To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have (1) to revitalise music, art, craft and dance, in state schools, and (2) to recruit teachers of these subjects.
My Lords, the Government remain committed to pupils receiving a high-quality cultural education, including in music, art and design and dance. We are investing around £115 million in music and arts up to 2025, in addition to core school budgets. There are over 468,000 full-time equivalent teachers in state-funded schools in England, the highest since the school workforce census began. We are offering £10,000 tax-free initial teacher training bursaries for art and design and music from 2024-25.
I thank the Minister for that very positive reply. However, one of the very many damaging offshoots of the EBacc and Progress 8 has been to degrade—indeed, in some cases to eliminate —music, dance, art and crafts from state school curricula, but every young person deserves the opportunity to experience and enjoy them. What is more, the arts are major contributors to the nation’s economy. The Minister has mentioned funding; how are the Government funding music hubs? How specifically do the Government intend to recruit teachers for these life-enhancing subjects?
To put the noble Baroness’s concerns in perspective, I point out that if one takes into account both GCSEs and technical awards, which I know she values, just over half of students—52%—take either a GCSE or technical award. We are funding the music hubs with £79 million per annum for delivery but there is an additional £25 million fund for the purchase of musical instruments. In my Answer I gave an indication of the bursaries we will be providing to encourage recruitment.
My Lords, as a former drama teacher and current chair of trustees of the Council for Dance, Drama and Musical Theatre, I know how important studying the arts is to children’s lives. When such access is limited in schools, it is the poorer students who are denied the benefits. Surely we all want young people to carry a love of learning that sets them up to achieve and thrive, and the arts are central to this. Can the Minister give an update on the progress of the cultural education panel? When can we expect its report?
The Government would not disagree with anything the noble Baroness said on the importance of arts and other wider curriculum subjects. She will be aware that we published our new music education plan in June 2022. We will be publishing the cultural education plan in the coming months.
My Lords, should we not note and commend the existence of nearly 1,700 partnership schemes through which state and independent schools are working together to develop the talents of their pupils in music and art subjects? Will the Government give vigorous support to the further increase and expansion of these valuable partnership schemes?
The Government have been very supportive of partnerships between the independent sector and state-funded schools. I absolutely recognise the important work done by the 1,700 schemes and I hope we see many more in future.
My Lords, I declare my interests in the register. We now have EBacc, Progress 8 and the new BritBacc—I presume that is what it is called—which all exclude creative subjects. Does the Minister agree that, until the Government stop their obsession with mandatory A-level maths and their focus on purely academic subjects, there is little chance of revitalising the teaching of creative arts in schools and therefore recruiting teachers to teach them?
To clarify, there is no mandatory maths A-level; there will be the provision of maths to 18, which will take us to the same position as every other G7 country. The noble Lord is a teacher and understands better than I do how children learn but, through the EBacc, we are delivering an important rich store of knowledge from which children can apply their creativity, critical thinking and imagination.
My Lords, many Anglican and Roman Catholic cathedrals regularly send professional musicians into schools to support them with singing, at minimal charge. For example, by 2026, Sheffield Cathedral plans to support 30 schools a year with high-quality, curriculum-based music teaching, mostly in our most deprived communities. Does the Minister think there might be scope here for partnership with government to maximise the potential of such schemes?
I very much welcome that initiative. That ecosystem between our different cultural institutions, including charities and, of course, religious organisations, is extremely important. However, in practical terms, local relationships between schools and local cultural organisations can work best, and our music hubs help to link those up.
My Lords, I am pleased that my noble friend on the Front Bench added drama to this list, because I am sure that the Minister knows that it has been lost from the curricula of very many schools. Although 52% is more than half, it is simply inadequate: very many children in our schools get no exposure to art, drama, music or dance. I ask the Minister to meet with the professional bodies, particularly the teachers’ unions, to look at how we might review and keep under review the 11-to-16 and the five-to-11 curricula, to ensure that all children, in every school, have access to these subjects.