“If music be the food of love, play on”

William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

Well not if you go to school in Nottinghamshire. Shakespeare’s words seem to cut no ice with the Labour administration at Nottinghamshire County Council. I have been told by staff & parents that the County Council are planning to cut these much loved & long-running Saturday Workshops for Music, Dance & Drama (also known for many years as 11^th Session) from the end of March.

While there has been no final decision, this news will be heart-breaking for the many talented and enthusiastic young performers for who these Workshops have provided a first taste of working in large ensembles and given many a bug that has led to developing their talents further.

While attendance has dropped in recent years (predicable give that the Council has started charging parents for what was once free), cutting these Workshops will leave a big hole in the lives of many children for who these Saturday morning gave them an outlet for their talent that isn’t catered for in normal school life.   This is especially true for those from families without the resources, or who live in villages or smaller towns, to get their children into privately run performing groups which are often in larger towns & cities.

Even for those students who didn’t take music or drama further, the skills they will have learnt from being part of an ensemble (discipline, concentration, co-operation with others, the ability to multi-task) will have given them a boost in other areas of their education. The boost that learning to play music gives young people is well known (just watch this report on BBC Look North – https://www.facebook.com/BBCLookNorthYorkshire/videos/10153686480584626/) and the same is also true of drama & dance. Many who are not academic or sporty need the outlet the Performance Workshops have given them to be thrive in education and cutting them would be an act of vandalism by the County Council.

I should declare my personal interest in these Workshops. For over 10 years from the late-1990’s, on most Saturday mornings, I took at least one of my three children to these sessions, often all three. Not content to just taking them & picking them up 3 or 4 hours later, I also got involved in the Parents Group at the Workshop in Hartland (and later Portland) School, helping run the tuck shop we provided at breaks & also helping to arrange concerts in local churches & schools away from the home base. All three of my children got their first taste of playing in ensembles at these Workshops, and it gave them the bug they followed up through these groups, the County Performance Ensembles, other groups & orchestras, and on to study Music at University. One is now working as a Musician in Coventry, another is studying to teach Music and the other is involved in theatre (which came about through playing in the pit for musicals)

It wasn’t my children alone that got infected by performing & music through these Workshops. When my daughter first joined the National Scouts & Guides Symphony Orchestra, there were 6 other representatives from Nottinghamshire and the 11^th Session Workshops (out of an Orchestra of about 80 young Scouts & Guides). Many others who went to the Workshops have either gone into Music or the Arts as a profession or it has given them an interest in performing in amateur groups, large and small for the rest of their lives.

I will do all I can to make sure these Workshop are not cut, please write to you County Councillor (II will help you find out who that is) and show them that cutting them is a wrong decision.