Is the school being unreasonable for only letting the dcs who have music lessons through the school perform at school events?

[Carrotsandcelery]

I am not sure if I am unreasonable or not.

Each year our school selects 4 students to receive free music lessons for a year and then heavily subsidised lessons thereafter.

Those who already play that instrument are not considered for this extra education.

The extra lessons are not related to income in any way whatsoever.

These pupils then play at every school event and church gathering for the rest of their school careers.

Many other pupils within the school also receive music lessons, at great expense to those families, yet their dcs are never invited to play with the others at school.

I can't help thinking it would be lovely to get all the pupils who play the violin or guitar or recorder together to learn the same tune and play together at school events, regardless of whether the lessons are through the school or not.

I can see that there would be some logistical issues but it is a small school and not that hard to organise. There are musical parents in the village who would happily oversee each year group I am sure.

Am I being unreasonable or would it be fairer and bring the school together a bit more?

YANBU - seems the school isn't really thinking this through properly. Where's the funding from? Legacy or LEA? What's stopping them having a school orchestra open to all?

Yes I suspect it is the logistics of them all practising together. It is a small school though - all they would have to do is invite the pupils who play to the rehearsals when the peri teacher is there. They could come or not come as they chose. It would seem less exclusive.

It's not a whole of Scotland thing. The local Primary invites every child that plays an instrument to play in the band.

It sounds amazing, usually...

Unfortunately OP, 'rehearsal time' is actually the lesson time, certainly it is at my school.

The teachers only pop in and out of school and are often at 2 or 3 schools in one day.

I envisaged the dcs gathering for a wee while after school under the supervision of a musical parent and rehearsing together. If the parent was adept enough then the official tutor wouldn't need to be there.

The problem is I can't offer to do this myself as I don't play an instrument. I do do a lot of other things for the school though so I am not just sitting back waiting for someone else to do it all.

My point is that if the school wanted to they could do it very easily as they have loads of willing parent helpers with a huge variety of skills.