to be annoyed with the school and these teachers

[brassband]

DS1 who is in Y11 secondary school learns 2 instruments.The lessons are timetabled at a different time each week so they are not always missing the same school lesson.The kids have to ask the teacher at the start of the lesson or before, if they can be excused for their instrumental lesson.the troubleis there are 1 or 2 of teh teachers who say no and others that give the kids a hard time about it.
Yesterday DS and his friend asked the RE teacher (he is not doing RE as a GCSE subject but still legally has to have one period a week of RE) if they could be excused and the teacher said no.DS's friend asked the teacher why and he said 'I don't habve to explain myself to you and gave the boy a lunchtime detention
DS and his friend were 10 minutes late for the lesson .I am furious about this as we have to pay £6 for each lesson and it is rude to the visiting music teacher too.

AIBU to think if teh school have a policy of allowing instrumental lessons (and they make a big thing of their musical tradition an dwin lots of competitions)they should let the children go with good grace.

YANBU. If arranging the lessons this way is school policy, then the children should be excused for them. Can your DS raise it with his tutor or the head of music?

YANBU. They cannot schedule instrumental lessons for during the school day and then give teachers permission to refuse to release pupils from a lesson. However I don't agree with music lessons during the school day either, unless it is during break or lunch time. IMO, if a child wants to do something above and beyond, they should give up their own time to do it.

I am torn, yanbu, but neither is the teacher. They have to teach children certain things and absenteeism (for whatever reason) means children are missing part of the curriculum. The school should make better arrangements for music lessons, at lunchtime or after school.

however, if your child misses a lesson through the fault of the school, you shouldn't have to pay.

The trouble is, they wouldn't be able to schedule all the lessons over a lunchtime (the teacher is usually in school for a set number of full days a week, and in other schools on the other days) and instrumental teachers often do other things (eg. running a county band) after school. Having the lessons move so that the children don't always miss the same lesson is the only logical way to do it, and is how music lessons were organised at my school 20 years ago. The subject teachers must know this if its school policy, and are just being difficult .

I agree that if this is the way it is done in the school, the teacher shouldn't be allowed to refuse permission - the child should go to the music lesson and the teacher should be informed, by the school - not the child, that that is where the student it. End of.

However, I don't think it should be done the way it is - extra activities should be done afterschool or during the weekend or in place of RE lessons - which should be optional anyway.

Write to the Head and ask for a refund. That might get the staff singing from the same hymn sheet!

If the school offers lessons ALL staff should allow pupils to leave curriculum lessons to attend music lessons.

What thehat said. Oh, and complain to the HT about the detention. That teacher is taking the piss.

i would be really pissed off! my ds2 also learns two instruments, cost me £140 a term! and they are also during the school day, this is how the SCHOOL have arranged it and they actively ENCOURAGE the children to learn an instrument :)

if this happened to my son i would be demanding a refund and an apology, it is a waste of the music teachers time as well, very off imo!

YANBU.
Especially since it was RE that he would be missing, don't get me started on that issue.m

The teacher that refused your ds permission to leave his class obviously has far too high a sense of self importance, and no respect whatsoever for your child, or the visiting music teacher. I would be livid, and would complain mercilesly.

However I can understand why it annoys the techers to have their lessons disrupted by students leaving the class to learn something else. That's not your problem though, or your child's, and he should be complaining to the head if he has a problem with it, not taking it out on children.

I do have to confess though, that I managed to get my parents to pay for me to have speech and drama lessons for years even though I wasn't really interested. It was a great excuse to get out of French though

Is it something to do with "legally has to have one period a week of RE"?