Children and young people to benefit from expansion of the music tuition offering in Moray
MEMBERS of Moray Council’s Corporate Committee have today (Tuesday 14 June) agreed to allocate £35,000 of funding to the expansion of the music tuition programme for the 2022/23 academic year.
Decisions relating to the expansion of the service, which currently delivers around 335 hours of tuition each week, will be made taking in to account the responses of a consultation undertaken with children and young people across Moray.
Local authorities received Scottish Government funding during 2021/22 for the one-year removal of instrumental music fees to see pre-pandemic levels of provision sustained at no cost to families. The funding did, however, not allow for any expansion to the service by increasing pupil numbers or by expanding the instruments offered.
Consultation with children, young people and their parents/carers was undertaken earlier in the year to determine the demand across a number of instruments in relation to the potential service expansion. Analysis of the consultation responses highlighted that the most popular areas for expansion were in guitar, piano, bagpipes, drumming and voice.
The funding will help the Music Instruction and Performance Team alleviate some of the pressures faced by the service, such as enabling children and young people currently on the music instruction waiting list to begin lessons; focus opportunities on new instruments for the team (piano, guitar, ukulele, bagpipes, drumming and voice); work with freelance partners to deliver project-based opportunities; develop wider collaborations with music making organisations across Moray; and purchase more equipment and materials to enable more learners to become involved in music making.
Co-Leader of Moray Council, Cllr Neil McLennan, said: “It’s extremely important that every young person in Moray has the opportunity to access music tuition without the limitations of cost and affordability.
“The consultation responses demonstrate that many of our young people are eager to learn how to play a musical instrument. We’ll be using their feedback to inform any decisions regarding the expansion of our instrument offering so more Moray children and young people can learn and experience first-hand the joy that music brings.”
At this stage the longer-term funding arrangements for music tuition are still unclear as this additional funding is only confirmed for the next academic year.