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26.11.20 – Darrell Priestley
As we leave the one month circuit breaker lockdown, like many other regions West Yorkshire emerges with continued high levels of Coronavirus restrictions. On our best reading of the available information, including that available from gov.uk, we conclude that we will be able to resume in person lessons at nma from Wednesday 2nd December. This will come as welcome news to the many students preparing for various accredited grade exams, or working towards GCSE or A levels requirements.
In line with government guidelines, formal lessons will resume from Wednesday 2nd December. However, all teachers will continue to operate online lessons alongside in person teaching, and anyone who prefers to take lessons remotely at this time can and should continue to do so. We imagine that an online lesson option will remain in place for anyone that wants it for the foreseeable future, and there is currently no plan to end this.
We know that many of you find in person lessons particularly well suited to your needs. At the same time, online lessons have proved highly effective, with a proportion of students finding their progress has surpassed previous levels. This may be down to improved practice habits during these strangest of times, as so many of us have learned to spend more time than usual at home. Where it works for you, you may well want to consider online lessons as a way of limiting your social contact with others.
What we can say is that the changes we have made here at nma mean that coming into contact with others is reduced to a bare minimum, so much so that you will see very few people in the building at the time you visit, and like you we are keen to reduce our social contact to the minimum, as is appropriate at this time.
The most important thing for progress is to keep practicing, and we look forward in due course to musical get-togethers of the kind we used to take for granted. In the meantime, we are all looking forward to a safe future, free of restrictions.
20.11.20
Well, the good news is that we are now over half way through the four week lockdown. The bad news is that, when day light hours are this short, a week of lockdown can feel a mite longer than in does in May. Heigh ho.
We are so looking forward to December, in the hope that we will get to see everyone again in the weeks before Christmas. For your delight, we have a mini-tree in place and edibles ready to go!
In the meantime, hope you enjoy all those indoor activities – a good book, a family movie, maybe a game or jigsaw puzzle, and of course making music.
All our best, from Darrell Eileen Pip and team.
10.11.20 – Darrell Priestley
Six days in to Lockdown II, and all systems are quietly humming. The transfer to online lessons has gone smoothly, and now we all simply need to keep doing what we’re doing.
Eileen and Darrell continue to work from our base at NMA, teaching remotely and also running our online retail business. Eileen will soon be doing a scaled back version of our Christmas decorations, with no real way of knowing if we will be seeing many of you before the Christmas holidays begin – but we certainly hope so, because although it’s only been a few days, we really miss you all coming through the door each week.
It’s fair to say that most of us are a lot more experienced with online lessons than we were back in April, so get set to make the most of the next few weeks until 2nd December and above all, remember it all goes a lot better when you practice regularly. 🙂
07.11.20 – Darrell Priestley
It’s all change once again, and as things stand we will now be closed for in-person lessons until Wednesday 2nd December. Please check back often, because any change will be updated here promptly.
For the remainder of the lockdown period, we will be offering online lessons throughout. The timetable doesn’t deviate from normal, unless your teacher should arrange a new time with you, so it’s pretty much business as usual. Most students now have at least some of their lessons online, so in practice there should be minimal change.
Although it’s sad that we won’t be seeing you in person during lockdown, and we have loved teaching in person since the music Acadaemy opened up again in September, we have done this before and we can do it again.
We miss you, but we are there for you online, and look forward to seeing you for live lessons once again as soon as we are allowed to do so.
Best wishes to all!