Schools: Arts Subjects

Debate between Lord Nash and Baroness Kidron

Tuesday 20th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kidron]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they will take to ensure that arts subjects have equal weighting in the new Progress 8 measure.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Nash) (Con)]

My Lords, a rich cultural and creative learning experience is an essential part of a good education, and Progress 8 will provide schools with more incentive to enter pupils for arts subjects than the existing performance table measures. The current indicator captures only five subjects, including English and maths. Progress 8 will capture eight subjects, leaving more space for arts subjects.

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

I thank the Minister for his vocal recognition of the importance of arts subjects. However, the question relates to the formal place of arts subjects in schools and the widespread concern that they have been downgraded as a result of the reorganisation of performance measures. Since arts subjects fuel our economy and enrich our cultural life, does the Minister not agree that they should be entitled to the same prioritisation and levers through Ofsted and Progress 8 as the subjects associated with the EBacc?

[Lord Nash]

I entirely agree with the noble Baroness on the importance of arts subjects, but we are starting from a very low base. Under the last Government, the number of pupils taking a core academic suite of subjects collapsed from 50% to 22%. Under this Government, the figure is back up to nearly 40%. We hope that with Progress 8 building on our EBacc we will now see an increase in arts subjects—and we have seen an increase in arts GCSEs in 2013 and 2014.