Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Extra-curricular activities

Find advice on the best extra curricular activities in secondary schools and primary schools here.

Music service lessons

5 replies

1805 · 25/04/2020 00:44

Our County Music Service has not started offering video lessons yet. I know private schools are up and running with their lessons, as are many private teachers.
Are other County services offering zoom/skype/teams type of lessons yet? Or are we just behind here?

OP posts:
Comefromaway · 25/04/2020 01:15

The company that provides them at ds’s state school started offering them before Easter.

lanthanum · 25/04/2020 11:27

Our county music service got organised right at the end of last term, and my daughter's teacher offered lessons through the holiday.

I think the services are slower to organise than the individual private teachers because the private teachers tend to know and trust the parents, and so are prepared to get going without worrying about online learning policies and procedures. I was much amused that my daughter's brass teacher had been "trained", whereas my daughter taught her piano teacher (private) to use zoom!

Comefromaway · 25/04/2020 14:39

Our service required parents to be present at the start and end of the lesson (even though Ds is 16) and that wasn’t possible as Dh is himself teaching a full Zoom timetable at his college and I am working from home too.

deepflatflyer · 27/04/2020 19:18

Our local music service isn't offering anything. They haven't even been in touch to say so which I think is a shame - it would have been nice to have had a message and maybe some tips for practising in lockdown. I realise the admin person is probably furloughed and goodness knows what financial ruin they're facing but from the customer-service point of view, they'd be wise to keep parents on side (for donations / fundraising etc). As I hadn't heard, I suspected they weren't offering anything but I had a call from the finance dept today about refund for a tour that isn't happening so I took the chance to ask for confirmation of what I'd already guessed. I was pleased to hear, though, that the teachers are furloughed so at least they're getting some income through that.

Speaking to some of my music teacher friends, I gather that it raises lots of safeguarding issues etc, and probably hard to organise. Shame, though, as other music services have found ways.

I've managed to set up online lessons with teachers that we see privately (including a new one - weird way to start with a new teacher but first lesson today went really well) and that is working out ok. Not perfect, but it's keeping things going and giving the kids some direction. They're the only things on our calendar!

Have you asked the music service what their plans are? If they're not doing anything, are you allowed to contact that teachers directly?

horseymum · 28/04/2020 15:20

Think our music service just has the kids video their pieces and get written feedback. We have private lessons so have actually enjoyed an unbroken spell of lessons ( usually something gets in the way every so often.) over zoom. Works well, I just dot past the room with the door open every so often, as I would if the teacher was there.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page
Swipe left for the next trending thread