
Eeek...!

We got no discount for second or third child.

Our 20 minute lessons are ?125 a term, but son has had ?63 discount for studying music from GCSE upwards. I think the lesson fees are expensive, but OK with the discount. The peri teacher teaches flute, sax and clarinet, but is a clarinet specialist. She used to teach him sax, but we moved him on to a sax specialist a long time ago.

Ours charges different rates according to what your child is doing - so the temptation is to let them do as much as possible.
For ?240 per ten week term (ouch!) DD has an hour's 1 to 1 tuition, 1 and half hours' ensemble (strings and orchestra), an hour's choir, 30 minutes aural training in a group of up to 8, 30 minutes theory ditto, and 30 minutes music technology.
There's a Music Services discount for children on free school meals but it's only ?45 pounds.
They also abolished the subsidised bus.

That's really good value.

Yes. So long as you do everything - Son becomes old enough to go next year but he only wants to do 1 thing - which is about ?80 a term - and really doesn't want to swap piano teachers either - which would have helped.

Other downside is, if they have to schedule a lesson during an ensemble time then you have to miss 30 minutes of it - and still pay the same. Last term Daughter ended up with no aural - which was a pity because she was struggling with it in the run up to Grade 5.

On the whole a very good resource but criminally under advertised.

I'm so envious of the aural training, TDM. I don't think son's had much aural training at all. Or if he has, it's not obvious from his results.

?24 for an hour lesson without any of the other stuff is not a bad rate.Having lessons outside school it would work out more expensive as you would probably be paying around that for more weeks in the year.

It would be nice though to have lessons more weeks of the year. Daughter went 10 weeks without lessons over the summer which really isn't great.
Not complaining, however. Music Centre is Daughter's absolute favourite thing in life.

If I had to pay full price for the music service lessons, they'd be more expensive than any of the private lessons my son has.

Yes that was why I thought it was such good value ?24 for an hour's lesson is about right, and then all the rest free. Most of us pay anonther ?12 for 30 minutes theory, or aural if they aren't covered in the music lessons and then pay for orchestra on top. It sounds like almost as much as D1 gets from JC and that is four times the cost.

How do people from 'poorer' families manage? When I was at school my 20 minute lesson with the local peri was free. There was a free music centre on Saturday mornings but that was in the next town so I couldn't go to it. The (free) youth orchestra (post grade 5) and wind band were also in the next town (where I went to school) and were on Friday evening so I could go straight from school and a free coach was provided so that I could get home. Unfortunately, they didn't supply a coach for concerts so, at times, I was unable to play in the concerts...

W

As my mother would say - never mind the quality, feel the width.
The Music Centre doesn't acheive spectacular results, doesn't take children under 8 and very seldom gets them to Grade 8 before they leave at 18, but it is a lovely place with a brilliant atmospere and I wish I had discovered its existence long ago (Daughter joined the strings ensemble in January - and her involvement grew once I realised how comparatively inexpensive it was)

As I said - barely advertised at all.

Children from 'poorer' families (suspect that I'm about as poor as you're going to find round here) either do without music or do without something else.
When my husband left I qualified for a music voucher for my daughter which was worth about ?45 a term. She was having 15 minute lessons in school at that time and I had to pay a ?15 a term top up. We also got a reduced rate on instrument hire (?15 a term rather than ?30). It actually came as a shock when my son started school and I went back to work 'normal' hours and suddenly I had to pay the going rate for everything. If you think music lessons are expensive - they're nothing to the price of school dinners!
Once you get a child started and doing well there are all kinds of bursaries that you can apply for but they have to have reached a certain standard before they're eligible. It's a horrible feeling putting a child in for an exam and telling them 'just do your best, angels can't do better' when you know that if they get a distinction they qualify for a grant for a new instrument and if they get a merit they have to stick with the county issue chip board and chicken wire job.
Sadly there just isn't much money around these days and everyone has to make hard choices from the government on down.
Just read that back and realised it almost sounded sympathetic towards our glorious coalition - totally unintentional, I promise. Let's go round to Cameron's house and demand the return of our subsidised bus ... with menaces.

I remember having free violin lessons on a violin provided by my school. I know someone (who lives in a different LEA who is a single mum on benefits with four children, who has had free lessons, music centre and music trips for her daughter. I wish there could be a way to target people like this in our LEA.

In my primary school in the 1970s we had a school orchestra, a recorder group and a school choir. In my son's school they had an ocarina group

This is so true. There's so often a complete disassociation of 'We pay far too much council tax' from what it actually goes towards, be it bin collections or Saturday music schools. Coming from someone who developed a love of music in part thanks to the opportunities available from a really good music service, and having seen pupils who have access to little or nothing that can motivate or inspire them in this way, be grateful for what you've got!

Lets be honest here, excepting very very rare situations, children from poor families don't "do" music.

At my school the (music service provided) instrumental lessons were free if you had free school meals. The trouble was, none of the very few who took it up had instruments. Or any parental support. Or remembered to turn up, because it was "free", there was no harm in missing the lesson, after all. Not one "free school meals" child carried on for more than one term.

I know about one of those rare situations. Teen in one of the bands son goes to has a single mother on benefits. They have very little money - teenager is in about five different bands and orchestras and gets them all free from the music service. The teenager has free lessons and gets tours paid for. The teen has behaviour problems, but loves playing music and practising. It begs the question, what would the teenager be doing if not for music - mum says she finds the behaviour quite hard to cope with. Mum is very supportive, as she wants to keep her child off the streets. They live on an estate in a very deprived area.

Hmm...an awful lot of my pupils have free school meals. An awful lot of these have gone on to take graded exams (all ABRSM so far), and have done very well. Some have gone on to scrimp and save, gone on eBay (or contacted Hanson), and have got themselves instruments. It can be done...

Being a "free school meals" child (I have been one and parented two) is a horrible and humiliating experience. My children had a F marked by their name in every register, on every dinner lady's list, on every school report and letter home about trips. At my school in the 80s we went one better and had to eat different food at different tables. It is enough to sap anyone's confidence and will to achieve.

It did not, however, stop my daughter from learning and enjoying an instrument or me from being an involved and supportive parent. As I said before, if it weren't the for music voucher scheme my children would probably not be playing instruments now. Daughter would certainly have had to give up during those months when money was so tight and I doubt she would have had the courage and confidence to start up again.

I am sorry, Misti, that your school was not better able to encourage youngsters from disadvantaged backgrounds to take up music. Certainly at my children's schools there are no more or fewer non practisers or disinterested parents among families that pay full fees than those who get the reduced rate.

I know several families with children that got free lessons under the endangered instrument program. Financial backgrounds were varied as it wasn't realated to income. I think on the whole lessons were well attended and people didn't respect them less because they were free. I guess at the end of the day it depends how serious the child is about music and whther they want to learn or not.

At my son's primary school, a lot of pupils on FSM learnt musical instruments. This was subsidised by the local music service and by the school. The school was fully supportive of children playing instruments and created lots of opportunities for all of them to participate. I don't remember there being a difference in applying themselves dependent on FSM or not. Just as many FSM children took exams and played in ensembles and at music concerts as non-FSM children.

The willingness and enthusiasm to learn an instrument is about more than income - it has to be supported not just at family level but also at school level. It is contingent on a whole load of other factors - like space at home to practice, having time to practice, not feeling tired and hungry etc etc. And let's face it, we probably all know plenty of more affluent parents who let their child flit from one thing to another - don't like violin - try bassoon, trumpet, harp, swimming, outwards bound activities etc etc. It's easier to make a different choice if you can afford it.

We ourselves benefited - and still benefit from lots of financial help for Violinson's music endeavours - from free lessons, to loans of better instruments than we could ever buy/hire and a vision of different pathways he could take. His enthusiasm was kindled and supported at school. We, non-musical and most definitely working class parents, were supported by the school to support him and for that I will be forever grateful. If you have no experience of anyone learning an instrument, you can have no idea of what is expected, what type of standard is possible for children - or even what the point can be in playing something like the violin if you have never heard an orchestra. Violinson is now at a JD and appreciates the opportunity he has. And I have learnt what a beautiful instrument a violin is!

Thanks for posting this, violinmum. Although it makes me sad that poor children in my area don't get these opportunities, it's good to hear that it's still happening elsewhere, and that children are benefitting from it.

To give a rough idea, in our county, the music service (peripatetic lessons in schools and the county orchestras, etc) are all free.... but the service costs the council about ?600k per year - and that's for a relatively small county with 8 or 9 comprehensive schools. A few years ago a review was done, but councillors voted to keep the service free at point of delivery.

So it is down to your local councillors!

The trouble is, at a time when SureStart centres are closing and spending on the elderly is being cut, how can we expect our councillors to reintroduce free music lessons? As you say, it is quite a costly option.

We are lobbying in Gibraltar to get some sort of provision into the schools as there is nothing here. No traditional instrumental teaching, just whole class ocarinas and some apple mac driven stuff, and these not in all schools.

We don't have a music service, but at the moment we don't have enough instrumentalists for an orchestra or similar. A few of us are trying to change that - but it is a very slow process!!

We are also trying to start a cadet band to bring players through for the military band....

I think you are all very lucky, albeit some of them sound a bit expensive!!

I'm inclined to think that there are many more opportunities, generally, if you don't live in a rural area. The population density means there is the demand to make much better provisions.

Its nice that people are able to come up with a few positive stories to counter it, but I'm afraid I'm not going to change my opinion that music lessons are predominantly the preserve of the comfortably well-off. I'm a little suprised at how defensive people seem to be over an issue I thought was hardly in doubt. After all, the main reason that Wider Opps was even proposed was to try and reduce this discrepancy in opportunities. I'm guessing (hoping?!) that central goverment had access to better statistics than we can hazard from our own experiences.

I haven't attempted to deny that instrumental lessons remain. for the most part, the preserve of the comfortably off. What I said was that, in my experience, this is not the result of disinterested children or parents.

Usually I 'get defensive' if people accuse me of 'getting defensive' but in this case - yes, I am defensive. The more musicians echo Misti's attitude the less likely Councils are to fund music for less than privileged children and the less welcome those children will feel in music schools and orchestras.

Thank you to everyone who has come up with those 'positive stories' - maybe not enough to change Misti's opinion but a welcome balance to her negative experiences.

I've worked for Sure Start - and a brace of other dreadfully underfunded charities - in recent years and I do realise how difficult it is to justify spending too much on music but, in my personal experience, when my family was at it's lowest ebb, it was the County Music Service which made all the difference to my daughter.

Health and education are two of the things that a decent society provides. But it's interesting what we assume is core to education and what we don't. A world without music is a much poorer one. Every society has music, it's part of what makes us human. Would it be better if the money spent on the music which is keeping the young man above off the streets was spent on teaching him more traditional core subjects?

it might interest people to know that Nick Gibb MP (Minister of State for Education) answered a Parliamentary Question on music funding on Monday with the following:

"We will shortly publish a National Plan for Music Education, which will reform the delivery and funding of music education. It will ensure that all pupils have the opportunity to learn an instrument, learn to sing, have opportunities to play in ensembles and have access to musical progression routes regardless of where they live and their family circumstances. The needs of the pupil will be at the heart of the plan. Through it, the Government will signal their commitment to ensuring that all pupils have access to high quality music education."

I suspect this is going to be mainly aimed at year 3/4 children in group lessons. A complete waste of money IMO! My generation was so lucky to be given an opportunity to learn an instrument on entry to secondary school, with free lessons.

Berkshire Mum - dont moan it costs so much! - Be thankful you've got it!!!! We lived in Berkshire until 9 years ago - and now my poor 7 year old bassonist has absolutely no opportunity to play in an ensemble with any other children until he is 12...
If your children are talented though, what about seeing if Berkshire do any schemes? When we were there, they gave my 6 year old an award so she could go to all the ensembles for a fixed price. Saying that, I did have to push for it - and she had already got her grade 4 and could play the grade 6 pieces...

My children are grown now. I agree that it's good that the ensembles do exist, though unfortunately they are so pricey that in our corner of Berkshire some have had to be dropped or run for shorter times for lack of paying students. I don't like the fact that it is very difficult here for talented children from poor families to do well, and hope the government's new plan will address this.

I have had experience of those in the the know getting awards etc because they pushed, while people like me who were clueless lost out. I've also had experience of finally learning to push and getting what was needed for my son, albeit two years too late and at vast expense. I am just sorry for those who don't have parents musical enough to ensure they have grade 4 by age 6, and who don';t realise how important it can be to be pushy!

Jacky sums up the sterngths of Berkshire and similarly opportunity-prolific authorities, and and Berkshire Mum the downside. On other threads, MNW has commented on how her bassoon-playing son has (had) few ensemble activities. In Berkshire he would have been hard-pressed to avoid them! Mixed and all-bassoon groups. But yes, they come at a price. I don't know the answer, but I do know I was very creative with the family accounts to allow our kids to do as much and sometimes rather more than we could really afford - other things went by the board. I remain grateful for the opps we had, and don't regret years of scrimping, but that doesn't mean it was easy - and others did not have the choice to scrimp because their resources were more scant.