How much do ballet and music lessons cost?

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Am moving to the UK soonish and am trying to work out a budget -

My DD is 16 and has been doing ballet since she was little. What can I expect to pay for lessons?

And same for DS, who will be in junior school and wants to carry on his music lessons - in school if possible - are they hugely expensive?

A lot depends on where you are in the country. I pay £12 for 20 minutes for dd and £18 for half an hour for ds to learn music. I have no idea about dance lessons.

I think it depends greatly where you are going to be living. We live on the centre of the south coast and round here ballet lessons seem to be about £6-£6.50 an hour although I must admit I am not sure what they would be at 16, probably more as usually classes are smaller, my daughters are younger. Ours are £6.50 an hour, lots near us are £6. We pay the same for tap and modern but there are other schools near us that do a reduction if you do more than 1 style/class.

Music lessons I don' t know. We do group ones during the school lunchtime which are about £4 a week but it is only 20 mins and is really more of a fill in hobby than anything else at the moment. Music will be a lot more than ballet but having said that there will no doubt be more then 1 ballet lesson a week (4hrs a week of dancing here already and they are still under 10!)

Dd pays on average 220 for ten music lessons. Ballet and tap are 120 gbp for 1hr and a half lesson for the term

Ah yes, forgot that detail - Gloucestershire area.

Ballet we pay around £6 per group lesson , either 30 or 45 mins, with discount for a second class. Private lessons are about £25 for 30 mins. Music lessons currently around £25 for 40 mins.

You may find some differences.

In the US 90 minute ballet classes are common for older/more advanced students whereas in the UK it's usually 45-60 minutes which would cost between £5-8 depending on the area.

I don't know about Gloucester, but in terms of music you should be paying about £30 an hour.
Dancing will be the same as anywhere else really.

You may not find much of a difference tbh.

In the north east the going rate for dance lessons seems to be £6 per hour. We seem to pay that, pro rata for shorter/longer lessons.

Private music lessons £12 - £25 for 30 mins depending on instrument and whether you visit them or they come to you.

In school it is usually quite expensive and they are lucky if they get more than 10-15 minutes a week.

You pay termly for dance lessons round here - anywhere between £75 - £120 a term depending on class length and the reputation of dance teacher & school. Some let you pay a fixed termly fee for taking as many classes as you like each week, which can work out cheaper if you are taking a lot of classes.

Depends where you are. My dd used to dance and the lessons were just under £2 for 45 minutes.

We are up north. We pay £14.00 per half hour for DCs lessons outside school. In school (secondary) its £8.00 for 25 minute individual lesson. Lessons are subdidised by school but you must play in a school ensemble.

£2 for 45mins? WOW. am presuming you aren't on the south coast dancingdinosaur

We pay £40 per school term for half hour dance classes in Gloucestershire, discount for subsequent classes if you do more than 1 lesson a week.

Music lessons- DD is at Primary and it's £5.50 for a 20 minute private lesson. That's the price through the county so you should be able to work something out from that.

You do have to sign up to a certain amount of lessons per week to get that price nonick But agreed its very good value!

Huge variation
Music lessons taken at independent school £21 per half hour lesson- private lesson
Local music service £25 per half hour plus membership fee to service - private lesson
Direct with independent music teacher £35 per hour -private lesson

Tap dancing £84 for 10 1 hour lessons - group of 5.

If your dd is 16, then she is likely to be at a level where the dance classes would be an hour and a half or thereabouts, plus an additional class (if she is doing pointe) for that. At her age, many would be taking ballet several classes a week.

Both will really depend on exactly where you are and what type of dance and academic schools your DCs will be attending.

In state primaries / juniors, music provision is very patchy. The county music service has been effectively disbanded in terms of peripatetic teaching (though they do have an excellent instrument hire service and county-wide groups / music centres) and so you are at the mercy of what an individual school has decided to do, in terms of what instruments they offer, and the cost. Out of school teaching, though more expensive in general, is usually more effective and more reliable.

Dance - it depends a lot on level, in terms of grade and in terms of 'seriousness'. DD (just 13, just done Inter Foundation), for example, has 2x 1 hour ballet lessons at 1 level, and 1x 1 and a quarter hour lessons at the grade above, a 45 minute pointe lesson and a 30 minute 1:1 lesson a week, plus troupe lessons and other genres of dance, body conditioning, singing et al. That lot is quite expensive - we pay a flat fee per week which takes in everything. But at the lower grades there are girls who might come along to the dance school just for an hour or two a week. A less serious dance school might have more of the latter type of dancer, and very few like DD, and that would be cheaper.

Such variation!

Shame about the peripatetic music teaching, as i'd hoped DS could have lessons during school time. We don't know which school he'll be at yet as we don't have an address so can't investigate further.

DD would be happy with a couple of lessons a week including pointe work but probably no more than that, and the budget is limited...

Thanks everyone

A lot of counties have had their budgets severely cut for their music service in schools and as others have said, it is very patchy and you don't get a lot for your money.

I think some of the schools still offer lessons in school time, but you contract directly with the teacher rather than through a music service. But it means they don't have prices on their website.

Just as a "worst case" Cheltenham Ladies College says they charge £269 per term for 30 minute music lessons.

For dance you could search for RAD or ISTD registered dance school and contact them/ see if they have prices listed. I'm happy to pass on details of where DD dances- they were very good at getting back to us when we were looking.

My daughter is 13. She is currently doing her Intermediate RAD ballet exam. She dances in the south west, and does a LOT. we pay £298 4 times a year for her dance, which is a special scheme at her dance school so that she can access as many classes as she wants. She does 4/5 ballet classes a week, tap, modern, jazz, Classical Greek, song and performance, street, body conditioning, contemporary, Scottish... Anything else she can possibly do.

Private lessons at our dance school are £14 for half an hour. She also does groups at festivals and group dances tend to be between £20 and £50 per group which includes all rehearsals, most costumes and entry fees for the seasons festivals.

My daughter is taking ballet and music classes in London. We pay 120 pounds for 10 classes for ballet and she gets to learn the Royal Academy of Dance syllabus. She's very happy about the class and we are delighted to see her enjoy this!
Just to make an idea: www.3houseclub.com/buyclasses/tapandballet

We pay £35ish per week for group classes, then £5 each for a half hour turn private and solo private, then £15 per half hour for ballet private and singing private. Group classes are split between ballet, tap, modern, acro, lyrical, etc... we're in the midlands x

We're in the South East, DD has 2 hours of ballet per week (grade 7 / intermediate with pointe work). We pay around £200 each term.

Also learns an instrument with a private teacher, £19 for half an hour each week.

In our town, there's a music school that sends music teachers into primaries and secondaries so that kids can have music lessons during the school day. These actually work it to be more expensive than our private lessons, and the downside is that kids would miss up to 40 minutes of a school lesson to go to their music lesson. The upside is that the music lesson slots change each week, so the kids are not missing the same school lesson all the time, and it all gets done within the school day which would work better for some kids. Horses for courses. Maybe the are similar schemes in Gloucestershire?

Hey I know this is a bit late on the thread, but have you looked at www.encyclokidia.com? It allows you to price ballet/music lessons near you. So you can compare multiple classes.