National Plan for Cultural Education

Edward Timpson Excerpts

Wednesday 17th April 2013 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Edward Timpson)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I congratulate the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) on securing this important debate, and I acknowledge her strong advocacy over a long period for cultural education and the eloquent contribution that she has made to this debate. I am sure that she will agree that children in England—and elsewhere, but in England for the purposes of this debate—can lay claim to a rich cultural heritage. It should be our collective aim to ensure that they all have the chance to take part in it, supported by high-quality and engaging local opportunities that help to ignite the lifelong love of culture that we all want to engender in every young person.

We know that local authorities already provide extensive access to cultural activities through their investment in libraries, museums, galleries, arts centres, archives, public art and so on. Cornwall, for example, has a vibrant arts offering including 150 festivals, 300 private galleries, 10 theatre and dance companies, 72 museums and 1,000 village halls regularly used for cultural activities. There are many other examples across the country. Alongside that, the arm’s-length bodies of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport—the Arts Council England, English Heritage, the Heritage Lottery Fund and the British Film Institute, among many others—invest their grant in aid and national lottery funding in substantial educational activity.

Against that backdrop, we asked Darren Henley to conduct a review of cultural education. I understand the hon. Lady’s impatience and frustration. She has secured a debate a year on, and she wants to see the plan up and running. I am in a position to tell her that that plan will be published very soon indeed, and will set out our ambitious programmes to support the arts and recognise the huge contribution made by many charitable, philanthropic and voluntary organisations, local authorities and other arts and cultural organisations to the fantastic wealth of provision out there.

In the past 12 months, an enormous amount of work has been undertaken. The hon. Lady acknowledged in her contribution that the Government’s commitment was not a shallow one; we have set up new programmes and brokered new partnerships. It is an opportune time to reflect on progress thus far and make clear our expectations for the future. The plan will do so, and will affirm our commitment to ensuring that all pupils have access to a rich and fulfilling cultural education. That commitment is backed by £292 million in funding for cultural educational activity over the three years to 2015.

The plan will highlight the many examples of partnerships and initiatives supported by investment from schools, local authorities, voluntary organisations and bodies such as the Arts Council, and the Government also support a host of programmes designed to strengthen access and the take-up of provision, which will enhance the quality of the local and national cultural education available to schools and help to achieve greater opportunity for young people. I am afraid that the volume of those programmes does not allow me to go through the whole repertoire in the short time available for this debate, so I will draw attention to a core selection, some of which she referred to. Some are aimed at children with a special interest or promise in the arts; some are broader and focus on improving provision for all children.

In his review of cultural education in England, Darren Henley recognised that despite the magnificent talent that we are lucky to have in this country in both contemporary and classical dance, there was no centrally funded national youth dance company, so one has been set up, jointly funded and overseen by the new Arts Council England and managed by Sadler’s Wells Trust Ltd. The first annual company of talented performers aged 16 to 19 has been recruited, and its members are training and performing with the help of world-leading choreographers.

In art and design, together with Arts Council England, we are providing funding to scale up the Sorrell Foundation’s national Saturday art and design clubs. They are free and give young people aged 14 to 16 the opportunity to participate in inspiring classes every Saturday morning, with activities ranging from drawing to sculpture, printmaking, stop-frame animation and so on.

We have formed a unique partnership with the BFI, investing in the innovative BFI film academy, specifically for 16 to 19 year olds, which aims to give a diverse group of young people from all backgrounds the ability to be part of the film industry by providing them with opportunities to develop new skills and to build their career. It builds on the BFI’s existing education scheme for five to 19 year olds. We have the first fully integrated, nationally co-ordinated programme of developing young film talent ever established in the UK.

Since our response last April to Darren Henley’s review of cultural education in England, we have set up a museums and schools programme to increase the level of engagement in 10 regions of low participation. By January this year, more than 4,000 visits had been made as a result of the programme. In music, In Harmony is jointly funded by the Department for Education and the national lottery through Arts Council England. It aims to inspire and transform the lives of children through community-based orchestral music making. We continue to fund two original In Harmony projects in Lambeth and Liverpool, for three years from 2012 to 2015. In May 2012, an expansion of the scheme was agreed for four additional projects in areas of exceptional deprivation.

To celebrate and commemorate our culture and history, we are supporting the heritage schools programme. English Heritage is working with schools to help them to make effective use of their local historical environment and to bring the curriculum to life. Two thousand teachers will participate in training programmes to support their development in 190 schools. Additionally, we are planning a lasting educational legacy in remembrance of one of the most significant events in our history, the first world war. The flagship scheme announced by the Prime Minister at the Imperial War Museum at the end of last year—I was privileged to attend that event—will give thousands of schoolchildren and teachers the opportunity to visit the great war battlefields; pupils will learn first hand about the sacrifices made and the personal stories of those involved, with schools encouraged to establish commemoration projects such as collecting photographs and uncovering local stories.

To support teachers, we are funding a network of teaching school alliances that specialise in the cultural aspects of the curriculum. I am happy to provide the hon. Lady with more details, because I know she has a particular interest in that. The network will play a leading role in developing and disseminating professional development materials and resources for teachers. Those programmes are additional to the music education activity under way following the publication of “The Importance of Music: A National Plan for Music Education” in November 2011. On its publication, we announced funding for a national network of music education hubs, building on the existing music education provision and bringing together partnerships between music services, schools, education and arts organisations. A total of 123 hubs, managed by Arts Council England on our behalf, began work in September 2012 and they are already delivering innovative projects throughout the country, including access for all pupils, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, which is crucial, and they are working to augment and broaden the range of music activities on offer. That is just one example of the new partnerships that we are brokering in cultural education.

Darren Henley’s review concluded that, despite some excellent examples of collaboration between arts organisations and schools, a more systematic approach was necessary to develop a coherent and educationally sound cultural offer for young people. Some schools can be overwhelmed by the provision on offer, while some might struggle to find support that meets their needs. In response to the review’s recommendations, a strategic partnership between Arts Council England, the Heritage Lottery Fund, the British Film Institute and English Heritage has been brokered as the cultural education partnership group. The group is working to ensure that the priorities for cultural education are more than a sum of parts. It has identified three areas in which to test a shared approach, with a greater alignment of group members’ activities and resources: in the city of Bristol, in Barking and Dagenham, and in Great Yarmouth.

To reassure the hon. Lady about a joint ministerial board, a cross-Government group will start next month, with my Department and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport on the board, which will be chaired jointly by the Ministers; it will oversee progress in this complex field of activity. It will bring together Ministers from both Departments and include arm’s length body delivery partners and school representatives to support and challenge the development of the national cultural education offer. I am happy to write to her with more details of exactly how the group will operate and about the involvement of the various participants.

We support the Arts Council in extending the reach of its bridge organisations, whose role is to improve the delivery of arts opportunities for children and young people by bringing together schools and cultural organisations. That encourages consistency and coherence across an often complex arts and education landscape, helping young people and local communities to benefit from the wide range of high-quality creative and artistic experience on offer. With additional investment from my Department, bridge organisations will increase engagement with schools, in particular teaching schools, and partnerships, with a wider range of cultural organisations, encompassing the arts, museums, libraries, film centres and heritage sites.

Schools clearly have an essential role to play in introducing cultural experiences to their students as part of a broad and rich curriculum. The most successful schools put culture at the heart of their curriculum. Our aim is to enable all schools to match the achievement of the best. The new national curriculum has set out the essential knowledge that all children and young people should know between the ages of five and 16. As the hon. Lady knows, we have completed the consultation, and I am sure that she made her views known. It will ensure that all pupils have the chance to read books, sing, make music, film or animation, dance, draw, design and perform, and be given opportunities to attend art galleries, museums, cultural and world cinema, theatre and concert performances. Creativity is not an optional add-on but is fundamental to our whole approach to education. If we provide teachers with the freedom to innovate and design their own curriculum, rather than being over-prescriptive, schools will be able to provide a rich and creative experience for their pupils.

The hon. Lady has emphasised on the Floor of the House and elsewhere that she wishes to ensure clear accountability for schools on how they are delivering the creative element of their education through the measures to be put in place. According to recent announcements by the Secretary of State, the new accountability measures, on which we will be consulting, are to be broadened in range; the hon. Lady welcomed that and, I think, was slightly surprised at the time that she had been so successful in persuading the Secretary of State of the right approach. Those arts subjects and creative areas of education will form part of the accountability measures that schools will have to take into consideration when deciding on what to do to provide a rich and broad curriculum.

GCSEs will be comprehensively reformed, with more challenging subject content and more rigorous assessment structures. The changes will initially apply to subjects such as English language and literature, and changes to other subjects including cultural ones will follow as soon as possible. The aim is for the new qualifications to be in place for teaching from September 2016. Increasing numbers of pupils have chosen to study vocational arts, and we have already taken steps to improve vocational qualifications. Following the Wolf review, we have ensured proper assessment and tighter quality controls on vocational courses. We have recognised, too, concerns about the EBacc and, specifically, whether the accountability system includes the right incentives to encourage and recognise achievement in arts subjects. I hope that some of the movement in recent weeks has reassured the hon. Lady that we are not trying to remove the importance of a rich cultural curriculum; in many respects, we are trying to enhance it.

We are looking at how we can improve the way in which secondary schools are held accountable, and we are consulting on proposals. The proposed changes will mean a more balanced and meaningful accountability system that includes a progress measure based on eight qualifications, as opposed to the qualifications within the EBacc. That will enable arts subjects to receive full recognition in secondary school accountability, encouraging a broad and balanced curriculum at key stage 4. The cultural education plan will reflect those developments in accountability, qualifications and the new national curriculum, and that is one reason why we have taken time over it; we should see the plan very soon.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

If the reduction in the offer of arts and creative subjects reported in the MORI survey I referred to continues, what will the Minister do about it?

[Mr Timpson]

As the hon. Lady knows, that reduction goes back over a four-year period and it is not a new problem. It needs to be looked at in the context of the increase in the vocational take-up. We need to look at that in the round and consider whether we are providing the best possible offer in every educational and vocational setting available. I am happy to convey her concerns to the Minister responsible for seeing this through as the programme develops and the plan comes online to ensure that they are taken into consideration. Clearly, we are in the early stages of any new accountability measures, but they will be a helpful way of monitoring how schools are performing in fulfilling a curriculum that takes cultural education as seriously as we all want it to be. I look forward to the hon. Lady seeing the plan very soon, and I hope that she will be satisfied that it does what she wants it to do.