The Music and Dance Scheme
The Department for Children, Schools and Families Music and Dance scheme currently enables over 1,600 exceptionally talented children to have access to the best specialist music and dance training available alongside a good academic education. Around half of those children hold Aided Places in the participating residential schools and half are attending Centres for Advanced Training (CATs) and benefiting from the national grants scheme so that they can gain access locally to high quality, out of school hours training. The Music and Dance Scheme also supports choir schools in their work and provides a limited number of scholarships for talented young Choristers attending them.
The Centre for Young Musicians is one of 20 of the Department's CATs: organisations or consortia of organisations/partners that include existing Saturday provision at junior departments of music conservatoires and new weekend schools, after school hours and holiday courses for young musicians and dancers. They provide children with local access to the best available teaching and facilities alongside strong links with the music and dance profession, ensuring that children who are talented and committed dancers and musicians have appropriate, tailormade, specialist provision even if they do not choose to attend specialist boarding schools. For further details about the scheme, go to: www.dcsf.gov.uk/mds
