Through our Tuition Agency, we provide peripatetic music services in Lancashire and the North West. We are available for piano, keyboard, drum, percussion, guitar, flute, recorder and sax tuition in schools.
Our goal: To provide quality instrumental tuition throughout the North West with highly experienced and well-trained music teachers, all of whom are young, enthusiastic and inspiring.
Please see other pages to read more about the business itself and the Tuition Agency.
The philosophy of our music service is to fit in with your school to offer the best peripatetic music lessons with minimal disruption to everyday school work.
Private Instrumental Tuition in school [Top]
We offer a range of one-to-one peripatetic instrumental lessons including piano, keyboard, flute, sax, recorder, guitar, percussion and drum lessons. All are taught by experienced, well-qualified and inspiring teachers, many of whom gig regularly on either the pop/rock scene or in orchestral music.
Our teachers are a breath of fresh air; lots of students come to us following unsuccessful lessons with overly-traditional county music service teachers.
One-to-one tuition can be provided daytime or after school. They do not necessarily need a dedicated 'practise room', but can take place in the canteen, hall, or vacant classrooms. Exams are available with all major exam board. Some will even visit your school to examine the pupils.
We have specialist tutors, with their one-to-one lessons begin at £8.
Group Instrumental Tuition in school [Top]
We offer group lessons on the following premise: students don't share instruments during the lessons and we only allow one student per ten minute duration of the lesson. Large groups of short length are not the correct environment for instrumental tuition.
Group lessons are available with our specialist piano, keyboard, woodwind, percussion and guitar teachers. We can't offer group drum lessons, because of the space and transport needed for several drum kits! We do offer group percussion lessons and an introductory group lesson for drums to gauge interest in private lessons.
All peripatetic instrumental group lessons start from just £4 per student per lesson.
We encourage teachers to join these groups. It helps the children (who like to laugh at Mrs Jones when she can't do what they find so very simple!) and also it's a great to enhance teachers' CVs.
Whole-class lessons [Top]
Our whole-class cover certain skills on the music syllabus, such as our "reading music" lesson, which introduces the notes of the stave and how to play them on the piano, without writing letters on the keys.
Other lessons include timbre, rhythm, melody etc, through to composition and song writing classes, combining listening with practical activity. We can structure a lesson for almost any topic.
Pricing explained [Top]
We have several teachers on our books, based all over the region. Since we're able to operate across the entire North West, rather than being limited to one town by travel costs, our fees stay lower than most private music services, without affecting the quality lessons or the teachers' enthusiasm.
Pricing for instrumental lessons is for the teacher's time. Essentially, we usually charge in the region of £24 per hour, so a 30 minute one-to-one lesson would cost £12, and a forty minute lesson for a group of three would be £6 each.
We are able to be flexible with our timings and pricing, so let us know if you have something different in mind. The above pricing is based on us invoicing the school or music department for a lump sum covering all lessons. We can invoice each student directly for an additional admin fee of £1 per family per week.
FAQ [Top]
CAN YOU PROVIDE INSTRUMENTS?
Yes! We are able to provide almost all of the instruments on which the lessons will take place. These include electric pianos and keyboards, guitars and drum kits. All electrical equipment is PAT tested, and you will receive a copy of the certificate.
WHO WILL TEACH THE LESSONS?
Lessons through the Tuition Agency are taught by self-employed teachers to whom we contract work. There is a rigorous interview process, which also includes observing work. All teachers are suitably qualified in performing on the instruments to be taught, usually with music degrees, and many also have specific teaching diplomas. They are also advised on public liability insurance and suchlike.
DO STUDENTS TAKE EXAMS?
It's up to the students. Exams are available with all exam boards, but our most popular is the more modern (and therefore, we feel, more relevant to today's young musicians) LCM, which offers Ofqual / NQF accreditation, meaning certain marks at certain grades are actually GSCEs/A-levels with UCAS points! The more traditional ABRSM, and other boards, can also be used.
ARE TEACHERS CRB CHECKED?
All teachers are asked to provide valid CRB disclosures before being offered work. You will receive a copy of these at your request, or we're happy to wait while you carry out your own CRB checks.
WHAT AGES DO YOU TEACH?
To a large extent, we leave this up to the music co-ordinator at the school. Experience has shown it's usually better to start from around 7 or 8. It's possible to start the lessons from 4, but it tends to be those children who excel with language and maths skills that do better at this age. We're happy to persevere with younger students as long as parents understand progress is usually slower.
CAN PARENTS / STAFF HAVE LESSONS?
Absolutely! Learning an instrument is not only great fun, but for teachers it can also be great for the CV. Many of the teachers who study with us comment that they start to remember what it was like to learn as a child and therefore to understand their students' frustrations and difficulties in taking in new information.
WHAT HAPPENS IF THE TEACHER IS ILL?
We hear a lot of gripes about teachers not showing up for lessons provided by other music services. We won't take on a contract if we can't provide a second teacher as cover in the event of the regular teacher's absence. It's then up to the school / parent / pupil to choose to have the lesson with a different teacher, or miss a week in exchange for a credit or refund.