The Borough Music School began in 1995 when the founder, the late Anne Worsley, started to give recorder lessons to a small group of children at the Borough Community Centre who would otherwise have no opportunity of learning an instrument. As demand for tuition grew, another tutor joined Anne, teaching guitar. The lessons proved so popular that over the next couple of years, both tutors and pupils increased and a new site was found to accommodate them.
The music school now employs thirteen tutors and currently has a role of eighty children. The school’s vision has always remained the same: to provide heavily subsidised music lessons to children living in a deprived area. Lessons take place at Snowsfields Primary School on Saturday mornings, and Cathedral CE School on Monday afternoons. We offer weekly, 20 minute individual lessons, in a range of instruments: keyboard, guitar, violin, flute, clarinet, saxophone, with group lessons in recorder and singing or percussion.
Most children learn two instruments, with some learning three. All children have the opportunity to partake in ensembles and sing. Special events are sometimes run during half term holidays and one day workshops enable children to form musical groups with others within the school, as well as extra training in aural. We offer introductory group lessons for theory and musicianship. Pupils can be entered for ABRSM exams; we currently have pupils studying between grades 1-5. Borough Music School is a UK Registered Charity No. 1081779 working in and around Borough, Southwark, London.
