The Curriculum and Assessment Review

The Department for Education (DfE) have opened a Call for Evidence to all stakeholders about what works, what doesn’t and what can be improved in Curriculum and Assessment in the English education system.  

We see our role at Music Mark as vital to ensure that Music is powerfully represented to the DfE as a crucial component of a balanced curriculum, and we do this by calling on you to join us in making a response. Though the survey questions are specifically about curriculum and assessment in the education system the views of all stakeholders are relevant and welcome; we know that you, our members, have a wealth of expertise regarding music education that should be heard and valued. 

The survey is considerable in length; you may have already completed it, or, if like the Music Mark team you want to take time to consider what it is you want to say before submitting a response, then you may find our reflections so far useful.  

During the week beginning 4th November, we will publish a list of questions from the survey with Music Mark’s answers. We don’t claim to have expertise in every area, so we will intentionally not respond to every question in the survey. The questions we will be answering are gathered below into themed sections, and we hope that this will support you whether you want to amplify what we have said or tailor the answers to reflect your experience.

Make your response using the online survey by the deadline: 22nd November 2024. 

Here are some of the reflections from the Music Mark team:  

It was only last year that The Arts In Schools: Foundations for the Future was published. Many of the recommendations in this document give sufficient evidence as to what is needed in a review of curriculum and assessment. This includes the question ‘What is Schooling for?’ (p.35) and setting out that: 

“We require clear purposes for schooling and a coherent vision for subject areas, with curriculum linked to purposes. All curriculum areas would benefit from a considered and collective understanding of the purposes of education as the basic foundation for the schooling system. There should not be a separate policy for each of the arts but a general curriculum policy which provides a framework of principles for expressive arts provision which relates them to the purposes of the whole school curriculum, and their unique contribution to it.” 

This will feature in our thinking when responding to Qs 28 and 29 which focus on ‘Broad & Balanced curriculum’ and ‘qualification pathways’. We also have the opportunity in Q31 to express how Music helps to develop essential creative skills. 

Individuals in the Music Mark team share some core beliefs: 

Music Should Be Made Statutory 

We believe Music should be made a statutory subject. This is not said without awareness of the challenges and improvements that are needed to make this a reality (which will be outlined in Q11). These may include our sensitivity for non-specialist teachers delivering music, the potential for an increase in teacher workload, timetable pressures and accountability measures in other subjects. However, for us, this is a question of social justice, equality and enhancing the lives of all children and young people.  

Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson said music and drama are… 

“Becoming the preserve of parents who have extra money and can play for clubs and classes on a weekend (…). There’s so much talent across our country, (…) so much imagination, creativity (…). And the arts is one area that’s becoming increasingly dominated by people from private school backgrounds.” September 2024¹ 

All children should have the right, in whatever education setting they are in, to experience a quality music education, and we need to ensure that Music is an entitlement, not a lottery or as a result of a family decision to pay for this. We will make this clear in our response to ‘barriers’ in Qs 12, 13 and 14.  

Music should be valued for its own worth 

Our internal discussion covered the importance of creative and expressive arts subjects being valued for their own worth, and not for the value they can bring to other subjects. We will revisit these discussions when answering questions about Music curriculum content (Q22, 23, 25 and 27), however, we hear from educators that the inspectorate plays a vital role that (often adversely) affects the decision-making of a school’s curriculum, which we will address in answer to Q44.  

We know that there are many recommendations for improvement we could make, and we may include some of these in our response to Q11. These improvements will take varying amounts of time, energy and money. At this point in time, most importantly we need to take this opportunity to celebrate Music, and in Q10 defend the amazing progress we see with children and young people throughout our work.  

Beyond the survey 

The questions have not leant themselves to allow us to be radical, bold and creative in the evidence we provide. The ‘curriculum subject trends’ tell one story.

We know that music has value of its own, and enabling children and young people to discover this gives them their own unique, personal, and progressive learning journey. But music does not sit in a silo; like many subjects, it is the cross-curricular/inter-disciplinary learning that helps us see the value in each skill and make connections. 

In the same way that it is unhelpful to reinforce the position of English and Maths by them being the only specifically named subjects in this survey, it would be interesting and exciting if an outcome of your contribution to this survey is that deeper reflection takes place. Not simply what subjects make up the national curriculum, but how learning experiences thread together and complement one another so that every individual child and young person enjoys a rich and diverse education that gives them opportunities to exceed their potential. 

What next:  

1. Take a look at the themes that we have extracted from the survey below.  
2. Read our responses during the week beginning 4th November to help inform your thinking. 
3. Make your own response using this link by the deadline of 22nd November.

These are the 18 questions we wish to make a response to, broken down into themed sections.  

• Section 1: Qs 10,11, 12, 13, 14 Working well? Improve? Barriers?  
• Section 2: Qs 16, 20 English and Maths 
• Section 3: Qs 22, 23, 25, 27 Curriculum content  
• Section 4: Qs 28, 29, 31 Broad & Balanced, pathways, qualifications (Q 31 creative skills and creative subjects) 
• Section 5: Qs 32, 42, Data, trends, pupil progress and outcomes at KS3; how can we improve? 
• Section 6: Q 44, Accountability; (e.g. Ofsted) Does it affect decision-making?  
• Section 7: Q 53, Future use of technology 

¹ Rising star’s journey from Byker Grove to the cabinet table | Politics | News | Express.co.uk