News

This month we bring you news of three former education secretaries calling for the end of the EBacc; Bob and Roberta Smith calling for every child to study an arts GCSE; DfE removing the Facilitating Subjects reference on the EBacc webpage; MP Ed Vaizey calling for arts at the heart of the curriculum; details of all the new Arts and Education Ministers; two reports from the Sutton Trust and Teacher Tapp, and the Nuffield Foundation, on teacher recruitment; that Arts subjects are the most likely to be taught by specialist teachers in secondary schools; and Arts qualifications being de-funded.

-38% decline in arts GCSE entries 2010 to 2019

-4% year-on-year drop in arts GCSEs 2018 to 2019

-29% decline in arts A Level entries 2010 to 2019

Department for Education figures published in June 2019 show that between 2010 and 2018 the number of hours the arts were taught in England’s secondary schools fell by -23% and the number of arts teachers fell by -22%.

This month we bring you news of the Curriculum for Wales consultation; a Science Minister speech on the importance of Arts; Arts Council England’s draft ten year strategy; provisional A Level and GCSE arts entries for 2019; the University of Leeds to be first UK Centre for Cultural Value; the CBI calling for a creative subject to be added to the EBacc; and the Sutton Trust Elitist Britain report.

For the first time the new Ofsted framework requires schools to develop their pupils’ cultural capital. In this blog post we provide a quick summary of some of the history, academic thinking and definitions of this key term.

This month we bring you news of important recommendations from the DCMS Select Committee report Changing Lives; the Social Mobility Commission 6^th state of the nation report; a new Minister for the Arts; DfE’s call for character education evidence; BBC reports on the value of music education; and a call for more drama in schools.

The Augar Review was published on 30 May. You will probably have already seen the key recommendations it makes:  

To the CLA membership I want to say ‘hello’ and how pleased I am to be the current Chair of the CLA.

It strikes me that there has never been a more important time for an independent voice that champions the place and importance of arts and cultural learning in young people’s lives.

Today the Russell Group of universities has announced that it is removing the list of facilitating subjects from the guidance it publishes to help young people select the subjects they will study at GCSE and post 16.

Nick Gibb MP, Minister of State for School Standards and Anne Milton, Minister of State for Apprenticeships and Skills were grilled by the Education Select Committee on 3 April on the subject of school and college funding, and how our current education system is preparing children for the 4^th industrial revolution.