A Guide to the Music and Dance Scheme

Written By Dr Xiaoyun Peng

Inchwise Research · Conservatoire Admissions Unit

Data current to 28 September 2026. Applies to entry in September 2027.

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In brief

The Music and Dance Scheme is how the Department for Education pays for specialist music and dance training for children whose families could not otherwise afford it. It is means-tested, it is applied for through the school or centre rather than through the government, and it applies to England.

It funds two different things on two different sets of rules. Eight specialist schools, which are full-time and mostly boarding. And Centres for Advanced Training, which are part-time, attended one day a week alongside ordinary school — the conservatoire junior departments are in this second group.

The residence condition differs between the two. A school place requires two years' ordinary residence in the British Islands. A Centre for Advanced Training place requires three.

At the top of the scale a family pays nothing. On the published 2026/27 school scale, a household on £50,000 pays £4,532 a year for a day place and £6,084 for boarding, against full fees of £42,498 and £54,262 at the Purcell School. At a Centre for Advanced Training the maximum grant is £4,344 and it reaches zero at a relevant income of £77,578.92.

01 What the Scheme Is

A Department for Education grant scheme, made under section 14 of the Education Act 2002, which pays part or all of the fees at named specialist schools and training centres. The gov.uk page describes it as providing grants and help with fees at 8 schools and 20 Centres for Advanced Training.

It applies to England. No Scottish or Welsh institution is on the list.

Applications go to the school or centre, not to the government. gov.uk's instruction is to apply directly to the school or CAT.

The grant is means-tested on household income. Admission is decided on merit and the grant on income; the two decisions are taken separately, admission first.

02 What It Funds

Music schools, four: Chetham's School of Music, Manchester; The Purcell School, Hertfordshire; Wells Cathedral School, Somerset; The Yehudi Menuhin School, Surrey.

Dance schools, four: Elmhurst Ballet School; The Hammond School; The Royal Ballet School; Tring Park School.

Music Centres for Advanced Training, twelve as named on gov.uk: Advanced Young Musicians; Centre for Young Musicians; Guildhall School of Music & Drama; Royal Academy of Music; Royal Birmingham Conservatoire; Royal College of Music; Royal Northern College of Music; Sheffield Music Academy; South West Music School; The Glasshouse International Centre for Music; Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance; Yorkshire Young Musicians.

Dance Centres for Advanced Training, twelve: Dance City; Dance East; FABRIC (East Midlands); FABRIC (South Asian National Strand); FABRIC (West Midlands); The Lowry; National Centre for Circus Arts; Northern Ballet; Northern School of Contemporary Dance; The Place; Swindon Dance; Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance.

The gov.uk page states 20 Centres for Advanced Training and names 24 entries. Some organisations appear more than once: FABRIC three times, Trinity Laban once under music and once under dance, Guildhall once as Junior Guildhall and once as the Centre for Young Musicians.

Six conservatoire junior departments are on the music CAT list — the Royal College of Music, the Royal Academy of Music, Guildhall, Trinity Laban, the Royal Northern College of Music and Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. None of the six uses the words Centre for Advanced Training on its own website.

03 The Residence Test

The condition is measured in years of residence, not by nationality.

The scheme's rules measure residence in years of ordinary residence in the British Islands, defined in the rules as the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands.

For a place at one of the eight schools: ordinarily resident in the British Islands throughout the two-year period immediately preceding 1 January in the calendar year in which the pupil takes up the place.

For a place at a Centre for Advanced Training: ordinarily resident in the British Islands for three years immediately before taking up the grant. The national CAT network states the same rule as having been living in the UK for at least three years.

A child is treated as having been ordinarily resident where the absence was because a parent was temporarily employed outside the British Islands.

Separate routes exist in the rules for refugees and children of refugees, for children arriving under the Ukraine schemes, and for Irish citizens under the Common Travel Area, among others.

Source note. The residence paragraphs are in the Department for Education's Music and Dance Scheme manual. The most recent publicly available edition is the one for academic year 2025/26, and it is hosted by a participating centre rather than on gov.uk. The 2026/27 edition should be obtained from the school or centre before a family relies on the wording.

04 Age Limits

gov.uk: 8 to 19 for music schools and music Centres for Advanced Training; 11 to 19 for dance schools and dance centres. Disabled students at music and dance centres are eligible to 25.

For an aided place at a music school the pupil must have reached 8 on or before the 31 August following the start of the first school year of the place.

For a Centre for Advanced Training, on first entry to training a pupil should not be over 16 on 1 September at the start of that school year. The upper limit is 17 on 1 September. Neither applies to pupils with disabilities.

Grant support ends at the end of the school year in which the pupil reaches 20, or 25 for disabled pupils at centres only.

05 The Schooling Condition

A pupil funded at a Centre for Advanced Training should be a full-time registered pupil at a maintained or independent school or college in the UK, or home educated. The condition does not apply to pupils with disabilities aged over 18 at centres.

This is a separate condition from residence.

06 What a Family Pays at a School, 2026/27

The Department for Education does not publish the contribution scale on gov.uk. The scheme manual refers to the appropriate table without reproducing it. The figures below are the tables the schools themselves publish for 2026/27.

The scale is applied to relevant income, which the schools describe as gross salaries, self-employed earnings, capital gains and unearned income such as rent, interest and dividends from the previous tax year.

The Purcell School, 2026/27. Full fees are £42,498 a year day and £54,262 boarding. Parental contribution by gross household income: £10,000 — nil for both. £20,000 — £288 day, £572 boarding. £30,000 — £1,494 and £1,865. £40,000 — £2,635 and £3,373. £50,000 — £4,532 and £6,084. £60,000 — £6,206 and £8,482. £80,000 — £10,134 and £13,388. £100,000 — £14,144 and £18,587. £150,000 — £24,152 and £31,716. £200,000 — £34,157 and £44,834. At £215,000 and above the family pays the full fee.

Wells Cathedral School publishes the same scale and its figures are identical to Purcell's at every income point from £50,000 upwards, which is what indicates a single national table. Below £50,000 the two differ by a few pounds — £357 against £288 at £20,000, for instance. The two published tables differ below £50,000.

Above the threshold a contribution is payable at every income point. At a gross household income of £100,000 the boarding contribution is £18,587 a year.

07 What a Family Pays at a Centre for Advanced Training, 2026/27

Published annual fees for 2026/27 at the conservatoire junior departments run from about £4,200 to £5,188.

The 2026/27 scale, as published by the national centre network: no parental contribution where relevant income is £35,262.46 or less, after deducting £2,440 for each dependent child in the family including the student. Maximum grant £4,344.

The taper: at £35,262.47 to £39,965.48 the grant is £3,945 and the family pays £399. At £49,429.72 to £54,071.33, £2,736 and £1,608. At £63,984.86 to £68,178.25, £1,560 and £2,784. At £77,578.92 or more the grant is nil and the family pays £4,344.

The grant is a capped amount rather than a proportion of the fee. Where the centre's fee is above the cap, the difference is payable at any household income. The Royal College of Music Junior Department's core curriculum fee for 2026-27 is £5,188, which is £844 above the maximum grant.

Individual centres publish their own allocations rather than a national figure. Royal Birmingham Conservatoire states 45 Music and Dance Scheme National Grants alongside 40 Leverhulme Trust Scholarships. The Glasshouse states an allocation of 70 grants a year.

None of the six conservatoire junior departments publishes a maximum or typical award of its own.

08 How to Apply

Register with the school or centre, or be allocated a place, before completing the funding form.

The information required covers the applicant's personal details; income from employment or self-employment, from property, savings or investments, and from pensions, taxable benefits or other taxable income; any redundancy payments or benefits in kind; and any other scholarships, bursaries or financial support applied for or already held.

Evidence is required, not declarations: evidence of income, evidence of benefits, and proof of address in the UK. The form also asks when the applicant began living in the UK.

gov.uk states that no grant is awarded where acceptable evidence of income is not submitted for all relevant parents.

Where parents are separated, the schools ask for evidence that an absent parent has no financial responsibility, rather than accepting a statement to that effect.

Deadlines are set by each school and centre, not centrally. The Royal College of Music Junior Department's bursary deadline for 2026-27 was 1 May 2026; Junior Guildhall asks for applications by 1 May for entry the following September; the Royal Academy's decisions for the 2026 cycle were expected in mid-June. All of them fall after the audition, not before it.

09 What the Scheme Does Not Cover

A full award at a centre covers the core timetable. The Royal Academy states that a full bursary covers basic fees and the core timetable only, and excludes additional individual lessons on a second instrument and extended lessons.

Second study is charged separately at every junior department that offers it, from £990 to £1,352 a year.

Choristerships are funded separately. Wells Cathedral School's cathedral choristers are funded by chorister awards and are expressly excluded from the Music and Dance Scheme.

Instrument purchase, travel and examination entry are handled institution by institution. South West Music School states that its grants can also support instrumental tuition, instrument repairs and music exams; most do not say.

10 Scotland and Wales

The scheme applies to England. Neither nation has an institution on the list, and the England route does not exist in either.

Scotland. The Scottish Government funds an Aided Places Scheme at St Mary's Music School in Edinburgh, under its own regulations, reaching up to 100% of tuition and boarding fees. The school states the residence condition as two years' residence in the British Islands preceding 1 January of the year the place is taken up — the same shape of test as the English scheme. Scotland's other specialist provision sits inside the state sector at local authority schools: Douglas Academy Music School; the City of Edinburgh Music School at Broughton High School; Aberdeen City Music School at Dyce Academy; and Sgoil Chiùil na Gàidhealtachd at Plockton High School. Education Scotland directs families to their local authority for funding.

The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland's Junior Conservatoire is not in the scheme and has no equivalent national grant. It offers its own named funds and publishes neither their value nor whether they are means-tested.

Wales. No specialist school scheme, no centre, and no equivalent individual grant. Welsh Government music funding runs through the National Plan for Music Education and the National Music Service, which are universal school-facing provision rather than individual means-tested awards. The Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama discontinued its weekly junior provision in September 2024, stating that it receives no direct funding for pre-College education from the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales.

11 Distinctions Within the Scheme

Two years applies to a place at one of the eight schools. Three years applies to a Centre for Advanced Training, which is the category a conservatoire junior department falls into. Qualifying for one does not qualify a family for the other.

The scheme is applied for from the school or centre rather than from the government, after the audition, on that institution's own timetable.

Admission and funding are separate decisions. No junior department publishes a residence requirement for admission; the residence rule attaches to the grant.

The grant at a centre is a capped amount rather than a percentage. Above £4,344 the difference is payable at any income.

The conservatoires do not use the term Centre for Advanced Training on their own websites, although gov.uk classifies them as such.

12 Points to Confirm

The 2026/27 edition of the scheme manual, from the school or centre. The most recent public edition is 2025/26.

The institution's own contribution table. The Department for Education does not publish one, and two schools' published tables differ below £50,000.

The bursary or grant deadline, which is set institution by institution and falls after the audition.

Whether a full award covers the core timetable only, and what is charged on top.

The number of grants the institution holds, which only some publish.

For families outside England, what the equivalent is — in Scotland, whether the institution is inside the St Mary's scheme or the state-sector route; in Wales, there is no equivalent to confirm.

Sources

Dr Xiaoyun Peng
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