People who teach instruments are irreplaceable. They show what it is to be musical; they turn melodies into rich chords and introduce new timbres to the children’s ears. A teacher can’t easily do all that alone. I’d also like a MIDI system that’s suitable for 11-year-olds. If they take up music later in life, they’ll need to be familiar with the flexibility computer software provides. Even in junior school, there are countless possibilities. To be able to lay down a rhythm and add more layers to its composition,then to play the whole thing back and change it without needing to recruit several friends - that’s something they’re entitled to as young musicians growing up in an age of IT. Other things I’d like to see include a library that can lend sitars, tablas, koras, mbiras, yang-chings, so children can feel them and draw them and even play them; and a songbook that takes children through 2,000 years of musical history.

Kate Jelly, music co-ordinator at Moreland School in the London borough of Islington