NPME response: ‘A much more holistic approach to the music education ecosystem’

In common with any document coming out of government, there are always opportunities to criticise and poke fun at the National Plan for Music Education (NPME), but unlike the Model Music Curriculum (MMC), there seems to be nothing in it that is particularly disagreeable or offensive.

The National Plan for Music Education seems more coherent in its second iteration than in the original. Its tighter focus around three interlinked goals creates a much more holistic vision for music across England, which is easier to understand. There is rightly a focus on inclusion and accessibility for all, and the plan does now cover early years to higher education (HE), although admittedly the extremities are not as well served within the plan as the primary and secondary years. Early years campaigners will doubtless be pleased to have been included, but less pleased to get one page devoted to them against the 23 pages accorded to primary and secondary schools.

Similarly, the HE sector is unlikely to be overjoyed with the page that states their importance, given that elsewhere in government, funding and qualifications decisions have made many, if not most, HE music courses likely to become increasingly unviable from this September. In context, the inclusion of these two areas does read a little like a lip-service response to sector feedback, rather than a real consideration of what a birth–21 national music plan could do for children and young people.

Partners not customers or consumers

I am extremely pleased to see schools and curriculum music placed at the heart of the plan, where they should have been all along. A child’s only statutory right to music education is at school, within the curriculum, and therefore any national plan needs to have curriculum music at its core. It is also heartening to see an emphasis on schools as real partners in music hubs, rather than customers who buy services, or passive consumers who have things ‘done to’ them by hubs. I will be excited to see how the CPD partnerships between hubs and schools develop over time.

Funding for instruments, and projects for disadvantaged pupils are always to be welcomed, as is a central focus on inclusion and accessibility for all. The plan also acknowledges all the ways in which music can be beneficial to children and young people’s lives and makes provision for those who want to continue with music at both amateur and professional level. The general feel is of a much more holistic approach to the music education ecosystem, with acknowledgement of self-led musical activity as a legitimate form of learning.

For all the talk of inclusion and accessibility, though, I would have liked to see more focus on diversity, which is only mentioned five times compared to over 100 references to ‘high-quality’. England could have learnt from Wales’s National Plan in this regard, which is making specific provision to address lack of diversity in the music education workforce. This is a major issue in England too, and is not just about equality or quotas, but about young people seeing themselves reflected in the activities they might join and the career paths they might aspire to.

Concerns over ‘super-hubs’

One thing we were all eagerly awaiting was to see how the beleaguered MMC would feature in the brave new world of NPME2. There are several awkward shoehorning moments where it is held up as an exemplar of what schools could achieve. I think my favourite moment of the entire document comes on p.23, where it states that schools can embed high-quality (what does that even mean?) education ‘by adopting the Model Music Curriculum, or implementing a curriculum that is at least comparable in breadth and ambition’. One rather feels that our schools can do better than ‘at least’ matching the low bar set by the MMC…

Where I have concerns, these are around the implementation rather than the content of the plan. I have said all along and reiterate again here that I think it is a mistake to reopen the competitive tendering process for music education hubs. What we want is to build on the last decade of experience, not start all over again from scratch. It also worries me that the plan is for fewer lead organisations covering wider areas. Education is becoming more centralised by the day, and the issues on the ground with music are so bespoke to each context, that I fear a super-hub might not be able to provide the detailed, localised support that might be required in the same way that hubs currently can. What we sometimes see with top-down initiatives in multi-academy trusts (which incidentally are also encouraged in this plan) where ideas and initiatives don’t translate well on the ground, is a mistake that we don’t want to replicate with a super-hub structure.

On the whole, the NPME is a coherent and strategic plan for the development of music across primary and secondary age ranges, with some attempt to look before and beyond this. Whether it is operationally achievable after a retendering process – that remains to be seen!

Read the National Plan for Music Education.