NPME response: Composing seems to be a 'bolt-on' or 'tacit omission'

This is a personal reflection on the place and role of composing in secondary schools in the new National Plan for Music Education (NPME). Others will have different views, which is only right, as music education should be a broad enough church to be able to cater for tailoring to the strengths of individual schools and teachers.

First, two bits of good news: the NPME recognises that music in school classrooms exists, and clearly has had input from people for whom this is their full-time daily existence, which makes a refreshing change from some commentators on music education; secondly, composing features much more in the NPME than in its predecessor, maybe for similar reasons. However, I think that for some in music education there is a tension, whereby music education’s primary modality is conceived as being performance-based.