Richard Morrison
Why is it so hard to make music part of the national curriculum?
How do we get music education established in schools?
Newspapers are said to be dying, and the art of letter-writing already dead. You would never have guessed from the flurry of cultural luminaries firing off letters to the press over the past few weeks. First more than 100 distinguished artists signed a missive to the Guardian calling on the government to reverse its decision ‘to blindly press on’ (their split infinitive, not mine) with imposing an Ebacc exam system that turns the arts into secondclass subjects. That was followed by letters along the same lines to The Times from, among others, Simon Rattle and David Lan (the Young Vic’s director).
A few days later another letter appeared, this time signed by all the past winners of the BBC Young Musician (and published by the Observer on the day of the 2018 final). Put together by the oboist Nicholas Daniel, it also lamented the narrowing of the curriculum, but made a much more specific suggestion. Daniel has launched a campaign, #everychildamusician, that aims to do exactly what it says on its hashtag: make free instrumental tuition available to every primary school child.
In fact the campaign, backed by the former Labour Cabinet minister Harriet Harman, takes its name from a scheme that already exists in the London Borough of Newham and does just what Daniel wants to extend nationwide: pupils in Years 5 or 6 are given 30 minutes of free instrumental tuition every week; they also get the free loan of an instrument which they can keep if they continue lessons as they get older.
Of course, the scheme depends on the co-operation of Newham’s primary schools, but (according to a Freedom of Information request in 2016) 75 of them do participate. Interestingly, of the eight that don’t, several are free schools or academies, which makes you wonder about the cultural values of those muchvaunted establishments.
What’s unarguable is that in the seven years that the scheme has run, Newham has given more than 20,000 children a taste of playing an instrument and the first step towards musical literacy. Moreover, an independent study of the scheme’s impact on pupils found improvements in their general learning, social skills and behaviour.
We have to make sure that politicians are bludgeoned with the words ‘music education’
If this can happen in one of the poorest boroughs of London, why can’t it be extended to those plush shires – sadly now too numerous to mention – where instrumental tuition has been cut to nothing? Well, Harriet Harman is surely on to something when she talks about a ‘postcode lottery’. In other words, it’s pure luck whether your child gets music at their school or not. And if you are thinking of moving to an area where the local authority does run a good music service, be warned. There’s no guarantee that it won’t be dismantled in the near future (as sadly seems to be happening in East Sussex).
Of course times are hard. Local authorities are having trouble providing even basic social services at the moment. One of them, Toryrun Northamptonshire, has already collapsed; several more are said to be on the verge. And the cost of rolling out Newham’s scheme nationwide is not negligible (the borough employs more than 100 instrumental tutors, albeit part-time).
But I can’t help thinking that the underlying problem is not so much money as attitude. There are people running schools and local authorities who are fantastically committed to the arts, and who would somehow ensure that their pupils continued to receive instrumental tuition even if their budget was cut to shreds. Equally, there are others who see no value whatsoever in ‘frivolous’ subjects such as music, and who wouldn’t put it in the curriculum if you gave them a billion pounds to cover the costs. Sadly, quite a few of them work in Whitehall and Westminster.
What’s the answer? The only way forward is to make sure that politicians, national and local, are bludgeoned with the words ‘music education’ at every turn, so eventually they become so fed up with being chastised for their philistinism that they put the requisite resources behind Daniel’s scheme. And remember, getting instruments into the hands of primary school children is, or should be, just the first step. A much bigger challenge will be reinstating proper music teaching in the thousands of secondary schools that currently have next to nothing. It’s a colossal task and needs starting now. Every time you meet one of your elected representatives, give them a full and frank piece of your mind. Writing letters to newspapers is a good start, but not enough.
Richard Morrison is chief music critic and a columnist of The Times