YOUNG people — whatever their background — continue to benefit from a music education, despite the squeeze on curriculum.

Thanks to support from schools, Bolton Music Service (BMS) is ensuring that music education is not just for the few.

Carolyn Baxendale, head of BMS, showcased the work of the service to the borough's headteachers, who contribute to it through the "central school services block" funding.

Mrs Baxendale said that it, like many other services in local authorities which are not statutory services, it has moved, over time, from a fully funded service to "an almost fully traded model".

"We have had to transform the way we operate. We have had to diversify, we have had to develop new income streams through charging service level agreements with schools, through setting up charging systems for parents and also through what I call major contracts," she said, "As you become fully traded there is a danger that the children and the families that are most vulnerable start to lose out because services are being paid for, but we are not just a transactional service. "This is part of what your money pays for, it enables us to have the resources and the capacity to support schools that are struggling with music, to support parents and children over and above the transactional paid for services, that is something we are very passionate about in Bolton about preserving."

Four years ago the BMS set up a charity Trust Music and raises around £40,000 a year with money is spent on children who can’t afford to buy instruments or their music lessons.

Ms Baxendale said: "We are trying all the time to maintain and increase the number of children we teach every week. There are around 11,000 children in Bolton having a lesson with a music service teacher, either in a classroom in a small group, in an individual lesson or ensemble. We want to maintain and increase the number of children in our town ensembles and part of that process is setting up our beginner ensembles across the town."

Recently young people from Bolton had a chance to celebrate the centenary of Bernstein with a special concert at the world renowned Chetham's School of Music at which his daughter, Nina, attended.

Mrs Baxendale said: "There were 50 children in that orchestra 12 of those 50 were from Bolton, this is nine local authorities from across the region and we had 12 students in that orchestra and I think that is a credit to the pathways that we create in Bolton and move children on to.

"It is something they will never forget."

She added: "It’s not just about orchestra because many children will not take that route so that’s why we have the Rock School running at Castle Hill, we are developing a diverse range of music that children can access,that’s one eg of one pathway."

There are concerns that some schools are focusing on core academic subjects at the expense of creative subjects, which are also being affected by funding pressures.

Phil Hart, headteacher of Westhoughton and Chairman of Bolton Learning Alliance, said: "It’s just really important as our curriculum is being squeezed and squeezed that we are enable to maintain those wider opportunities for young people to progress to that level but there is a funnel of people underneath enjoying music. It’s really important that we maintain things like that to work alongside schools who are no longer in a position to actually have that on the curriculum."