Cost of school piano lessons

[crappytimes]

My daughter will be joining yr7 in September and she's going to continue with her piano tuition. I'm trying to decide whether it's worth carrying on with 15 minute weekly lessons taught at school or just going with a local private tutor. Cost is £10.75 pw for 15 mins. So about £42 per hour. I like the fact it's through the local council music service which was under threat a few yrs ago and hopefully in non covid times there will be more opportunities to perform. But 15 mins isn't v long and I just want to explore other options and opinions. Thanks!

Ds2 is on grade 3 and has a 30 minute lesson.

Ds1 is in year 7 and has an hour for grade 5. I'm not looking forward to the higher ones!!!

I would try to increase her lessons to 30 minutes a week. She's at an age where she could progress much faster if her lessons were longer. The pieces are getting longer, there are more scales to get through, there simply isn't enough time to do everything in a 15 min lesson. Not to mention, having them at school means 3-4 minutes of those 15 are spent looking for the student (ok, maybe not in secondary), setting up, doing the handover to the next one, etc.

The rate seems okay for London, I charge £45 an hour and only teach 60 min blocks (advanced grades), but I wouldn't go lower than £26 for 30 min. So that fee seems reasonable. Would they be able to offer 30 min for £21? Otherwise I'm sure you can find either a private teacher or a local council music school that offers longer lessons for a similar price.

When The do music lessons at secondary school they become responsible to know to leave a lesson and attend the music lesson. DS1 managed this well but DS2 didn't as he had anxiety quite badly in the move to secondary school. We found that lessons outside of school worked better as he didn't have to worry about putting his hand up and asking to leave class for music.
Just something to consider besides only 15 min and if they are late they miss that time.

@CMeredithC

I would try to increase her lessons to 30 minutes a week. She's at an age where she could progress much faster if her lessons were longer. The pieces are getting longer, there are more scales to get through, there simply isn't enough time to do everything in a 15 min lesson. Not to mention, having them at school means 3-4 minutes of those 15 are spent looking for the student (ok, maybe not in secondary), setting up, doing the handover to the next one, etc.

The rate seems okay for London, I charge £45 an hour and only teach 60 min blocks (advanced grades), but I wouldn't go lower than £26 for 30 min. So that fee seems reasonable. Would they be able to offer 30 min for £21? Otherwise I'm sure you can find either a private teacher or a local council music school that offers longer lessons for a similar price.

The longer pieces of grade 3 is another good point I'd not thought of. Hard to imagine cramming them into a 15 min slot!

Agreed with everyone else. We have private piano tuition and I pay for an hour which is split 40 mins for DD (Grade 4) and 20 mins for DS (nearly Grade 1). This works really well for us at the moment.

30 mins is really the minimum unless they're teeny and learning the absolute basics.

I tried school lessons, but switched quite fast to a private teacher outside school where I could supervise more for the first year. Made a huge difference.

It works out at around £45 an hour in central London. DD about to start G3 and I'm hoping to move her to a 60 minute lesson at this point.

15 minutes is a crazy length of time for a lesson!

I personally don’t even think that 1/2 an hour is worth it either but I know that some kids can’t stick it out for longer than that.

45mins is the perfect duration.

As for price, I guess it depends where you are but £30-35p/h private rate seems to be the going rate around here.

Assuming a 39 week term (and no missed lessons due to sickness/class trips etc) then it works out at £44 an hour.