Music Education in England

David Warburton Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2019 Westminster Hall

[David Warburton (Somerton and Frome) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir George, and to take part in this debate. We have heard so many eloquent and passionate speeches, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Bury North (James Frith) on bringing us to this place and allowing us to enjoy talking about such an important topic.

I, too, have to declare an interest. I was lucky enough to have an extensive classical music education at music college—I tried to stay there as long as possible so as not to get a proper job, which I continue to try to do. I was lucky enough also to be a music teacher for many years, and I now chair the all-party parliamentary group on music and am vice-chair of the APPG for music education, and I serve on the boards of various organisations—the National Youth Orchestra and so on. I therefore have lots of conversations with many inspiring and passionate advocates for music education and hear about a lot of their successes at first hand. However, it is easy to let the activities of great organisations such as that hide the bigger picture—the picture as it is for most people around the country.

As hon. Members will be aware and as we have heard today, Ofqual statistics show that between 2014 and 2019 the number of students taking A-level music has declined by a whopping 30%. I think that is a statistical canary down the mineshaft, warning us of the result if current practice continues. If that decline came from any general disinclination to study music that has suddenly appeared, that would be regrettable but unavoidable. But I think it rather improbable that a wave of musical apathy has swept over Britain’s young people, so we have to ask ourselves why fewer students are choosing to take their musical education further. If there is no mysterious and spontaneous reason, what barriers are preventing those who do wish to pursue it, and how do we eradicate those barriers?

If we look at earlier age groups, we can see critical points at which the pipeline also narrows. The availability of music tuition at key stage 3 is a factor. According to the “Music Education: State of the Nation” report, between 2010 and 2017 there was a fall of 6.4% in curriculum time dedicated to music. Department for Education workforce data shows a drop in music teacher numbers at key stage 3 of more than one quarter.

I do understand, as a former music teacher myself, that more of one subject means less of another. I know how it feels to face the problem of matching students’ aspirations with the realities of available time, and I realise that the EBacc is there not to shrink opportunities, but to allow talent from every area of society to flourish. But to me, a core curriculum that excludes the arts is not a core curriculum—that is an oxymoron—so I would welcome a re-examination, as other hon. Members have said, of the possibility of adding a sixth pillar to the EBacc for creative subjects, including music.

The thoughtful and wide-ranging remarks made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education at the Church of England Foundation for Educational Leadership conference in February described very well some of the fundamental issues in making education work across all areas of the country and all sectors of society. He focused on

“the five foundations of building character”.

Two of those—creativity and performing—directly correlate with music. His focus on those five foundations was very welcome and is significant in the context of this debate.

Given the consensus on cultural capital in relation to life chances, the gap in music provision between the state system and independent schools, which we have heard discussed, is a trend that must be stopped. The BPI reports a decline in state music provision in the past five years alongside an increase in the independent sector. The gap is widest—surprise, surprise—in schools with a higher percentage of students on free school meals. Relative poverty does not equate to a relative poverty of ambition, but ambition without the opportunity to visualise and then pursue its fulfilment leads to frustration and then disengagement.

The UK’s music industry contributes £4.5 billion to the economy, as we have heard. We saw it generate £2.6 billion in total export revenue in 2017—that figure was up 7%—and it is an instrument of soft power that will only become more important in the years ahead, given the wobbly world picture out there. However, that is just part of the story. The creative industries as a whole contribute more than £100 billion to our economy. We are very good at this stuff, despite the barriers that come before us. Therefore, even if we look at things in a purely utilitarian way, a greater investment of curriculum time and resources can only make sense.

I know that it is much more difficult to quantify the cognitive benefits of understanding the structure of a Bach chorale or the blues scale than it is to see an uptake in STEM subjects or exam entries leading directly to jobs in the engineering industry, but equipping our students with an understanding of our musical, philosophical and artistic heritage does something even more difficult and important: it allows those students to anchor themselves within the centuries-old progression of thought and to understand their place in the society in which they live. The anchor provided by the arts is not just a means of generating economic value; it allows young people to understand what is of value in others. Denying them an understanding of the value of their artistic heritage hides their eyes, ears and minds from the world around them.

As we look ahead to the new national plan for music education, it is vital that we re-examine both the performance of music provision within secondary schools and the metrics used to measure that performance. As we heard from the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), it is clear to me that no school should be awarded an outstanding judgment by Ofsted if it fails to provide strong arts and cultural education. The next national plan for music must focus on ensuring that these benefits are spread as widely as possible. As well as looking at the curriculum, that should also involve thinking about how to ensure that the flexibility given to academies is not a licence for them to sideline music education or treat it as an optional extra, especially given that 72% of secondary schools are now academies.

The greatest artistic achievements, from the encyclopédistes of the enlightenment through to “Sgt. Pepper”, aspire to universality. As such, they have a democratic impulse at their core. A failure to share their benefits as widely as possible not only lets down our young people, but runs contrary to the spirit of the arts themselves.