LA Music Service access

[Beetham]

Hi All,

I don't have any experience of local authority music services so this might be a silly question. Can your child only attend the music service in the LA in which you live? Our neighbouring LA has a much larger service which includes a SEND group, my DD has profound disabilities and loves music and it's extremely challenging finding meaningful activities that she both may like and are accessible to her. I'm hesitant to ask the LA as (please no judgement) I may resort to signing up with a relative's address if they only take children residing in the LA.

On the other hand if anyone has any good suggestions of ideas for music sessions for her that would be great. Would like a regular (weekly) thing, not the monthly/quarterly outreach sessions run by big orchestras and music venues as she needs the consistency to recognise where she is and what she's doing.

She is 4, communication is through body language/facial expressions only, she cannot walk but can crawl on the floor, can v occasionally make a choice between two objects, loves music, she can bang with her hand or a stick on a drum and keeps great timing. We live near Manchester.

I live close to the border of another LA and my kids attend classes in both LAs. Not been an issue but i haven't exactly pointed it out to them either. Good luck finding something!

That's great to hear, I may be over thinking it. On their website it does say:

'Membership to our music centres is FREE. Come along and play, everyone is welcome!'

So I'll fill in a registration form and hope for the best!

In Manchester most of the music services are part of Greater Manchester Music Hub and work together in lots of areas. My DD started with Tameside and when we moved across the boarder to Manchester she stayed with Tameside so I'm sure your DD will be fine :)

That's really helpful, thank you. We're in a Greater Manchester Borough so it all sounds good!