Education System (Dance)

Nicholas Dakin Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

I am pleased to be able to speak briefly in the debate, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North (Mr Doran) on securing it. He spelled out clearly and powerfully the case for dance, both in the curriculum and in the life of our nation, and how it contributes culturally and economically to the United Kingdom.

In the Scunthorpe area, which I represent, dance has always been popular. There is a long tradition of dance being part of the local community. That is down to the contribution of many people in the community, including local dance schools and dance teachers, such as Kay Travis, who, even now, in her 80s, continues to inspire young people by encouraging them to participate in dance. Having been principal of John Leggett college in Scunthorpe, I concur with the points made by my hon. Friend about the rigour of the dance curriculum at A-level and his quote from the head of dance at the college of Richard Collyer. I saw the cracking work done by Bridget Jacques and Shelley Lee, dance teachers at John Leggett, to bring the best out of the young people who participated in dance. Those young people have gone on to contribute in all walks of life.

It is naïve for certain currents of thought within the Government to believe that dance is in any way a soft option. It is not, and I hope that the Minister will take the opportunity today to dispel those myths. Dance is a demanding and challenging subject at GCSE and A-level. As I visited many schools in the past couple of weeks in my constituency, I saw dance being part of the curriculum at primary and secondary levels and the fantastic work that teachers were doing with young people. There are new facilities in schools, such as the Melior community college, built under Building Schools for the Future. Fantastic dance facilities are being used to good value. I was pleased to be at the opening of the new events centre at North Lindsey college in my constituency, when students on the BTEC dance course gave a fantastic presentation to the people there.

I am pleased to support my hon. Friend in the argument that he has made so clearly and cogently today—the argument for dance in the curriculum, for recognising its rigour, and for recognising the contribution that it makes to the UK’s cultural life and economy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nic Dakin]

Will the Minister accept that a relatively wide English bac will have a natural impact on the nature and number of minority subjects that any school can provide on its curriculum in key stage 4?

[Mr Gibb]

The hon. Gentleman raises a good point. If we go through the English baccalaureate subjects—English, maths, science, one of the two humanities and a modern foreign language—all of them, apart from a modern foreign language and a humanity, are already compulsory to 16. We are talking about two GCSEs: history or geography, and a modern foreign language. Modern foreign languages were compulsory until 2004, and there is a body of opinion that says that they should be made compulsory again. The debate is about history and geography, and there has been a significant decline in those subjects over recent years, which is a cause for concern. None the less, if we add up all those GCSE subjects and add on a humanity, it is still small enough for pupils to study one, two or three more GCSEs beyond those core academic subjects, depending on which combination of those subjects they take. That is right because the Russell group universities and others say that those subjects are the facilitating subjects that keep options open for young people to make decisions about their career choices later in life. International evidence has shown that countries around the world in high-performing jurisdictions are delaying young people from making decisions over career choices. They keep options open for longer so that young people can make the right choices.