Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of the English Baccalaureate on the take-up of creative arts disciplines.

The Government is clear that the EBaccalaureate (EBacc) should be studied as part of a broad and balanced curriculum. It has been designed to be limited in size in order to allow pupils to continue to study additional subjects that reflect their individual interests and strengths, including arts subjects.

The attached table shows that the proportion of young people taking at least one arts GCSE since 2010 has fluctuated across years, but has remained broadly stable. According to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport’s Taking Part Survey, in 2017/18, 96% of children aged 5-15 had engaged with the arts in the past 12 months^[1].

[1] Arts covers music activities, theatre, drama, reading, writing, arts crafts and design, film/video/media/radio activities, dance activities, street arts/circus/carnival/festival activities.