Don't Stop The Music schools say: "Thank you for our instruments!"

Heartfelt emails, tweets, Facebook messages and photos have started flooding in from the schools participating in the Don't Stop The Music amnesty, as they receive the instruments donated to them by the public.

"It was like Christmas when the boxes arrived and we were opening them up to see the treasures inside," emailed one school. "The drum kit is already up and going to have its first performance during the Christmas production next week."

In total, 150 primary schools participated in the amnesty, each one demonstrating a real passion for teaching music to their pupils – as well as the teachers and resources to do so.

We’ve gathered together just some of their thank you messages below. If you donated an instrument or helped spread the word, give yourself a serious pat on the back right now!

Thank you messages from our schools

"We are all absolutely delighted with these instruments.We have started the process of deciding which child will have a chance of borrowing one of them. We have a few children in our school that we want to work with in ‘building their learning power’ to include resilience, attitude to learning, self esteem etc … I am using some of my pupil premium money to fund lessons and we almost have someone lined up to lead a school orchestra!! We’ve never had this before and can only do it thanks to ‘Don’t Stop the Music’"

"All our Y5 children and (hopefully Y6s if we can timetable it in) will be having wider opps [Wider Opportunities] violin lessons next term ...and for the first time ever we can follow this up in school the following term - and beyond - as we will still have the instruments here."

"Received our instruments the other day and all I can say is WOW! Thank you so much! The resources in the pack look really good too so we will be using those. I will be offering new places to learn the instruments on Thursday in assembly so they will be in use from next week."

"We're looking forward to our drum teacher putting the kit together on Tuesday – only last week he was sticking our old bass drum back together with sticky tape."

"We are SO excited!! The instruments arrived last week and they are just fantastic. It will make such a difference to us as we try to build up our fledgling brass band. Our junior beginners are going to play some carols at our Christmas Fair – their first public appearance."

"We are very keen now to have some extra tuition for the children to use them and pupils who already have tuition can maybe move up to the next one e.g. from ukelele to guitar! l would like to say a great big thank you to all of you at Don’t Stop the Music."

"Before your donation, we had about 35 instruments that are used by all pupils. According to our tracking, they were signed out and taken home over 14,000 times last academic year. With these new instruments, the numbers will only increase. We believe that learning an instrument should not be a privilege for those who can afford it. Your support will truly help us to evolve the program and to foster the musical talent that is all around us."

Instrument Amnesty

Don't Stop The Music schools say:
Pupils of St Joseph's Primary with their donated isntruments

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