BBC Young Musican donates fees to save cello teaching at his school
mainThe cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, BBC Young Musician of the Year, has given £3,000 to his former school to ensure the cello is taught there for the next three years.
Sheku saved the money from his concert fees after hearing that the music department was under threat of closure at Trinity Catholic School in Aspley, Notts.
His mother said: ‘Sheku was heartbroken when he heard that cello teaching was to be taken away at Trinity School.’
Full story here.
The assistant head teacher said: “The school was having to review its music and the teaching of music was under threat as a result.”
I hope the publicity around this story will force the school to re-consider its priorities. All schools are of course having serious cuts to their funding, and there is too much pressure to emphasise traditionally “academic” subjects. But this school, with its superstar former pupil, could be a beacon for other schools to follow, if it decided that it would instead give music a high profile.
A wonderful and practical gesture!
But £3000 will pay for a cello teacher for three years? That sounds inexpensive. What am I missing?
If the school’s just a general secondary level school, they wouldn’t have a full-time cello teacher, they’d almost certainly just have a peripatetic tutor who’d probably only be there for one hour once a week, for, what, 35 to 40 weeks a year. One hour a week for 40 weeks across three years comes to 120 hours, so £3000 would equate to £25 an hour. Sounds like a reasonably average going rate for school level music tuition…