There is no denying the decline of GCSE numbers of Key Stage 4, which respected scholars and music teaching professionals have much debated over the last decade. This debate is ongoing and vital for our much-loved subject to grow and develop positively. However, the complete picture of the state of the nation’s young musicians is still being determined due to the rising acceptance and take-up of vocational music courses, which have been steadily growing since their inception in 1994.
The introduction of vocational courses was designed to ‘serve a far wider and less economically and educationally advantaged cohort of students’, according to Norton York, founder of the Rockschool Limited vocational courses. By this reckoning, the GCSE approach could be seen as exclusive, outdated in its content and irrelevant to today’s students.
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