Russians I'm pleased your DC's are having a fantastic peri experience. Your children are lucky to be in a school that is highly funded for peri tuition (whether by parents or school).
What I and Webwiz are saying (and I say this as having been Head of Music in my school for 17 years before moving up) is that in SOME schools the SYSTEM makes it harder for pupils to achieve in that they have to:
a) negotiate getting out of lessons. In some schools this can be a challenge with staff. In mine in the early days we had to have a directive from the Head in a staff meeting insisting that pupils were to be allowed out as some staff would stop them leaving. Pupils still get pressure from staff but nobody actually prevents them, but they occasionally get a hard time. This is common in state schools;
b) share a lesson. If you have an oversubscribed peri system with a waiting list in some instruments, you have to manage time. Here, we've managed to work it so that pupils either have a 20min individual lesson or half hr shared. In some instruments with fewer learners they are able to have a half hr lesson on their own, but this is changing next year owing to cutbacks in funding from County.
I'd be interested to know Russians how much you get charged for your DCs lessons. From Sept we'll be charging £120 a year. That helps to cover the £10,000 EXTRA tuition we buy in from the County on top of the £20,000 they provide us free. If we didn't buy in the extra, a third of our tuition would go. If we charge any more the parents would vote with their feet and stop lessons (you see, I teach in an economically deprived area). Are you aware/surprised that it costs £30k per year to fund lessons for just ONE school for approx 100 pupils? Nearly all schools in my area pass this cost onto parents. They understand that, if their child wants lessons, they have to pay a nominal amount towards the cost and their child may have to share.
Our string/wind/guitar teachers are in 8.30am until 4.15pm. They can't physically teach any more pupils in the time allowed. They are in other schools on other days. If kids all had individual half hr lessons we'd need them in for another half day each at least. This would cost another £250 per week, (or another £8,250 per 33 guaranteed peri teaching weeks a year). Our school and our parents can't afford that.
Our Music Peri Service has won national awards for quality. I haven't stated anywhere that the quality of PERI TUITION is less than private, just the EXPERIENCE.
My son has private violin lessons in the evening with my school's violin peri. He has an individual half hr lesson with an excellent teacher for which we pay the full whack. He wouldn't get the same experience in school owing to FUNDING, TIMING and LESSON SHARING.
Is it absolutely crystal clear now that we're not knocking peri staff teaching?