Music being ‘cut off by the knees’ by DfE says ISM

Speaking at the House of Lords Education for 11-16 Year Olds Committee on 11 May, the ISM raised concerns about the government's current attitude towards music education and contributed to evidence at the inquiry. 

In her statement, chief executive Annetts said: ‘Schools have heard the calls from the Department for Education about what matters, and they are rejigging their timetable in order to deliver against those EBacc subjects.'

‘In our view, the Department for Education doesn’t really understand what our children need in an ever-changing economy where we have threats or opportunities such as AI, and where the creative industries are worth £116 billion to the UK economy a year.’

‘We’ve also had the chancellor saying that he sees the creative industries as an engine for growth,' Annetts added. 'That’s something we’ve been saying to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It’s all very well government departments talking about ’the engine for growth’, but we’re being cut off by the knees by the Department for Education, so we can’t play our part in terms of growing the economy, because there simply isn’t the talent pipeline there.’

Chair of National Drama, Geoff Readman, also spoke and highlighted issues that the arts have faced in education. He cited that the decline in the number of students taking arts subjects has been largely due to the introduction of the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) - a performance measure for schools that does not include drama and music - and changes to GCSEs in 2016 that introduced written work as the dominant method of assessment.