Music performance in school - what's normal?

[GCSEmusichelp]

Just trying to sense check myself here.

I have two daughters at the same big comp. Older one is in Year 10, studying GCSE music and was of course at the school pre Covid. Younger one Year 8 so has now been there two years.

As I've posted before, music department has struggled with Covid, as have many, and younger one will have to take GCSE music as an add-on afterschool 'club' because not enough people picked it as a real GCSE class.

She learns a few instruments. Her main one is flute and she's passed Grade 7, preparing for 8. She doesn't learn this in school, but attends a Centre for Advanced Training on Saturdays, where she also learns a second (shortage instrument). However, she learns cello at school and takes grade 5 this week.

It's not that she's a massive show off, but she has barely been allowed to play any of her instruments in school in the two years she has been there. She was once allowed to send in a recording in lockdown for a music lesson, because they all were, and she did a recording with three other cellos at the same time, which was hidden on the school website and not publicised at all.

She plays in one ensemble in school which did an informal performance two weeks ago as part of a 'get together'.

This week was told she could play in a school lunchtime concert with her cello before her grade 5 exam. She was really excited, but when she arrived at the concert there was nobody there. There is another concert next week but she is told this 'isn't for her' because only grade 1s and 2s can play in it. Fair enough, but hers didn't happen!

She is desperate to play - and knows that because GCSE music is now a 'club' for her year there will barely be any performance from that either, unlike for other years where this takes place in school time classes.

Neither current music teacher has ever heard her play any instrument solo- not even the instrument she learns in school - because it is all keyboard work and she's not a pianist. The school graded her 'average' for music..which she found hard to take

Is it unreasonable for her to expect that at some point over the last two years a music teacher (or even her class tutor) might have heard her play one of her instruments in some capacity- especially given this is very much the subject most important to her?

Even if one of them had taken her aside for five minutes and heard her play it would have been such a huge deal to her.

I recognise they're busy and all children are important, but she is, for context, the child taking the two highest in-school music exams this term (it's a school that goes up to 18, and she's 12) and they make a huge fuss of their dancers, sportspeople, artists and those doing drama monologues, who get to perform.

She does get chances out of school, so perhaps they feel she has enough.

It's not that she even wants a public performance, she just wants a teacher to hear her play...just once, because some form of recognition from school that her hard work is important matters to her.

Am I expecting too much - I expect I am - Covid transition has been tough for her and she's so sad about the GCSE that it's hard not to take it personally? The school used to have lots of performance opportunities so I'm used to it being a given that they can do something.

Tell me to pull myself together!

OP I teach Music in a state school in a rural area. The school size is just over 1000 students (11-18).

In 2020-21 we didn't run any ensembles due to Covid. However, in September 21 we started up again. Because our kids come from a very wide area, we can't do things after school so they all have to happen at lunchtime. This year we have run:
Junior Choir (y7 & 8), Senior Choir (y9 - 13), Chamber Choir (y11 - 13)
Orchestra (grade 4+ for strings & brass, g6+ for upper woodwind)
Junior Orchestra - any grade
Jazz Band (y9 - 13)
Flute group
String group
Theory club
Cello group

There is one full-time and one 0.5 teacher. Strings and cellos are run by peris.

We held a concert in November with most ensembles performing and parents there. Our Carol Service was cancelled due to Covid but the Chamber Choir recorded a scaled down version. The Senior Choir sang Evensong in the nearest cathedral and later in the local church. We held another concert last week with most of the groups playing plus some solo items. I took the Junior Choir to sing in a local town's concert series and made up the programme with some solos from the choir members. 2 of the peris have put on short recitals with their pupils for those parents. Next week we are taking 50+ members of the Senior Choir on a short UK tour.

In terms of GCSE, we have 16 opting for September which is lower than normal but still fine. Our kids all perform to us in the first half term and then regularly after that. I have run several class orchestra sessions in my KS3 lessons so I have a good idea of what they can do. I also asked them to upload performances as part of our curriculum. So in my school your y8 DD would have played her flute or cello in lessons several times this year, could have joined the orchestra on either instrument, the flute group, string group and cello ensemble.

I think your DD's music teachers are either lazy or scared. As for the comments that Music is only taught properly in private schools, remarks like that really annoy me. Some of us are doing a decent job in spite of our subject being devalued by clueless Secretaries of State. Things have been hard in the last 2 years but there have been opportunities to look carefully at provision and make changes, which we have done.

I wish you taught at my dd’s school! Obviously Monday’s lunchtime concert is now cancelled because of the heat - so there goes her very last chance of even playing in that although she did say that it would have been embarrassing to play after all the grade ones and twos ‘like a show off’, so maybe it is for the best.

maybe next year…

That's so sad. My DD loves her music and if anything there's too many opportunities :) she's in so many clubs. The music side of it was one of its big selling points when we picked the school though

@GCSEmusichelp thanks!

I can give you more information if you PM me. Sometimes, rather than moaning about what a school doesn't offer, it can be helpful to name specific ones which can then be checked out. So instead of saying "our school is useless", you could say "school X is able to offer A and school Y can offer B. Why can't we do similarly?" Apart from the fact we are literally on our knees now, most music teachers are really happy to help one another out because we recognise that the government and some SLTs don't value us, but we come into our own when it comes to showcasing the school.

I hope this makes sense. In addition to all the stuff I mentioned above, I organised a surprise leaving concert for our Director of Music last night. It was great fun but exhausting. I am also playing tomorrow as a favour in a concert full of "audience-friendly light classics" i.e. rubbish music in a bloody tent.

I suspect it isn't just the music department. It's probably also her peers. I know at my dc's comp the music teacher worked really hard at trying to give the opportunities, but they had about 8-10 children in the orchestra, maybe 15-20 in the choir and she had to lean heavily on children who played instruments to get enough to be worth running a concert of any description.
They've rarely had enough students to run GCSE music since my children have been there.

It wasn't for want of the music department. They tried.

Sounds a bit rubbish. DD is Y7 and in an ensemble, orchestra and choir at her secondary (state) and goes to the music theory club. Since she started in September there have been multiple concerts in school and she's played at external events. She is absolutely loving being part of a big and busy music department, has found some lovely friends there and is very inspired by the older more advanced students. We chose the school because of its fantastic music department.

This sounds massively disappointing and I’m so sorry for your DD. I won’t compare to my DD’s private school as that’s apples and oranges but I’ve come on to suggest looking at a music conservatoire for a Saturday school as well as/instead of her existing training? And also residential music camps at Easter and over the summer. There are heaps of high quality ones around and all offer bursaries if cost is an issue.

Thanks @winkydink- she does do Saturday school - it's not technically a conservatoire, but it is a Centre for Advanced Training. She ADORES it and wouldn't move or audition elsewhere (and her teachers are absolutely amazing so we wouldn't want her to). She is there 9-5 on a Saturday drinking in everything she can - it is her favourite day of the week.

She does residentials, orchestras and choirs in her holidays, including National Youth Choir and NCO, and is off on tour with her wind band this week. So she does gets lots of opportunities elsewhere. I think she'll be able to do NYO Inspire this coming year too.

It's not really finances, more ideology, that keeps us within the state system (and also the fact that we have two children and I'm self employed so finances aren't guaranteed).

I suspect we'll just have to live with it, but it is a bit rubbish.

Ok so she’s doing heaps out of school (a couple of years ahead of my dd otherwise they would be crossing paths at a lot of these things incl NCO which is huge fun) - I don’t think you’re being unreasonable to expect more from school as other posters have outlined at their state schools. My dd gets so much out of school performance on top of NCO/conservatoire/local community wind band that I do think it’s a shame that’s missing. But I see you don’t want to move schools. Would you consider a switch at sixth form? I’m assuming you’d rule out a private school on ideological grounds also but maybe there’s a sixth form college that offers more?

I don't think you're unreasonable. DD3's school has music concerts each term and the staff encourage students to form bands and perform. They have a jazz orchestra, a traditional orchestra, an audition only chamber choir, a main choir that anyone can join, and a year 7 choir.

While your daughter's school music experience is very poor, I don't actually think for your DD this should matter.

My sons are both reasonably musical. DS1 has graduated this year from his conservatoire and DS2 is going to Oxford to read music with an organ scholarship in October.
Their state schools were supportive and did provide a large number of performance opportunities, BUT it was their external musical education that mattered.

I can understand your frustration with he school (it would have seriously pissed me off too). Bear in mind though that if your DD decides to continue with music it's all the external training, the Saturday school, & the groups she participates in that will enable her to move forward.
Good luck with your DD's music making. 👍

The sad thing is, @lougle and @ilovesushi , i could have written either of your posts at the point when DD1 was in Year 8 - the school had all of these things, and a touring swing band, a madrigal group and aural classes at lunchtime. I didn't pick a school with no music department - it was thriving!

But all of it has just ... gone, since covid, and the new music teacher doesn't seem keen to get it back.

There is a second music teacher too - he doesn't do any extra curricular and seems to mostly teach RE, so I'm completely baffled as to what he's bringing to the whole thing. The peri teachers are excellent, but demoralised. @Grumpyoldpersonwithcats (can I really call you that!) you make good points, thanks. I think we'll just have to live with it. She has a summer of music coming up anyhow, so I guess we ought to feel lucky that she has those opportunities.