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National Education Union pledges support for music and the arts

‘The NEU will seek to work with unions in the creative sector to expose and resist this closing down of opportunity’, says joint general secretary of the NEU.

The National Education Union (NEU) annual conference at the start of April passed a motion to defend music and the arts as an important part of the school curriculum. Motion 8 called for arts subjects to take their rightful place in the curriculum and for the NEU to work with the MU in campaigning to promote the arts to government, educators and parents.

The motion was first proposed by MU-NEU member Victoria Jaquiss (as recorded in Music Teacher, May 2023), who highlighted the arts crisis in state schools. As examples of this, she cited the lack of dedicated music rooms, the declining value/place of music within the curriculum, the erratic levels of funding, the effect on mental health and wellbeing, and how a lack of arts impacts the poorest children and those with SEND. The motion was the first debated at the NEU conference and it passed with strong support.  

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