CLA BRIEFING: AUGUST 2015
GCSE Stats: What’s the real picture for the arts in schools?
There has been a lot of discussion over the last month about whether or not the
uptake of arts GCSEs is on the decline in schools.
At their speech to the Creative Industries Federation on 17 July, Nicky Morgan,
Secretary of State for Education and Nick Gibb, Minister for Schools, said that the
DfE statistics were encouraging; that the proportion of young people taking one arts
subject at GCSE has risen by 1% over the last five years. At the same time, the CLA
has been reporting that there has been an decline in total arts GCSE entries of 13%
over the same time period, and in the House of Lords in July, Lord Nash claimed that
the number of children taking Performing Arts has doubled.
Just who can possibly be right?
As we know, the devil is in the detail when looking at numbers, and it all depends on
what it left in the mix, what is thought to be important and what is left out.
The DfE headline: There is no problem
Nick Gibb and Nicky Morgan's assertion that there isn't a problem is based on
numbers which appear to show Art and Design holding its own in schools over the
last five years. Art and Design is by far the most popular of the arts subjects,
with 171,076 entries last year: a 1% increase of 1,778 students from 2010. In
contrast, subjects with smaller numbers of entries (Drama had 70,984 in 2014 and
Dance just 11,947) have seen a much more dramatic percentage drop (13% for
Drama for example), but this is masked in the DfE overall totals by the Art and
Design numbers.
The DfE has also chosen to leave out Design and Technology in its analysis (which has
seen by far the most dramatic drop in numbers of 25%, with just over 74,000 fewer
students taking it in 2014 than in 2010), and Expressive Arts (again, a drop of around
4,000 students over the same period), but it has included Performing Arts (a small
1
increase); and the number of people achieving AS levels at the end of Key stage 4;
and the number taking Cambridge International Certificates in these subjects.
The DfE headline statistic that ‘the proportion of students taking at least one arts
subject at GCSE has risen by 1%’ is an interesting one. The CLA doesn’t have access to
the individual student data that shows up these sorts of patterns and it will be
interesting to see what’s included in this stat, and what the corresponding picture is
for the number of children taking two arts subjects at GCSE.
The CLA headline: There is a significant problem
The CLA numbers only relate to GCSE qualifications. Importantly we have included
Expressive Arts and Performing Arts (more on this below), in line with the Joint
Council for Qualifications reporting, and we’ve included Design and Technology in
our analysis. It’s also worth noting that the CLA numbers are raw and haven’t been
adjusted to reflect the student cohort size (the total number of students taking
GCSEs in a year). The cohort size fluctuates and has shrunk slightly (by about 3%)
since 2010.
Using the methodology above, the CLA interpretation does show a 13% drop in
uptake of Arts subjects and this reduction in arts provision does chime with much of
the anecdotal information that we’re receiving from teachers in schools. Experts
from the National Society for Education in Art and Design (NSEAD) tell us that even
the 1% increase in Art and Design is masking increasingly patchy provision. There are
already nine mainstream schools across the country that the DfE is reporting as no
longer offering any Art and Design at Key Stage 4 or 5; the proportion of young
people taking AS and A Levels in the subject is falling; and a small indicative survey
that the NSEAD conducted last year flags up a worrying trend in reduction in
teaching time and shorter Key Stage 3 curriculums. NSEAD is currently analysing the
findings from a much larger survey of over 1,000 schools and early indications are
that these are widespread issues.
Lesley Butterworth, NSEAD General Secretary, said:
'The gap in art and design GCSE provision is widening; in some schools the numbers
of students taking GCSE is encouraging, in others, data provided by the DfE alongside
our annual surveys show that for some young people access to art, craft and design
has been reduced or even been removed. A compulsory EBacc will further widen
these inconsistencies in curriculum provision.'
2
The Lord Nash headline: The picture is rosy!
On Wednesday 22nd of July Lord Aberdare asked a question in the House of Lords to
Lord Nash: the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Department of
Education:
‘To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they plan to ensure that the United Kingdom
retains its global position in the creative sector in the light of plans announced in
June to require all state secondary school pupils to study five English Baccalaureate
core subject areas, which exclude any music, arts or culture element.’
As part of his reply to this and follow up questions Lord Nash said:
‘GCSE entries in arts subjects in 2014 are actually up 5% on 2012, while the
performing arts have nearly doubled. Of course we want all pupils to study a broad
curriculum, and in particular the focus should be on enabling disadvantaged children
to have access to a wide range of studies. Ofsted will inspect on this.’
Let’s take the 5% increase first. Between 2010 and 2012 there was a very dramatic
drop of around 10% in uptake of arts subjects across the piece (though the cohort
declined slightly in this time too). There was slight rally in some subjects over the
following two years and so it could be said to be correct to assert that there was a
5% rise between 2012 and 2014. This reversal of decline is of course a very welcome
one and we very much hope that this trend continues as we still have a way to go to
get back up to 2010 levels.
"The alarming drop in numbers of students taking craft-related GCSEs since 2007
prompted the Crafts Council to develop Our Future is in the Making, a manifesto for
craft education launched at the House of Commons with cross-party support in
2014. Its vision, backed by designers, scientists, artists, industrialists and educators,
is that every child has a chance to discover and develop their creative, practical
talents. Creative education fuels not only the UK’s world-class creative industries but
is essential in developing the ingenuity, problem-solving and collaborative skills
valued in all sectors. Signs of a rally in take up of Art and Design GCSE is welcome
and we hope that it continues. In addition, we urgently need to work together to
reverse the steep fall in Design and Technology GCSE entries, to stem the decline in
classroom hours given over to the arts, and to address inequalities in arts provision if
a creative education is not to become the preserve of a narrow band of society."
Annie Warburton, Creative Director, Crafts Council
The decision to quote the ‘doubling’ of students taking Performing Arts is a very
strange one. It is important to note that this is a single qualification quite separate to
the individual qualifications of Music, Dance and Drama GCSE (all of which have seen
3
falls). The Performing Arts qualification is a relatively new one and was just
becoming established over this time period. A very small number of students take it,
so the ‘doubling’ is from 1,854 in 2010 to 4,504 in 2014. However, in March this year
the government confirmed that both Performing Arts and Expressive Arts will be
withdrawn from teaching in 2016: they have effectively been scrapped. Unless
there has been a last minute U-turn on this decision it does seem disingenuous for
Lord Nash to be quoting this rise in numbers in this single qualification as an
encouraging success story for the arts in schools.
What else should we be looking at?
As has been shown above, this is a murky landscape. There is further useful
information to be found in this recent report from Tim Gill at Cambridge
Assessment, which looks at subject uptake in terms of gender, disadvantage and
school type. There are headlines to be drawn from this from the arts – in general
disadvantaged children are less likely to take arts subjects – but this trend is even
more pronounced in other humanities subjects like History and Geography.
In 2014 the OPSN published the report Lack of Options: how a pupil’s academic
choices are affected by where they live. It showed that subjects being provided at a
given school can vary greatly across the country and that young people in poor
neighbourhoods are either denied access or strongly encouraged not to take up
certain subjects.
It is worth noting that there is other evidence on the picture in schools to take into
account. As we reported last month, July data from DfE shows that between 2010
and 2014 the number of hours the arts were taught in secondary schools fell by 10%
and the number of arts teachers fell by 11%. The CLA is also receiving anecdotal
reports from colleagues in schools that support this notion of a hostile policy and
accountability environment for arts teaching and learning, so we don’t think that it is
misleading to paint this picture, despite the numbers of fantastic teachers and
schools bucking the trend and doing brilliant work against the odds. We do think that
EBacc policy has to shoulder the blame for some of this. In addition, the government
has not deployed Ofsted effectively in holding arts provision in schools to account,
and both careers guidance and initial teacher training remain of serious concern.
Deborah Annetts, Chief Executive of the Incorporated Society of Musicians (ISM), the
organisation which is supporting the cross sector Bacc for the Future campaign, said:
‘It is crucial that the Department for Education understand the harmful impact the
EBacc has already had on creativity in schools; this harmful impact is revealed by the
Cultural Learning Alliance’s (CLA) paper. The impact of a compulsory EBacc will be
even more damaging.
4
‘Given the importance rightly placed by the Government on the creative industries
and economic growth, I urge them to ensure that creative subjects are given equal
value in our schools; the EBacc must be withdrawn or reformed.’
Linda Jasper, Chief Executive of Youth Dance England, said:
‘The recent speeches by politicians regarding the increase in students taking
examinations in the performing arts masks the actual picture of one of decline in the
numbers taking individual performing arts subjects. In the dance education sector we
are very concerned that the impact of systemic government policies have had a
detrimental effect on the number of schools offering examinations in dance at GCSE,
A/S and A Level.
In 2015 there was a decrease of 2% taking GCSE, 14% AS and 0.8% A Level Dance.
Over the period 2010 – 2015 there has been a decline of 25% taking GCSE, 24% AS
and 17% A Level Dance.
The increase in the number taking the single Performance Arts examination
demonstrates that there are fewer opportunities for students to acquire the
appropriate levels of skills and knowledge in dance, and the other performing art
forms of drama and music, to be fully educated within these disciplines and equipped
to progress onto further training and education.’
As more data and information comes through over the next few years, it will be
important to remember that the goalposts are moving. If there is a sudden rise in
uptake in Drama and Dance in September 2016, how will that have been affected by
the scrapping of Performing Arts and Expressive Arts?
We also need to know more about what motivates provision and student choice. As
Aine Lark, Chair of National Drama, said:
‘From National Drama's view point, we are keen to emphasise that the percentage
drop in students taking Drama is not a reflection of students not wanting to study the
subject: it is most likely that schools have been forced to restrict the arts options
available and reduce the time given to arts across the curriculum. In some cases the
subject has been removed altogether. This results in less freedom of choice for
students; less focus on developing well rounded citizens; and less opportunities
available for creative learning.’
Cultural Learning Alliance, August 2015
5