APPG for Music Education joint meeting with the APPG for Art, Craft and Design in Education
and the APPG for Dance
14 May 2024
Joint meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Groups for Music Education; Art, Craft and Design in Education; and Dance Briefing Minutes
Monday, 14 May 2024
Monday, 14 May 2024
Opening Proceedings
Parliamentarians present: Lord Aberdare, Lord Baker, Baroness Bonham Carter, Earl of Clancarty, Lord Freyberg, Barbara Keeley MP, Baroness Wadley
Apologies: Luke Pollard MP, Baroness Wilcox
The attending parliamentarians were joined by members of the creative arts sector.
Welcome: Sharon Hodgson MP (Chair, APPG for Art, Craft and Design in Education) and Wera Hobhouse MP (Chair, APPG for Music Education)
Sharon Hodgson introduced the joint APPG meeting, explaining how all three APPGs have a shared focus and how the secretariats have been working together on the Save Our Subjects campaign. Launched in 2023, the campaign focussing on the damage done to arts subjects in English state schools by the EBacc and Progress 8 accountability measures. The meeting is also an opportunity to understand what different political parties are offering as we get close to a General Election.
Wera Hobhouse expressed her feeling of solidarity for everyone in the creative sector whatever their role. They do an incredibly important job for our society. Education in any of the creative subjects are part of being a human being. We cannot think that we are ‘done’ if we are just teaching maths and English. Transferable skills, thinking skills, team work and creative skills which are learnt through creative subjects are invaluable in order to also navigate your working life. She is pushing for this government and future governments not to forget that.
Presentations
Sophie Leach, Deputy General Secretary, National Society for Education in Art and Design (NSEAD)
Sophie Leach explained how being a teacher of the creative arts in the UK today means you are teaching a marginalised, endangered subject. The arts in schools are undervalued, being subject to year-on-year underfunding and performance and assessment measures that leave little space for creative subjects. The curriculum in England looks to the past for inspiration, not to the future, with subjects being identical to the 1904 Secondary Regulations. Few head teachers are willing to ignore either the EBacc or Progress 8 and as a result the uptake of arts subjects at Key Stage 4 have fallen. Sophie then outlined the decline in uptake in arts subjects at GCSE level and the knock-on effect this then has for A-level entries. Accountability measures have caused a narrowing of the curriculum and Ofsted have known this for 20 years. It starts in primary schools with SATs which are skewing the curriculum towards English and maths in Key Stage 2 and carries on into Key Stage 3.
The impact of accountability measures is not felt evenly across all sectors. In 2016, a large-scale survey by the NSEAD found that only 1.5% of teachers in independent schools reported that their GCSE art course was three years long [as opposed to the expected 2 years] but in academies it was 27%, meaning young people were giving up studying the broad range of subjects at age 12 or 13. We also know that creative arts subjects are facing a teacher recruitment and retention crisis. There are now 40% fewer arts teachers than in 2010. As the creative arts lose curriculum time, teacher numbers reduce which in turn leads to fewer options being made available. We have long warned about the breaking off of the talent pipeline with fewer young people moving through education into the creative sector. We now face a haemorrhaging of teacher talent with equally devastating effects. The Save Our Subjects campaign implores policy makers to understand the causes and take action before it is too late.
Questions/comments
The Earl of Clancarty:
Adam Ockelford, Professor of Music, Roehampton University
Adam Ockelford has been working with neurodiverse young people for the past four decades. He emphasised how music is the lifeblood of these young people. It can be the only way of communicating with the wider world for some.
He talked about the Sounds of Intent project set up in 2001 to research how children with learning difficulties develop musically: ‘It showed that music development follows the same path irrespective of different needs – therefore disability doesn’t have to be a barrier to progress.’ The idea of educating those with complex needs is still relatively new, so we are still adapting.
Adam shared videos of three young people with differing educational needs expressing themselves through music and using it to communicate.
Questions/comments
Earl of Clancarty: Asks about the connection between accountability measures in secondary schools and what’s currently happening in Higher Education.
SL: Arts subjects are undervalued and devalued by performance measures. Parents are often told that if they want their children to be successful they should take the EBacc subjects, but they will get one option to choose an arts subject if they’re lucky and it’s in that bucket. It’s the language – arts subjects are in ‘bucket three’. We are world renowned for arts and culture but when you’re a young person or a parent hearing the value of arts subjects is diminished it eventually has an impact.
Tim Bennett-Hart: (CEO, RSL Awards) The percentages given mentioned GCSEs and A-levels dropping, however the increase in VQs has been growing. Is there a reason why this was not taken into account?
SL: When looking at VQs for Art and Design we haven’t seen them rising. It’s not across every subject area or across every vocational qualification.
Jasmine Ainley Kaur, One Dance UK Dance Ambassador, introduced by Laura Nicholson, Head of Children and Young People's Dance at One Dance UK
Jasmine is a 21-year-old graduate of the One Dance UK Young Creatives, Young Choreographers programme. She prefaced her presentation by saying how she considers herself extremely lucky to be in the position she is in. Jasmine outlined her introduction to dance as a young child, growing up in a single-parent household in a levelling up area in the North of England. She believes there were a lot less opportunities to access the arts growing up in her part of the country compared to what she might have experienced growing up in London or a large city in the North.
Jasmine’s dance journey began in primary school when a dancer visited her school and taught a dance class as a one-off experience. Her passion for dance was sparked further when she started secondary school and chose the school based on their performing arts and dance department during an open day. However, when she started at the school, she found that the funding for the department had been cut and the only way to access dance through school was through PE and taking GCSE PE. Following her GCSEs, Jasmine was laughed at by a career advisor when she told her that she wanted to be a choreographer, who told her than she needed to do something more serious. She ended up studying biology, chemistry and psychology at A-level with a plan to study medicine at some point in the future. However, she hated every single moment of her time at college and changed colleges after a year, attending a specialist post-16 college for creative and performing arts instead. She is thankful that her mother was and is so supportive and that she was able to commute to and from the specialist college but knows that this isn’t the case for other young people across the country. Jasmine believes that access to dance should be for everyone and not a ‘lucky dip’. Had dance been embedded into the curriculum and valued and respected, there could have been thousands more young people here with her, sharing their route into dance, but unfortunately that isn’t the case.
Jasmine gives back to the community by teaching dance at local primary schools as a volunteer and she sees how much the children love dancing. She is trying to spark in them what was sparked in her at their age but thinks it shouldn’t be down to her, there should be a National strategy in order to make it possible for many other young people.
Questions/comments
Wera Hobhouse: How do we break that narrative of ‘you should do something serious’?
J AK – Definitely more education around what careers are actually available in the arts industry. So many people think there’s just being on the stage but there are so many other things to do – lighting, stage management – things that people don’t know about involved behind the scenes.
Lord Aberdare: There’s so much work in schools about work experience and what opportunities there are out there and we encourage employers to go into schools and tell them. This doesn’t seem to happen in the arts world and yet there are such fantastic careers in the arts – all aspects, whether it’s performing or technicians – but I don’t get the impression that it’s as well represented in taking up the Baker Clause for example. Arts employers should be just as much a part of that as other employers.
Laura Nicholson: There’s a really fantastic programme called the Discover Creative Careers. Careers advisers just don’t have that breadth of knowledge or understanding about what’s possible in creative subjects. The Discover programme is doing a great piece of work to shift that, but there’s still more to do. Other teachers, teachers of other subjects, school leaders and parents are hearing ‘these are not proper subjects’, ‘these are Mickey Mouse subjects’, ‘these are dead end subjects’, so it’s almost like a hearts and mind shift culturally that needs to happen.
Lord Baker, former Secretary of State for Education
Lord Baker shared some slides and explained that the basic problem is with the school curriculum. When you compare the 2024 EBacc and Progress 8 subjects with the subjects studied in 1904, they are identical, except that in 1904 it contained drawing. Imposed by Nick Gibb and Michael Gove in 2010, it means we have been living with an Edwardian curriculum for 14 years and it’s had a devastating effect on arts subjects. All schools are judged by Ofsted and the first question posed is ‘can I see your scores on the EBacc and Progress 8?’. This has resulted in a decline in creative subjects that have been squeezed out and a very narrow curriculum.
Pupils at 18 need employability skills. There have been two Lords’ reports – one on skills and the other on education for 11-16 year olds. Both committees said that the EBacc should be removed straight away, and the Government has ignored them. If you’re going to increase the arts in schools, MPs will have call for the EBacc to go. Private schools are starting to move away from GCSEs completely. Within three years, Latymar School only plans to enter pupils for English and maths GCSE, with other subjects being internally assessed. This will mean they gain two teaching terms – Spring term when pupils are preparing for exams and the Summer term when exams are taking place. They are going to bring in a wide range of subjects to be covered in this time. Although Lord Baker introduced GCSEs, he feels their time is up and every MP should be calling to scrap them. We are the only country with exams at 16. This would open up the curriculum to get other things done. He gave the example of UTCs which are teaching ethical hacking and virtual reality and which have a lower unemployment rate when pupils leave than schools do. We need to get local MPs into schools to understand what is going on.
Questions/comments
Lord Aberdare: We don’t enter the full PISA set of tests. We’re always told that we’ve got a good education system because of English and maths scores but we have to detach from the idea that this is ‘good’ education.
LB: Labour shouldn’t let their planned curriculum review last for more than 3 months. Education needs to talk to industry.
Ed Harlow: (music teacher and a district and branch secretary at the NEU) It’s refreshing to hear Lord Baker say get rid of the EBacc, not reform it, get rid of it. He requests that review is done quickly and asks for politicians to please talk to the profession. Recruitment and retention are bleak, there are issues with the estate and funding. Teachers won’t take a top-down implementation well. Education should prepare pupils for the 2030s and 40s, not the 1930s and 40s.
Stuart Worden: (Principal, The Brit School) Lord Baker helped set up the Brit School and is celebrated there. The crisis is one of social justice. Only young people who can afford the arts are doing them. We will profoundly lose potential (and economic contribution) if the Government don’t support the arts.
Sharon Hodgson, MP (on behalf of Baroness Wilcox)
Sharon outlined the Labour party’s commitment to Progress 8 reform and teacher recruitment and retention (for example, via bursaries and payment incentives such as a new Early Career Teachers retention payment on completion of the Early Careers Framework). There may be other plans in the manifesto, but this hasn’t been published yet.
Sharon asked Wera Hobhouse if she would give an update on the Liberal Democrats’ position. Wera said they see education as social justice. Every classroom and every subject should have a qualified teacher. We shouldn’t disregard what independent schools are doing with subjects. We are trying to give a grammar school style education to all pupils via the current curriculum, but we need to consider what is important for every young person to learn in the 21st century. We can’t keep including subjects of the curriculum will get too wide but could maybe look at co-teaching some subjects, e.g., teaching more creativity in maths.
Colin Stuart, Head of External Affairs, Independent Society of Musicians (on behalf of Deborah Annetts, CEO of the ISM)
Colin outlined how the ISM is looking at the months ahead as an opportunity and how they are at the forefront of highlighting the impact of the EBacc and Progress 8 on music. They need to be urgently reformed or removed altogether. Recruitment and retention are other issues of concern. Secondary music trainee targets have been consistently missed and only reached once in the past decade. The ISM is concerned that teachers are now ‘trained’ not ‘educated’. The number of ITE courses need to be increased, particularly in cold spots with a return to university-based courses. The ISM would like Ofsted to be more transparent around the curriculum, the removal of both one-word judgements and links to EBacc uptake. Funding is also a concern – an ISM survey in 2022 found that 61% of respondents felt their departmental budgets were insufficient and highlighted the disparity between different types of schools. The mean yearly budget in maintained schools was £1865, in academies and free schools it was £2152 and in independent schools its was £9917.
AOB
Sharon Hodgson and Wera Hobhouse highlighted that the arts don’t need to lead to a career to be valuable – they make a rounded person.
Laura Nicholson highlighted the obesity and mental health crisis and how we seem to be taking out the subjects that can help.
Barbara Keeley raised concerns around the restructuring of music Hubs and offered her congratulations to any successful Hub Lead Organisations at the meeting. The Labour party recognise the standstill funding Hubs have received and they want to make sure Hubs can be sustained in the long term.
Sharon Hodgson thanked everyone online and in person for attending and declared the APPG meeting closed at 4pm.
Apologies: Luke Pollard MP, Baroness Wilcox
The attending parliamentarians were joined by members of the creative arts sector.
Welcome: Sharon Hodgson MP (Chair, APPG for Art, Craft and Design in Education) and Wera Hobhouse MP (Chair, APPG for Music Education)
Sharon Hodgson introduced the joint APPG meeting, explaining how all three APPGs have a shared focus and how the secretariats have been working together on the Save Our Subjects campaign. Launched in 2023, the campaign focussing on the damage done to arts subjects in English state schools by the EBacc and Progress 8 accountability measures. The meeting is also an opportunity to understand what different political parties are offering as we get close to a General Election.
Wera Hobhouse expressed her feeling of solidarity for everyone in the creative sector whatever their role. They do an incredibly important job for our society. Education in any of the creative subjects are part of being a human being. We cannot think that we are ‘done’ if we are just teaching maths and English. Transferable skills, thinking skills, team work and creative skills which are learnt through creative subjects are invaluable in order to also navigate your working life. She is pushing for this government and future governments not to forget that.
Presentations
Sophie Leach, Deputy General Secretary, National Society for Education in Art and Design (NSEAD)
Sophie Leach explained how being a teacher of the creative arts in the UK today means you are teaching a marginalised, endangered subject. The arts in schools are undervalued, being subject to year-on-year underfunding and performance and assessment measures that leave little space for creative subjects. The curriculum in England looks to the past for inspiration, not to the future, with subjects being identical to the 1904 Secondary Regulations. Few head teachers are willing to ignore either the EBacc or Progress 8 and as a result the uptake of arts subjects at Key Stage 4 have fallen. Sophie then outlined the decline in uptake in arts subjects at GCSE level and the knock-on effect this then has for A-level entries. Accountability measures have caused a narrowing of the curriculum and Ofsted have known this for 20 years. It starts in primary schools with SATs which are skewing the curriculum towards English and maths in Key Stage 2 and carries on into Key Stage 3.
The impact of accountability measures is not felt evenly across all sectors. In 2016, a large-scale survey by the NSEAD found that only 1.5% of teachers in independent schools reported that their GCSE art course was three years long [as opposed to the expected 2 years] but in academies it was 27%, meaning young people were giving up studying the broad range of subjects at age 12 or 13. We also know that creative arts subjects are facing a teacher recruitment and retention crisis. There are now 40% fewer arts teachers than in 2010. As the creative arts lose curriculum time, teacher numbers reduce which in turn leads to fewer options being made available. We have long warned about the breaking off of the talent pipeline with fewer young people moving through education into the creative sector. We now face a haemorrhaging of teacher talent with equally devastating effects. The Save Our Subjects campaign implores policy makers to understand the causes and take action before it is too late.
Questions/comments
The Earl of Clancarty:
Adam Ockelford, Professor of Music, Roehampton University
Adam Ockelford has been working with neurodiverse young people for the past four decades. He emphasised how music is the lifeblood of these young people. It can be the only way of communicating with the wider world for some.
He talked about the Sounds of Intent project set up in 2001 to research how children with learning difficulties develop musically: ‘It showed that music development follows the same path irrespective of different needs – therefore disability doesn’t have to be a barrier to progress.’ The idea of educating those with complex needs is still relatively new, so we are still adapting.
Adam shared videos of three young people with differing educational needs expressing themselves through music and using it to communicate.
Questions/comments
Earl of Clancarty: Asks about the connection between accountability measures in secondary schools and what’s currently happening in Higher Education.
SL: Arts subjects are undervalued and devalued by performance measures. Parents are often told that if they want their children to be successful they should take the EBacc subjects, but they will get one option to choose an arts subject if they’re lucky and it’s in that bucket. It’s the language – arts subjects are in ‘bucket three’. We are world renowned for arts and culture but when you’re a young person or a parent hearing the value of arts subjects is diminished it eventually has an impact.
Tim Bennett-Hart: (CEO, RSL Awards) The percentages given mentioned GCSEs and A-levels dropping, however the increase in VQs has been growing. Is there a reason why this was not taken into account?
SL: When looking at VQs for Art and Design we haven’t seen them rising. It’s not across every subject area or across every vocational qualification.
Jasmine Ainley Kaur, One Dance UK Dance Ambassador, introduced by Laura Nicholson, Head of Children and Young People's Dance at One Dance UK
Jasmine is a 21-year-old graduate of the One Dance UK Young Creatives, Young Choreographers programme. She prefaced her presentation by saying how she considers herself extremely lucky to be in the position she is in. Jasmine outlined her introduction to dance as a young child, growing up in a single-parent household in a levelling up area in the North of England. She believes there were a lot less opportunities to access the arts growing up in her part of the country compared to what she might have experienced growing up in London or a large city in the North.
Jasmine’s dance journey began in primary school when a dancer visited her school and taught a dance class as a one-off experience. Her passion for dance was sparked further when she started secondary school and chose the school based on their performing arts and dance department during an open day. However, when she started at the school, she found that the funding for the department had been cut and the only way to access dance through school was through PE and taking GCSE PE. Following her GCSEs, Jasmine was laughed at by a career advisor when she told her that she wanted to be a choreographer, who told her than she needed to do something more serious. She ended up studying biology, chemistry and psychology at A-level with a plan to study medicine at some point in the future. However, she hated every single moment of her time at college and changed colleges after a year, attending a specialist post-16 college for creative and performing arts instead. She is thankful that her mother was and is so supportive and that she was able to commute to and from the specialist college but knows that this isn’t the case for other young people across the country. Jasmine believes that access to dance should be for everyone and not a ‘lucky dip’. Had dance been embedded into the curriculum and valued and respected, there could have been thousands more young people here with her, sharing their route into dance, but unfortunately that isn’t the case.
Jasmine gives back to the community by teaching dance at local primary schools as a volunteer and she sees how much the children love dancing. She is trying to spark in them what was sparked in her at their age but thinks it shouldn’t be down to her, there should be a National strategy in order to make it possible for many other young people.
Questions/comments
Wera Hobhouse: How do we break that narrative of ‘you should do something serious’?
J AK – Definitely more education around what careers are actually available in the arts industry. So many people think there’s just being on the stage but there are so many other things to do – lighting, stage management – things that people don’t know about involved behind the scenes.
Lord Aberdare: There’s so much work in schools about work experience and what opportunities there are out there and we encourage employers to go into schools and tell them. This doesn’t seem to happen in the arts world and yet there are such fantastic careers in the arts – all aspects, whether it’s performing or technicians – but I don’t get the impression that it’s as well represented in taking up the Baker Clause for example. Arts employers should be just as much a part of that as other employers.
Laura Nicholson: There’s a really fantastic programme called the Discover Creative Careers. Careers advisers just don’t have that breadth of knowledge or understanding about what’s possible in creative subjects. The Discover programme is doing a great piece of work to shift that, but there’s still more to do. Other teachers, teachers of other subjects, school leaders and parents are hearing ‘these are not proper subjects’, ‘these are Mickey Mouse subjects’, ‘these are dead end subjects’, so it’s almost like a hearts and mind shift culturally that needs to happen.
Lord Baker, former Secretary of State for Education
Lord Baker shared some slides and explained that the basic problem is with the school curriculum. When you compare the 2024 EBacc and Progress 8 subjects with the subjects studied in 1904, they are identical, except that in 1904 it contained drawing. Imposed by Nick Gibb and Michael Gove in 2010, it means we have been living with an Edwardian curriculum for 14 years and it’s had a devastating effect on arts subjects. All schools are judged by Ofsted and the first question posed is ‘can I see your scores on the EBacc and Progress 8?’. This has resulted in a decline in creative subjects that have been squeezed out and a very narrow curriculum.
Pupils at 18 need employability skills. There have been two Lords’ reports – one on skills and the other on education for 11-16 year olds. Both committees said that the EBacc should be removed straight away, and the Government has ignored them. If you’re going to increase the arts in schools, MPs will have call for the EBacc to go. Private schools are starting to move away from GCSEs completely. Within three years, Latymar School only plans to enter pupils for English and maths GCSE, with other subjects being internally assessed. This will mean they gain two teaching terms – Spring term when pupils are preparing for exams and the Summer term when exams are taking place. They are going to bring in a wide range of subjects to be covered in this time. Although Lord Baker introduced GCSEs, he feels their time is up and every MP should be calling to scrap them. We are the only country with exams at 16. This would open up the curriculum to get other things done. He gave the example of UTCs which are teaching ethical hacking and virtual reality and which have a lower unemployment rate when pupils leave than schools do. We need to get local MPs into schools to understand what is going on.
Questions/comments
Lord Aberdare: We don’t enter the full PISA set of tests. We’re always told that we’ve got a good education system because of English and maths scores but we have to detach from the idea that this is ‘good’ education.
LB: Labour shouldn’t let their planned curriculum review last for more than 3 months. Education needs to talk to industry.
Ed Harlow: (music teacher and a district and branch secretary at the NEU) It’s refreshing to hear Lord Baker say get rid of the EBacc, not reform it, get rid of it. He requests that review is done quickly and asks for politicians to please talk to the profession. Recruitment and retention are bleak, there are issues with the estate and funding. Teachers won’t take a top-down implementation well. Education should prepare pupils for the 2030s and 40s, not the 1930s and 40s.
Stuart Worden: (Principal, The Brit School) Lord Baker helped set up the Brit School and is celebrated there. The crisis is one of social justice. Only young people who can afford the arts are doing them. We will profoundly lose potential (and economic contribution) if the Government don’t support the arts.
Sharon Hodgson, MP (on behalf of Baroness Wilcox)
Sharon outlined the Labour party’s commitment to Progress 8 reform and teacher recruitment and retention (for example, via bursaries and payment incentives such as a new Early Career Teachers retention payment on completion of the Early Careers Framework). There may be other plans in the manifesto, but this hasn’t been published yet.
Sharon asked Wera Hobhouse if she would give an update on the Liberal Democrats’ position. Wera said they see education as social justice. Every classroom and every subject should have a qualified teacher. We shouldn’t disregard what independent schools are doing with subjects. We are trying to give a grammar school style education to all pupils via the current curriculum, but we need to consider what is important for every young person to learn in the 21st century. We can’t keep including subjects of the curriculum will get too wide but could maybe look at co-teaching some subjects, e.g., teaching more creativity in maths.
Colin Stuart, Head of External Affairs, Independent Society of Musicians (on behalf of Deborah Annetts, CEO of the ISM)
Colin outlined how the ISM is looking at the months ahead as an opportunity and how they are at the forefront of highlighting the impact of the EBacc and Progress 8 on music. They need to be urgently reformed or removed altogether. Recruitment and retention are other issues of concern. Secondary music trainee targets have been consistently missed and only reached once in the past decade. The ISM is concerned that teachers are now ‘trained’ not ‘educated’. The number of ITE courses need to be increased, particularly in cold spots with a return to university-based courses. The ISM would like Ofsted to be more transparent around the curriculum, the removal of both one-word judgements and links to EBacc uptake. Funding is also a concern – an ISM survey in 2022 found that 61% of respondents felt their departmental budgets were insufficient and highlighted the disparity between different types of schools. The mean yearly budget in maintained schools was £1865, in academies and free schools it was £2152 and in independent schools its was £9917.
AOB
Sharon Hodgson and Wera Hobhouse highlighted that the arts don’t need to lead to a career to be valuable – they make a rounded person.
Laura Nicholson highlighted the obesity and mental health crisis and how we seem to be taking out the subjects that can help.
Barbara Keeley raised concerns around the restructuring of music Hubs and offered her congratulations to any successful Hub Lead Organisations at the meeting. The Labour party recognise the standstill funding Hubs have received and they want to make sure Hubs can be sustained in the long term.
Sharon Hodgson thanked everyone online and in person for attending and declared the APPG meeting closed at 4pm.
