Guitar lessons in high school

[AlexTurnersmicropone]

I have a 15 year old son who desperately wants guitar lessons, he's teaching himself currently, I made enquiries with his high school and was surprised to find it was going to cost £80+ a term, is this standard practise to charge for music lessons in school?

It is in the state system in the UK. From what I can see the cost of the (often externally sourced) teacher is simply passed on. You might want to check out the type of lessons are what he really wants, there is a world of difference between classical, electric and folk. School lessons have a slight advantage in that probably gets you performance opportunities at the school. Best of luck to him!

Is it one to one or a group lesson? If one to one it is cheap!!!! Only £8 a lesson. This price is way less than private lessons. Yes, it is standard practice to charge because, probably, a specialist teacher will be coming in and they have to be paid. I would be pleased the school has sourced a teacher and is helping your son achieve his aims. I think £80 a term is good value for this and I cannot see why you would be surprised. Support him and book the lessons.

Yes. my DS has been having guitar lessons in school.

He has a shared lesson (although recently the other boy hasn't bee attending, so he has private lessons in effect).

I pay £64 per term. I think it is about 20 minutes or so per lesson.

Also, part of the deal is that he HAS to join a musical group in school.

There are a few he could choose from but he chose the Guitar Group. This entails 30 minutes during lunchtime once a week playing with the group and practicing for performances.

it is worth paying out that amount - a little bit of formal training and practicing with others will certainly increase his learning.

Just to say - some local authorities have schemes which provide free or very, very cheap music lessons if the parents are on benefits. My Dsis is on benefits, and is able to get free music tuition for her DS.

£80 per term is VERY cheap, its usually about £20 per lesson!

We pay £132 per term for 10 individual lessons of 20 minutes each per term.

OK thanks for that feedback, I had no idea if this was usual or not, and yes I will book up because I'd rather he learned properly than get into bad habits from teaching himself.

We pay £210 for 10 lessons. £80 is very cheap so it is prob a group lesson which is fine to start with.

£80 is indeed very cheap! We had to pay about £180 for this term for half hour lessons. Having said that ds is in Y8 and if he does it music for GCSE his school will meet half the cost during his gcse years.

My son took lessons and they cost £50 per term, but he had a lesson with another student. If we wanted one to one, it would have been £100.

Wow!
We are very lucky. DS's comp charge £50 per term for a 30 min private lesson, grade exams included. And they are expected to join one of the music clubs or bands in addition - which are free.

Thats a bargain - I would grab it. Schools need to get in external teachers.

Hampshire Music service charge £70 per term for a group lesson of up to 4
BUT
if you do an unusual instrument it happens to be one to one

Yes, of course you have to pay for music lessons in school! (If you didn't my DC would be learning about 5 instruments each!)

We pay about £75 per term.

School group lessons are much cheaper than individual lessons.

When I was in primary all music lessons were free.

If they weren't my DM wouldn't have been able to afford to pay for me to learn the 'cello.

I think we pay about £140 for a term of half hour private lessons - so this sounds good value to me.

That is a very good price - we are charged £280 a term for weekly half hour lessons!