Arts are down-played in Teaching White paper

The ongoing Government review of the funding and delivery of music education (AP225) will be the basis on which broader reforms of cultural education will be determined, according to Education Secretary Michael Gove in the new schools White Paper, ‘The Importance of Teaching’. The primary purpose of the review, which is being led by Darren Henley, Managing Director of Classic FM, is to explore how music education can be improved and enable more children to learn to play an instrument. However, the remit of the review, which is due to be delivered in the Spring of 2011, also requires Henley to “make recommendations as to how cultural education could be delivered, based on the proposed models for music.” The White Paper lays out a pledge to “support access to live theatre” and to “encourage the appreciation of the visual and plastic arts”, as part of a strategy to “ensure all schools are given the resources and space they need to offer a truly rounded education”. Whilst specific references in the Paper to arts and cultural education are limited to this, it is implied that the arts could form a part of improved provision for excluded pupils. The achievements of the ARK Plus pilot programme, aimed at Year 7 students with acute behavioural and emotional needs, are given as an example of such work – the teaching programme included English and mathematics tuition coupled with a range of enrichment activities, including music, drama and sport, with a focus on developing the students’ social and interpersonal skills.

Joe Hallgarten, Director of Cultural Programmes for Creativity, Culture and Education (CCE), has expressed concern that about the heavy emphasis on music education in the White Paper: “This should not be to the exclusion of other cultural forms. The ‘first sort music, then sort the rest of cultural education’ approach embodied in The Henley Review of music education could be a missed opportunity for some more radical, necessary thinking."