We need money to keep the music alive

LAST month, the Incorporated Society of Musicians (ISM) released a report on the state of music teaching in our schools. Music. A subject in peril? draws on the responses of 500 primary, secondary and peripatetic school music teachers. It makes for salutary reading. What the report underlines to Athena is that a subject that should be—and in the best schools clearly is—at the heart of creative life, is in too many places struggling for funding and existence.

Part of the pressure on music comes from the English Baccalaureate (Ebacc), with its emphasis on a core group of subjects, including English, Maths and Science. Introduced in 2010, the Ebacc has diverted resources within many schools away from the Arts. A quarter of secondary-school music teachers who responded reported that pupils were not receiving classroom music tuition in Key Stage 3 (the run up to their GCSE choices). Since 2011, that has, in turn, led to an 18% fall in GCSE music entries and a 44% fall in music A-level entries. One teacher asserted that there was no music A Level being taught in their city.

No less alarming are the massive disparities in the budgets available for music that this report reveals. The average yearly departmental budget in independent schools, for example, is £9,917. By contrast, in academies and free schools it is £2,152 and in maintained schools only £1,865. Overall, 60% of respondent teachers in academies, maintained and free schools described their budgets as inadequate. One reported receiving less than £1 per pupil per year to run their department and many teachers described the purchase of music equipment out of their own money.

One teacher reported receiving less than £1 per pupil per year to run their department

To complicate the picture yet further, music-making—in bands, choirs, ensembles and orchestras—has been particularly badly hit by the pandemic (and, in some schools, is yet to be properly revived).

The most recent Education White Paper titled Opportunity for All, published by the Government last month, acknowledges that: ‘As part of a richer school week, all children should be entitled to take part in sport, music and cultural opportunities. These opportunities are an essential part of a broad and ambitious curriculum, and support children’s health, wellbeing and wider development, particularly as we recover from the pandemic.’ The same passage goes on to promise the publication of updated plans for music education, specifically the renewal of the National Plan for Music Education (an initiative that is itself now mired in controversy because, not unreasonably, the ISM wants a proper consultation on its draft proposals).

The fact that—such controversies aside —everyone agrees about the fundamental importance of music in education is clearly a positive thing. The real problem, however, is how music will be paid for in schools. The White Paper shies away from promising more money, but, without it, how can schools make music universally available?