Schools: Music Education

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Thursday 18th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Black of Brentwood, has given us a speech telling it how it is. Music education in schools is under threat in this country. The noble Lord gave us the statistics: a 23% drop in GCSE entries in music since 2010, and 7% in the last year alone. To compare with two EBacc subjects, geography and history, geography GCSE entries have risen 38% and history by 22% since 2010. The Government have made claims that they are doing some kind of counterbalancing measure, yet geography, an important subject, nevertheless has almost seven times the number of GCSE entries as music. This is an extreme imbalance. Of course, because arts subjects are excluded from the EBacc, this is happening not just to music but to all the arts and design subjects, and surely one of the more shocking facts is the drop of over a quarter in arts subjects overall taken at GCSE level in the last three years alone.

More shocking still are the department’s figures on the number of teachers and hours taught: a 13% drop in the number of music teachers and a 13% drop in hours taught for music since 2010. The facts are shocking because they more immediately reflect the increasing lack of provision of and commitment to the teaching of music—and again it is the same story in all the arts, with 20% of teachers being lost overall since 2010. All this is backed up by the evidence from the schools themselves: for example, the University of Sussex research, which the noble Lords, Lord Black and Lord Clement-Jones, referred to, and which the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd-Webber, called “an urgent wake-up call”. One of its telling conclusions is a continuing decline in the number of schools offering GCSE music, with no option in 18% of schools and a further fall of almost 6% predicted up to 2020.

It is getting a little frustrating having to quote back to the department year after year its own figures, alongside all the other evidence. It is frustrating to be faced with a department which seems to want to continue to bury its head in the sand. It seems extraordinarily unconstructive that the Government merely ignore the views of expert bodies and schools organisations such as the Association of School and College Leaders. The best that the Minister could do yesterday in response to the Oral Question from the noble Lord, Lord Black, was to cite the old New Schools Network conclusion about the broad stability of the proportion of young people taking at least one arts GCSE—and it is not true, in part because it leaves out design and technology, which is a significant exclusion. Also, what an unambitious standard to want to celebrate, since it ignores all the students who might want to do more than one arts subject since they are often complementary: dance and music, or music and drama, for example. Students should have the clear option to do so if they wish. I recently visited a school in the Midlands which was set up as a specialised visual arts secondary school, and it now does not offer more than one arts subject per pupil at GCSE level. The head of its arts department also has to teach geography, which is a nonsense at that level of teaching—or in fact at any level. Indeed, the Sussex University research confirms that 70% of secondary school music teachers have had to teach outside their subject area since 2016.

The pressure of course is that the EBacc as an accountability measure now effectively forces schools into a particular straitjacket they do not want necessarily to be in. But this is changing the culture of school education to the extent that arts subject are valued less, as is confirmed by both teachers and, significantly, by students, in the extensive new study Time to Listen by Nottingham University, published jointly by the Royal Shakespeare Company and Tate, and which the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Hudnall, referred to yesterday. Subjects are valued less so they are not offered—it becomes a vicious circle. Moreover, the Sussex research finds that even where music is offered, in some schools students can be discouraged from taking up that option in order to concentrate on EBacc subjects. But also, at a time when schools are strapped for cash, the teachers will not be taken on either, which is why I am extremely sceptical about the Minister’s statement yesterday in answer to the Oral Question of the noble Lord, Lord Black, that there is no crisis because of a low vacancy rate for music teachers. That says nothing at all about whether music teachers should not be taken on, but may speak volumes about the priorities that schools are forced to have to meet the EBacc goal.

It is becoming clear too that the effect of the EBacc culture is not confined to GCSEs. The knock-on effect, as the noble Lord Black pointed out, affects the pipeline of talent. He spoke about A-level music entries dropping by 3% in the last year and a frightening 38% since 2010. At the other end, music is fast disappearing from primary schools, and the Incorporated Society of Musicians has also commissioned a study on this from Kevin Rogers, who was the last county inspector of music in the country—which already says something in itself. He shows that accountability measures are responsible for this decline.

The hope in all of this lies in what I think is a discernible change in the public mood, which is one of increasing concern. The Nottingham University study calls for parity between the arts and other subjects at key stage 3, a proper recognition of the arts in the Ofsted inspection process, and a minimum proportion of time dedicated to creative subjects. It also calls for an arts premium for all schoolchildren and a review of the importance of the arts—this is significant—among Russell Group universities.

I hope that the department will finally listen. Much is at stake, not least the future of music as well as the other arts, many of which interact with and depend on each other, and I ask that the department talks to the DCMS, which should be very worried, as we all should be, about what a continuing and deepening marginalisation of the arts and creative subjects in schools will mean in the long run for the health of the creative industries. Add to that the cuts and the serious problems of Brexit, particularly for musicians, and we have a potentially huge problem.

My noble friend Lord Berkeley of Knighton would have been here today except that, somewhat ironically perhaps, he is working with music students at Wells Cathedral. He asked me to say this:

“Given the success of our creative industries and particularly in music, it does seem disastrous for our future success that this and the next generation of students are being deprived of the touchpaper that can light a creative career”.


Above all, schools should be offering an education which gives students as many opportunities as possible to find themselves—that is an important aim—including subjects which are participatory and sharing, and music as a practice is this. In a letter to the Times in August Sir Simon Rattle and others said that,

“we urge the government to reverse its EBacc policy and take action now to keep music in our schools”—

and, one might add, thereby to provide music for every child in the country. Music should not become a preserve of the rich. It is time that the Government looked at other models of education which will properly deliver a rounded, balanced education—one fit for the 21st century.