Musical Education Should be Free for Every Child

Over the past few years, particularly in primary schools, there has been a lot of talk within the government about what kind of lessons would benefit the pupils the most. Things like maths, English and science are mentioned heavily in such debates, but things such as music never are. With music being one of the most rewarding subjects in the world, then it leaves you wondering why this is the case.

One of the things that is amazing about music is the fact that it allows the listener to escape to wherever they would like to be at that moment in time. This is fantastic for children because they need a way to get away from any stresses that they may come across in their every day lives, and music allows them to do this safety. Not only this, but it develops a lot of creative skills in the child which would be useful in many other subjects across the curriculum. If a child learns the piano particularly, it can help with the multi tasking abiity as you need to use two hands at the same time, which is excellent for things like learning to drive when the child becomes a little bit older. 

Some children in the UK already receive a one hour lesson of music each week for free, and parents of those children say that their music lessons are one of the best things that their child is able to do. However, this is usually down to the schools to choose whether they do this rather than government policy. Ideally, each school should have a member of staff who would be qualified to teach several different instruments, and they should be in school all day giving music lessons to small groups at any one time. If there is a bigger school then they might need more than one teacher, but it would be more than worth it in the long term.

With regards to being able to pay for the teachers who they choose to employ, the schools could organise a concert every half term to which parents would be invited. Tickets could be sold, as could refreshments in the interval, and this would certainly go some way to making sure that the teachers could be paid for. They could do other duties in the school too, for exam lunchtime supervision or exam invigilation, and this means that their position would almost pay for itself. Although the school would have to pay an amount of money at the beginning of the scheme in order to get the instruments, I am sure that this would be worth it in the long term.

Music is one of the most influential things in our lives when we think about it. Everything that we do is characterized by a song, and every moment has music alongside. How wonderful would it be if your child was not only able to listen to music, but if there were also able to BE the music?