Seriously?!?

[NearlySpring]

Dd (6) REALLY would love to learn to play a musical instrument, quite a few children in her year at school have the lessons (we see them coming in with their cellos and violins).

Today I enquired about booking them for her. They are £17 per child for 30 mins lesson once a week This is for 3 children sharing the lesson. PLUS £80 per term to hire a child sized violin or cello.

I am a single parent and I work full time. I have a decent job and decent salary and we are comfortable, but this seems like such a large amount of money to pay out each term in addition to the clubs she already does.

So I was thinking today... I wonder how all the others afford it, I know for a fact that two of the kids who have the lessons have parents who don't work. I looked on the school website to find out that if you don't work you get FREE music lessons.

AIBU in feeling that music lessons are a luxury and shouldn't be free for people on benefits?

Maybe I AIBU and just a little green eyed that I work so hard and cannot afford something that I could get for free if I didn't work. Not benefit claimant bashing here, it's a hard time and many people are being made redundant, I totally understand lots of people on benefits right now just can't find work (I was in same position not all that long ago)....

But seriously, free music lessons?!?

Why do some people assume that the unemployed always choose not to work and to live off benefits?

People lose jobs/can't get jobs you know.

In my case I've been the wrong end of a (large) group of people attending the village school where they did choose to do exactly that, and my kids really suffered in all sorts of ways as a consequence (as did theirs, of course). You never saw this lot helping at school events or PTA meetings either. They basically expected everyone else to look after them. We got fed up and buggered off up the road to another school which has more community minded parents. It's not about circumstance, it's about work ethic, and a few fiddle lessons ain't going to transform the children's fortunes in any useful way, tbh.

BTW I've been unemployed myself now and then, so I do appreciate your point.

'so your children deserve music lessons because you've got a job more that the children of unemployed people?'

So do children of unemployed people deserve music lessons more than children of people who work and still can't make ends meet?

Cos there are plenty of those.

It's not black and white. There are plenty of working parents who only just manage to scrape through every month so there isn't any spare for extras like music lessons. Why shouldn't they get help as well?

'It makes me sad that so many people believe that children whose parents are on benefits don't deserve to persue music. What if they are a musical genius? And music is the way they will pull themselves and their family out of poverty?'

What if the child of a working but still can't afford music lessons parent is a musical genius? Why shouldn't they get an opportunity?

That was me, brass. Four children in my class were allowed free violin lessons, I was off sick that day and missed the opportunity. My parents did not have the money to pay for them instead. So I didn't learn an instrument until I was 11 and it probably made the different between me being a concert pianist and a piano teacher as I lost four years of practice at a crucial time. The kids that did get the free lessons gave up pretty soon thereafter so they were largely ineffectual. This is why rationing stinks, and why schools should do more collective music, and to a higher standard as well, and why lessons should be allocated to the children who practice the most keenly.

That sounds fairer doesn't it? I agree music isn't well provided for in schools.

Yes, music should be for all, not the 'selected' few, however they're selected.

So everybody who works can afford music lessons for their kids. I think not. Free music lessons for kids whose parents are unemployed is unfair. Music lessons are a luxury not a necessity.

If there is such very limited provision then it should go to the most impoverished (in wider sense) children, then the next poorest and so on. Still don't understand why anyone would object to this.

Because unless children practise the lessons are completely wasted and achieve nothing. If you choose children on the basis of enthusiasm then they do better and combined with good quality whole school music education the average level of attainment goes up, which is more inclusive. We have to get away from unproven, ill considered, quasi socialist policies that do little but act as a sop for the social conscience of middle class liberals. They haven't achieved anything and we should look instead to policies that do work.

Am I really turning into a socialist? Yikes. Or quasi yikes.

OP what you are saying if you think that children from poorer backgrounds shouldn't get subsidised music lessons is that kids whose parents are rich should have more opportunities than those with poor parents - which I think is wrong. Why should a child be denied the opportunity to learn an instrument because, for example, one of their parents has a disability and the other is a carer?
If you rely on benefits you simply wouldn't be able to afford these lessons. Whereas you are saying the price seems a bit steep what with all the other extra curricular stuff your child does.
If their are parents who work who really couldn't afford these lessons (not just didn't want to prioritise them in their budget) then that needs addressing because I assume the funding is there so that all children can have the same opportunities.

We are not well off by any stretch of the imagination but if I thought it was important enough to cut back in other areas we could afford it. I think most working people could afford it and still keep a roof over their heads/eat etc. And if they couldn't then, of course, they should also be entitled to assistance.
I got the distinct impression that the OP could afford it but didn't see why she should have to go without other things when others can get it for free.
It IS a dressed-up benefits bashing thread imo.

And I would also investigate music lessons that aren't attached to the school as the price does seem ridiculous.

Just find someone local. YOu will get individual lessons. This country is swamped at the moment with briliant gradutes of all types who cannot even get jobs in bars. Some will be music students plenty of whom would give even an hour's lesson for £10 and as they would be teaching a beginner they would be very much good enough. In other words people need to think laterally and make things happen. At times I've taught some of the children myself ( two of them did an exam yesterday they had only learned from me for).

As for the free lessons - this is big issue generally for the country that the unemploeyd can be better off than very hard working poor. No government has ever solved that problem. If we had all benefits claimants having to work 7 hours a day (some looking after the children of others) simply in return for their universal benefit that woudl be a start or a univeral payment to everyone over 18 of £200 a week regardless of income or work we might simply and make the system better.

i agree that if the child doesn't practise the state should not be subsidising the lessons. So you could have the unemployed parent logging on to clcok in 5 times a week by computer or phone (or at their library if they dont' have one) to confirm they sat with the child and supervised the practice perhaps and things like that which would make the recipients realise the largesse being conferred upon them by the hard working tax payers many of whom cannot afford music lessons for their own chidlren.

Music lessons are a nice thing to have but not a necessity.

Children should be treated the same so if free music lessons are provided for some, everyone should have access. Same for school trips,clubs, laptops etc either make everyone pay or free for everyone. Children of parents who work are growing up seeing that those children whose parents dont work get lots of luxuries and what life lesson is that to learn?

Everyone gets CB and most get CTC so you can choose what is important to your children without extra subsidies for things that are not necessities.

OP It seems to me at that cost that those who work are probably paying for those hat don't. It cant cost £50 an hour to pay the person teaching... Probably more like £17... so is it that the child who's paying, is paying for the others two as well?

I dont know how I feel about it. I think all children should have the same opportnities. I think that having a better system of working out whi was deserving of other benefits and who wasn't would be better than stopping children from learning to play instruments just because their parents dont work.

2 ways to combat this 1) Ask your school if it operates awde opportunity program. This is where a whole class are taught for a year with free access to instruments and tuition.2) If your child shows promise then look for outside individual tuition. I used to work for a music service who were charging these kind of exorbitant rates yet paid their tutors 22 pound an hour. I got out when I saw that they wer spending more on admin than paying their tutors. I don't know of anyone who would charge this much for an individual lesson at the beginner stage let alone a group lesson.

sorry that should have read wider opportunity programme

Sorry I seem to haved missed the bit where you mentionned that your Dcs were already doing other out o aschool activities, It changes a bit my previous answer as I thought you could not afford any even though you were working. It seems you can already afford quite a bit more leisure than people on benefit can so YAa bit unreasonable to ask for more still.

soangry, the only reason my family is solidly middle class and able to pay out for children's music lessons/drama classes/language exchanges is that some paternalistic Victorian did sponsor my grandfather to better himself. It's paid off as far as the country is concerned; they're getting a fair bit of tax money out of his descendants .

fwiw I am not sure that music is such a luxury; as a university teacher I can't help noticing that my best students are the ones who are involved in music in some way: I reckon it's a transferable skill. I believe that is why it was so heavily subsidised (still is) in social democrat Sweden. If they'd only cared about giving luxuries to the lower classes they could have subsidised chocolates instead; music was chosen because it was thought to be educational.

What do you need lessons for? you have internet get the kid a keyboard or something and get her to watch and read lessons online for nothing.

I am on income support, I left my alcoholic, abusive husband and have three children (one of whome is not at school yet). My DD gets free school meals, my DS wont eat school dinners so he has packed lunches, and she also has free karate lessons.

My attitude is this, when I was married for ten years I worked for my husband and we were in the higher tax bracket. I have worked since I was 16 and have payed tax all my life. When I received a letter saying my DD could choose an activity for for free I contacted the school and took them up on that because she was doing karate anyway but not paying for the class helps me a lot.

When I asked why there was funding for this (a luxury as opposed to a necessity), I was informed it is to do with inclusion, encouraging children who might otherwise never have the chance to learn an additional skill to have that opportunity.