Education: Music and the Arts Debate

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Department: Department for Education

Education: Music and the Arts

Lord Storey Excerpts
Monday 25th October 2021

(2 years, 5 months ago)

Lords Chamber
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Baroness Barran Portrait Baroness Barran (Con)
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The noble Baroness is right that arts-led education encourages those traits, but not only arts-led education encourages critical thinking. I think that she does the teaching profession a disservice; perhaps she would like to join me on a visit to a school to see how little is being done by rote.

Lord Storey Portrait Lord Storey (LD)
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My Lords, the Minister will know from her time at DCMS the importance of creative and arts subjects and their importance to the British economy. Is she concerned that there has been a 24% drop in all six creative subjects over the past five years? How does she view the EBacc’s responsibility for the demise of all our creative subjects?

Baroness Barran Portrait Baroness Barran (Con)
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The Government do not accept that the EBacc has contributed to a decline in the adoption of creative subjects. The percentage of children doing an arts subject to GCSE has remained broadly stable over the last 10 years. The EBacc mandatory curriculum is intentionally focused to give space for other subjects.