Posh musicians

[mdavza]

Is there any music teacher out there who teaches at a state school? I do, and I agree with this article in the Sunday Times www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/Arts/article469980.ece. There is no way that your child will be able to study music, let alone make proper progress with what's on offer in terms of Music at state secondary schools. I am now teaching in Scotland and we have kids who graduate with a pass in Advanced Higher in Music who cannot even read music - they learnt their pieces by rote. So if you're serious about your kid's music education, better pay up for a private teacher.
I also taught in England, first in a school in Slough, and then in a grammar school in Aylesbury, and what they taught was very different. So in the end I suppose it comes down to the area you live in, As usual.

I don't teach music in schools and can't get behind the paywall to read the article, but certainly agree with what you say. The homogeneity of students at the conservatoires and of those with careers as classical musicians (with a few exceptions) is quite startling.

I can't find the article mdavza, but agree with your sentiment. We had to pay for private lessons for our DD, although we are not a high income family and had to go without a lot of things to pay for them. We felt it was worth it because from a young age it was clear that was where her interest lay.

The A level teaching she had was woefully inadequate (poor equipment, poor facilities for recording her recital, we had to fork out for software, the listening CD's and books, things were not set up properly for the exam - printers etc.) not saying this is the case in all schools, and I'm not blaming the teachers, - they did their best with limited reources.

She managed despite this to do well (because as I say we forked out, and in fact were copying stuff we'd paid for to give to other children in her class who couldn't afford it)

Anyway, she's at University doing a music degree now, so worth the expenditure, but it was hard.