It works great for my 8 year old. The sound might not pass professional teachers' standards though. One of the teachers even told us to replace it after 3 months (it might go out of tune etc). But we have it for 6 months now and the current teacher think it's fine, she even suggested us to resell it so other smaller kids can benefit from it. Initially one of the joints was too tight, we had to have it adjusted. One of the soft key pads fell but I was able to glue it back. One key popped but I was also able to fix it with small screwdriver. I was going to give it a 4-start for those issues, but consider the price and the problems are not major, I gave it a 5. All in all, it's a great budget instrument to start for younger kids. Especially when you just want to let them try before the more expensive investment.By the way, the stand is flimsy, and it's hard to put the flute on, so we don't use it.