Independent Society of Musicians

But to this day, she wondered what her life would look like if she continued playing.

You see, for her and her family, learning an instrument was a luxury, but unfortunately, her story 20-something years ago still echoes in classical music education today, with the number of students in England taking creative subjects at A-level at GCSE hitting a record low with fewer than 5,000 entries for A-level music, which is a 48% decrease since 2010 according to the Independent Society of Musicians.

But if you're hearing this and thinking, well, this might be because kids these days, they don't want to learn to play an instrument.

And isn't classical music dying anyway? Well, the answer is no and no.

So trying to find your place really and you might not know your place.

I was at a conference a couple of weeks ago and this new, I've just joined the board of directors of the Independent Society of Musicians and someone else who's joined the board as well was saying that she started out thinking she wanted to be a singer And now she absolutely loves teaching it.

So it is that thing of follow the path, let the path show you.

And just remember, we're all in service to music.

But I'm just going to quote here that the bleak trajectory of A-level music received a massive lifeline late last year when the UK government announced it would abolish the English Bachelorette, controversial for some, and reform the Progress 8 accountability measures.

This followed a 15-year campaign by organisations like the Independent Society of Musicians.

While it would take several years for this policy shift to filter up to sixth form level, removing the structural hierarchy of subjects will free schools to reinvest in Key Stage 3 and GCSE music, which is vital for rebuilding the A-level pipeline.

I guess my question to you is how hopeful are you that this is actually going to bring about radical change?

I'm a governor of the Royal Society of Musicians.

I'm also a board member of the Independent Society of Musicians.

And in answer to Mark's question, is there a joint up thinking.

Yes, there is joint up thinking because we published a report five weeks ago called Brave New World, which was in association with the Society of Authors and the Association of Photographers.

And it's a really important thing to think about.

I am a member of the Independent Society of Musicians, the ISM, and they conduct a teacher fees survey every single year, which I think is a really useful thing.

So you have this benchmark which gives you the average teaching fees for your region and Nicola Canton, the mastermind behind Vibrant Music Teaching, she also runs her own independent survey.

So they're They're really, really useful surveys to give everyone an idea of what the current ballpark figure is.

But I just wanted to remind you that this universal fear of losing students to a cheaper teacher, it's there, but...

It's something that we need to let go of and in doing so focus our attention more on the qualities and value that we provide as music teachers because that is what will see us through, that is what will attract our ideal students and that is what will help us build our music studios that we love to teach in.

As you might already know, I switched to full-time piano teaching in October 2019 and at that point I joined the Independent Society of Musicians and I was using their teacher fees survey to set my rate.

So at the time, it was £18 for a 30 minute lesson.