Music charity teams up with primary school to offer lessons for pupils

The Oswestry based charity was launched after concern that many children in state schools are not getting the chance to experience learning a musical instrument or singing lessons.

Trustee, Sue Turner, along with a group of peripatetic musicians gave a presentation on the opportunity of learning to play various musical instruments as well as singing to children at Holy Trinity CofE Primary School.

She said there had been a huge amount of interest in the chance to take up music lessons.

The Headmaster, Robert Kenyon learned about the opportunity offered by MusicMOB to provide free instrumental and vocal lessons to children in local State Primary Schools and contacted the charity on behalf of his pupils.

Sue said: "Music MOB says it would like to remove the potential financial barrier from a child’s choice to learn an instrument or have singing lessons and is offering its services free to Schools and free to children. There is currently funding to provide its services for 24 local children. If you would like your child to benefit from this opportunity please ask their School to consider becoming a Partner and invite MusicMOB to provide its services."

Any individual or business who would like to support the work of the charity can find more information on its website, musicmob.co.uk which also has links to a JustGiving page.

" It will cost around £260 per year for each child to learn an instrument which includes the lessons, instrument hire and all other equipment so ongoing support will be vital for the musical future of these children," Sue said.

The charity was the brainchild of business owner, Mike Coppock, who is on the Committee for the Oswestry Youth Music Festival. He could not help noticing that the proportion of entries in the festival from children in local State Schools was diminishing year on year.

"There is much research which points to the fact that whilst sport and music share many benefits such as teamwork, discipline, focus, and fun and music will also improve your child's thinking, language and reasoning skills," he said,

"In years gone by, visiting musicians - peripatetic teachers - were a common sight in schools, offering lessons on a variety of instruments. Many of us will have had a first experience of learning an instrument and then playing it alongside other people in a band or orchestra in the school environment. Along with choirs in school, they are a disappearing opportunity."

The Constitutional aim of Music MOB is to support free instrumental and vocal lessons for children whose families may not have the means to provide them. Although the lessons take place in school, there will be no cost to schools or families for either the teaching or the instruments.

"Crucially, we know that OFSTED is now looking more widely for evidence of Arts provision in schools, so we hope that our initiative will be of interest to schools and parents in this area."