As a member of both the Petitions Committee and Education Select Committee, Catherine led a debate in Parliament yesterday (4th July) on an e-petition calling on the Government to rethink the exclusion of all creative, artistic and technical subjects from the English Baccalaureate, or EBacc.
Catherine’s opening speech can be read below, with a full transcript of yesterday’s debate available here.
Catherine McKinnell: I beg to move,
That this House has considered e-petition 111731 relating to expressive arts subjects and the EBacc.
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Buck. As a member of the Petitions Committee and the Select Committee on Education, I am delighted to introduce the debate. The title of the petition, which was signed by more than 102,000 people, is “Include expressive arts subjects in the Ebacc”. It reads:
“The English Baccalaureate, or Ebacc, is a standard which maintains that English, maths, science, a language and a humanity define a good education. The exclusion of art, music, drama and other expressive subjects is limiting, short sighted and cruel. Creativity must be at the heart of our schools.
Sec of State for Education, Nicky Morgan, states that she wants 90% of sixteen year olds to have The Ebacc. Numeracy and literacy are certainly key to future success in life, but it is wrong to say that the arts are not worthy of inclusion in a measure used to grade a school’s success. Our children deserve a broad, creative education, but the Ebacc is giving rise to massive declines in numbers of students able to choose arts subjects, at a time when the CBI demands more creative people.”
The petition was created by Richard Wilson, a drama teacher from Essex, because, as he explained, the
“marginalisation and downgrading of the arts and other creative subjects in state education is a topic which demands a debate in the Houses of Parliament.”
So here we are. Indeed, he says:
“The EBacc will have a dreadful impact on the arts in our schools.”
Mr Wilson’s petition was able to achieve the level of support it has thanks to the work of the Bacc for the Future campaign, and I know a number of people are here today, paying close attention to the debate. There is support from more than 200 organisations from the UK’s cultural sector, including the Design Council, the Creative Industries Federation, the BRIT school, Aardman Animations, the North East’s Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, trade unions, orchestras, museums, art galleries, theatres, performing arts colleges, festivals, creative industry businesses and many more—all united in the belief that the Government’s education policies and specifically the EBacc risk profoundly damaging Britain’s rich and vibrant history of creativity and cultural achievement.
Those concerns have been passionately reflected in the countless emails and briefing notes that I have received ahead of this afternoon’s debate, and the responses I received to last week’s EBacc Twitter debate, which was kindly facilitated by the Petitions Committee Clerks. I have no doubt that everyone here today shares that passion and recognises the intrinsic value of the arts and arts education for society and the enjoyment and fulfilment they bring to children and adults in all walks of life across the UK. Of course, the opportunity of a creative education must be available to all—a view that appeared to be shared by the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he wrote earlier this year:
“everyone—no matter who they are or where they come from—should have an equal opportunity to fulfil their creative potential.”
In a speech launching the Government’s life chances strategy in January, the Prime Minister pledged that
“culture should never be a privilege; it is a birthright that belongs to us all. But the truth is there are too many young people in Britain who are culturally disenfranchised. And if you believe in publicly funded arts and culture—as I passionately do—then you must also believe in equality of access, attracting all and welcoming all.”
The White Paper published in March by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport could not have been clearer, making a commitment that
“All state-funded schools must provide a broad and balanced curriculum that promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils. Experiencing and understanding culture is integral to education. Knowledge of great works of art, great music, great literature and great plays, and of their creators, is an important part of every child’s education. So too is being taught to play a musical instrument, to draw, paint and make things, to dance and to act. These can all lead to lifelong passions and can open doors to careers in the cultural and creative sectors and elsewhere. Without this knowledge and these skills, many children from disadvantaged backgrounds are excluded from meaningful engagement with their culture and heritage.”
Michelle Donelan (Con, Chippenham): Does the hon. Lady accept that those subjects are widely available at the moment, with the EBacc in place, and that the premise of the EBacc is to provide a core of academically rigorous subjects? Perhaps our attention should be on the evolution of the EBacc to include such subjects as design and technology, and on enhancing students’ career potential, rather than on including in it every subject currently offered in the curriculum.
Catherine McKinnell: It is helpful that the hon. Lady suggests a solution to the concerns I have outlined. The reality for the organisations, teachers and schools that have expressed concern to me in great numbers is that the take-up of the subjects she mentions is already starting to decline, which is of huge concern. I appreciate that she is trying to make constructive comments, but she cannot wipe out the fact that the concerns are real and must be addressed. I hope that the Minister is listening not only to me but to constructive solutions that may be offered.
David Lammy (Lab, Tottenham): Does my hon. Friend agree that it is incredibly insulting to the country’s music and art teachers to give the impression that the subjects in question are not academically rigorous? Does she know how hard it is to pass music and art?
Catherine McKinnell: My right hon. Friend makes a key point, which a number of people have put to me in strong terms; he puts it very well. I do know how hard it is to pass those subjects, partly from personal experience and that of people close to me, but partly from the people, including teachers, I spoke to ahead the debate. Frankly, they feel insulted by the tone of the Government’s proposals.
We are all aware that the education sector is going through a period of significant and seemingly never-ending change and reform, of which the EBacc is a part. It was initially planned as a formal certificate, but that idea was dropped. It was first applied by the coalition Government in 2010 as a
“headline measure of secondary school performance”.
It judges all schools according to the number of pupils who have achieved grades A* to C across English language and literature, maths, double science, history or geography and a language—subjects that, when studied at A-level, are defined by the Russell Group of universities as “facilitating”. In other words, they are the A-levels most commonly required for entry to the UK’s leading universities, which are attended by 11% of young people.
Following a consultation in November 2015, the Government now want at least 90% of students in mainstream secondary schools to be entered for the EBacc by 2020, thereby taking up at least seven of those students’ GCSE options. The Bacc for the Future campaign has raised concerns that, given that the average number of full GCSEs taken by pupils is 8.1,
“a compulsory EBacc will leave little, if any, room for rigorous, challenging creative subjects which have been approved by the Government’s own Wolf Review of vocational education.”
Nobody doubts the importance of young people’s gaining a solid foundation in English, maths and science; that is why those subjects have always been compulsory. However, the petition objects to the exclusion from the EBacc all creative, artistic and technical subjects, which sends a clear message to young people, parents, teachers, school leaders and society at large about the value that the Government place on subjects that help to create expressive, communicative, self-confident and well rounded human beings. For many young people, those may be the only subjects at which they excel.
Tristram Hunt (Lab, Stoke on Trent Central): My hon. Friend is making a superb speech. Is it not ironic that what we need for the economy of the future and the digital revolution of the future is the breaking down of rather traditional arts and science silos? Creative subjects provide exactly the kind of skills and training that will let young people succeed. We would be mad to strip those subjects out of our education system, not least because we are rather good at them.
Catherine McKinnell: My hon. Friend makes a valid and important point.
The question that has been asked over and over again is: why? I hope the Minister will answer that question today. Why would the Government want to limit opportunities to study subjects such as design and technology? The Edge Foundation commented during last week’s EBacc Twitter debate:
“D&T teaches young people how things are designed, developed, made and improved”.
As the National Society for Education in Art and Design succinctly put it,
“In life ‘knowing how’ is just as important as ‘knowing that’.”
I am quite sure that the Minister will pledge in his response that the Government have no intention of restricting access to these subjects. Indeed, in the culture White Paper, the Education Secretary declared that
“Access to cultural education is a matter of social justice.”
However, warm words are simply not enough. What does the Minister really think will be the result of forcing all schools, which are already hard-pressed, to enter 90% of their pupils for the EBacc? A headteacher and member of the organisation SCHOOLS NorthEast has commented that the EBacc creates a “false hierarchy of subjects”. The National Association of Head Teachers has remarked,
“Given the pressures created by the Ebacc, there will be precious little time left for subjects outside the core.”
Nick Gibb (Schools Minister): I did not intend to intervene, but I will do so on that point. The hon. Lady referred to a hierarchy of English, maths and science, so there is already a hierarchy. Does she want to remove that element of compulsion up to 16 in order to eradicate that hierarchy?
Catherine McKinnell: I thank the Minister for intervening simply because it shows that he is listening to the debate, which is good. However, those were not my words; they were the words of a SCHOOLS NorthEast member, who has said that the EBacc creates not a hierarchy but a false hierarchy. I said at the beginning of my comments that nobody questions the importance of maths, English and science as a foundation of learning, but the restrictive nature of the EBacc leaves no room for artistic subjects. I am pleased the Minister is listening so carefully.
Who could blame headteachers for wanting to focus all of their schools’ energies on delivering the EBacc’s results, whether or not the subjects studied are appropriate for their pupils? They hear repeated warnings, including in the Conservative party manifesto, that their school will not be able to receive the highest rating from Ofsted if they do not meet their EBacc targets. I know the Education Secretary believes that those expressing concerns about the EBacc are “adults writing off children”, but nothing could be further from the truth. They are seeing a Government restricting young people’s life chances by forcing them to focus on a narrow and restrictively defined group of subjects. They are concerned about a Government reducing the ability of schools such as Walbottle Campus in my constituency to deliver a balanced and creative curriculum tailored to each young person’s talents and needs and focusing on the overall experience and wellbeing of their students. Of course, this is a Government who are determined to impose a one-size-fits-all approach to GCSEs at a time when they claim to be introducing autonomy for all headteachers and local schools through academisation.
The Schools Minister has repeatedly claimed that there is no evidence the EBacc is having a negative impact on the arts, substantiating that with the argument that in the past five years there has been a 3% increase in the uptake of at least one arts subject. We may well hear that again in his response today, but the Bacc for the Future campaign has stated that those figures are flawed as they omit various BTEC qualifications, include early entry AS-levels and neglect design and technology, in which exam entries dropped by a staggering 19,000 last year. Indeed, new figures produced just last month show that entries for GCSEs in arts subjects have fallen by 46,000 this year compared with last year—a loss five times the one in 2015, when candidate numbers for arts subjects fell by 9,000. The ArtsProfessional website reported:
“The falling take-up of arts GCSEs has already started to spill over into A levels. There were 4,300 fewer candidates for A level arts subjects this year—a decline three times bigger than the 1,500 recorded in 2015.”
Of most concern is the claim by the Creative Industries Federation that schools with a high proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals have been more than twice as likely to withdraw arts subjects as those with a low proportion. So much for access to cultural education being a matter of social justice. Of course, that decline is taking place even before the EBacc has become compulsory in our schools. The chief executive of the Creative Industries Federation said that the decline is
“alarming and further confirms a longstanding trend that EBacc is clearly exacerbating.”
He went on to comment:
“For a sector already suffering skills shortages, undervaluing and excluding creative subjects has major ramifications. The impact will not only be felt by the creative economy but also by other sectors, such as engineering, that desperately need some of the same skills. Although it is possible to take up jobs in our sector without exam results in creative subjects, it is much harder and potentially more expensive to do so, which obviously further diminishes the chances for young people from more disadvantaged backgrounds. There are many people who are not academic in a traditional sense and who would struggle with the EBacc yet are thriving and excelling today in careers from fashion to video games. If creative subjects are increasingly painted as an ‘optional extra’ to a more traditional core curriculum, these are some of the people who could be lost in future.”
As the Chancellor highlighted in his 2015 autumn statement,
“Britain is not just brilliant at science; it is brilliant at culture too. One of the best investments we can make as a nation is in our extraordinary arts, museums, heritage, media and sport.”
I agree. The Government’s own figures show that the creative industries are one of the fastest growing sectors in the UK economy, worth more than £84 billion a year or nearly £10 million an hour. According to the CBI, the creative industries employ some 2 million people, with around one in 11 jobs found in the creative economy. Critically, as the Creative Industries Federation highlights, those roles are broadly protected from automation.
This is an area in which Great Britain genuinely leads the world but one in which we have a significant skills shortage, so much so that a range of roles in the creative industries are included in the Home Office’s tier 2 visa shortage occupation list—for example, graphic designers, programmers, software developers, artists, producers, directors, dancers and skilled musicians. Nevertheless, this is the time when the Department for Education is determined to force schools down a path that will inevitably lead to even fewer British students taking up the subjects and developing the skills that the UK’s burgeoning creative industries desperately need. As has been made clear by Artists’ Union England—a relatively new trade union established by my constituent Theresa Easton—
“The new EBacc proposals will leave the creative sector without a future workforce.”
It is absolutely nonsensical.
Of particular concern is the evidence highlighted by the Creative Industries Federation’s higher and further education working group, which shows that many of the courses that need students to have studied art and design at school level also have high levels of students with special educational needs. The group cites remarks by the British Dyslexia Association that
“People with dyslexia are frequently successful in entrepreneurship, sales, art and design, entertainment, acting, engineering, architecture, I.T., computer animation, technical and practical trades and professions.”
It also cites the fact that more than 4,000 students at the University of the Arts London are disabled and/or dyslexic—24%, compared with just 4.7% at Cambridge University.
Sharon Hodgson (Lab, Washington & Sunderland West): My hon. Friend is making an excellent introductory speech, which I congratulate her on. I am very pleased that she mentioned special educational needs and dyslexia. As she knows, my son Joseph, who is now 22, is severely dyslexic. He will graduate in the next few weeks from Teesside University with a degree in games art and design; I am thrilled. He could not read until the age of 14 and he would never have passed the EBacc, but he is creative. His brain works in a different way, and he was able to go on through equivalencies to now get a degree.
Catherine McKinnell: I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, because I know that she not only cares passionately about how well her own son does and has done, but cares and campaigns passionately for all children with special educational needs. This is an issue that the Minister must sit up and take notice of because by insisting on the implementation of EBacc for all or almost all pupils, the Government seriously risk restricting the life chances and future career opportunities of those with special educational needs. Not only does that do those young people out of their potential creative futures, but it does our creative industries out of their special skills and contributions.
Finally, I want to touch on concerns that have been raised with me about the EBacc by Studio West – a studio school established in West Denton in my constituency in September 2014. As Studio West has highlighted, studio schools have been established to bridge the gap between the skills and knowledge that young people need for success and those that the current education system provides. By design, a studio school’s curriculum embraces enterprise initiatives, innovative project-based and work-related approaches to learning and an emphasis on employable skills. Studio West feels very strongly that the EBacc judgment made of all secondary schools is too restrictive if studio schools are to fully embrace their ethos.
Nick Gibb (Schools Minister): The hon. Lady is making a very good speech, and I wanted to intervene in order to demonstrate that I am still listening to her wise words. The EBacc consultation makes the point that there is no proposal – certainly set out in the consultation – to include studio schools in the requirement for the EBacc.
Catherine McKinnell: I thank the Minister for that intervention because I have already written to him about this issue and have been awaiting a response.I hope that we will receive a fuller response in his reply to the debate, or indeed in writing.
In conclusion, I introduced my remarks this afternoon by talking about the intrinsic value of the arts and arts education for individuals and wider society. Those points are echoed by Studio West in my constituency:
“Expressive arts subjects allow for intensive focus on essential transferable skills such as problem solving, working collaboratively, interpretive analysis, empathy, self-confidence, discipline, dedication and mastery, to name but a few.”
I was contacted by a large number of individuals and organisations ahead of this debate and I am conscious that I have not been able to mention them all; however, there is one that I want to make particular reference to in conclusion this afternoon. Last week, I received an email from Emma, an experienced secondary school teacher in West Yorkshire. Emma got in touch to ask me to raise her concerns about the EBacc not because I am her MP, but because her voice in Parliament was brutally taken away by the shocking death of our late friend and colleague, Jo Cox – sorry; it’s hard to speak about this – whom she had previously asked to attend this debate.
At a time when we know that there has been a significant increase in mental health issues in young people and at a time when we need more, not less, empathy, tolerance and co-operation in society, I strongly urge the Government to look again and consider the impact that the EBacc is having on the subjects that can help us to achieve that.