EBacc: Expressive Arts Subjects

Debate between Christopher Chope and Margaret Greenwood

Monday 4th July 2016 Westminster Hall

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

I want to say first that my sister is learning associate at the Unicorn theatre for children, which works with schoolchildren on drama projects.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) on introducing this important debate, which goes to the heart of the question of what education is for. The English baccalaureate is a performance measure for schools, awarded when students secure a grade C or above at GCSE across a core of five academic subjects—English language, mathematics, history or geography, the sciences and a language—and English literature at any grade. That sets up a hierarchy of value and suggests that English literature is less important than the other core subjects—something that I as a former English teacher would hotly dispute—and that the expressive arts subjects of art, music, drama and dance are of secondary importance. I believe that nothing could be further from the truth.

Through the arts, pupils can explore ideas in the most imaginative of ways. They can develop their powers of verbal and non-verbal expression through physical theatre, painting, music and dance, and can gain an understanding of and a love for our rich cultural heritage. To deny the arts is to deny what it is to be human. Undermine the arts in the curriculum—for that is what the current EBacc does—and we see a spiral of decline in provision, with the expressive arts becoming something accessible only to those privileged children whose parents can afford to pay for after-school activities, with others being left behind.

The hierarchy of value has implications for school planning and resourcing. Entries for GCSEs in arts subjects have fallen by 46,000 this year according to new figures recording England’s exam entries for 2016. It is not difficult to understand that if fewer pupils are taking a subject, demand dwindles and music, drama and art departments will shed staff, damaging the morale of the staff who remain. The uptake of creative subjects fell by 14% from 2010 to 2015, and our creative industries are facing a skills shortage. The Government’s figures show that the creative industries represent more than 5% of the UK economy—more than £84 billion in 2014—and grew by almost 10% between 2013 and 2014. The sector employs almost 2 million people.

The issue is not only about what arts education can deliver to our economy. We are facing a mental health crisis among our young people. We should be providing them with an education that makes them feel integrated and whole and uses all parts of their creativity, and does not just focus on high academic achievement. We know that developing the arts and creativity is important for mental wellbeing. The stories of actors who have been saved by drama at a young age are legion. One such actor told me that theatre had saved him from getting involved in drugs as a teenager. He grew up on an estate riddled with crime, but there was something about theatrical expression that just clicked for him and gave him a way out. I recently met a senior police officer on Merseyside. He felt our education was too obsessed with high academic achievement and that our neglect of educational activities that develop the whole person is leading to real problems in our society, with young people who do not want to or are unable to follow an academic route not being given the opportunity to acquire a broad education that will help them develop as people. That is quite an indictment.

The Government seem to suggest that the English baccalaureate would not be to the detriment of the arts. In response to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) in 2013, they gave the reassuring words:

“The English Baccalaureate measure…leaves space for pupils to study creative subjects alongside a strong academic core. We believe good school leaders will continue to make time for artistic and cultural education.”—[Official Report, 25 April 2013; Vol. 561, c. 1174W.]

In fact, it has not worked out that way. Taking the example of art and design, we find a worrying picture. A recent survey by the National Society for Education in Art and Design found that exclusion from the EBacc is leading arts and creative subjects in state schools to be less valued and accorded less time in the school curriculum, accentuating an existing trend.

At least a third and up to 44% of teacher responses to the survey indicated that the time allocated for art and design over all key stages had decreased in the last five years. For state schools, where respondents identified that there had been a reduction of time allocated for art and design, 93% of those teachers agreed or strongly agreed that the EBacc had reduced opportunities for students to select their subjects. Those changes are in turn affecting the morale of the teachers of those subjects. Some 56% of respondents reported that the reduced profile and value given to their subject by the Government and by school management had contributed to teachers leaving or wanting to leave the profession. We cannot afford to let that happen.

There is a famous quote from Winston Churchill who, when asked to cut funding for the arts in favour of the war effort, said if not that,

“then what are we fighting for?”

That is a key point, because the arts are vital to our culture. We must guard and nourish them. If we do not have artistic expression, we cannot know ourselves and as people we are diminished. I urge the Minister to pause and take time out to reconsider the value of arts education.

Pupils from Overchurch Junior School in my constituency will be performing a production based on the works of William Shakespeare in conjunction with the Royal Shakespeare Company in 10 Downing Street this Wednesday. I urge the Minister to come along, take a fresh look and see at first hand just what drama and the expressive arts can give to our young people. The idea that there is no rigour comparable to that of the core EBacc subjects in mastering the major roles in the works of Shaw, Beckett or Shakespeare is demonstrably untrue.

Finally, the English baccalaureate has been developed as a performance measure for schools, not as the best possible curriculum offer we can provide for our young people. As such, it is distorting the balance of educational provision, and I urge the Minister to think again about the detrimental impact it is having on arts education in our country.

[Mr Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

I call Carol Monaghan.