The Arts in Schools - Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation

politicians on all sides were competing to say who thought of the idea first.By 1987 the value of a national curriculum was almost taken for granted. Theissue was, and remains, 'What sort of national curriculum?'From the point of view of this report, a national curriculum is greatly to bewelcomed. The actual provisions for the arts in the Education Reform Act areinappropriate and must be challenged. But it would be wrong to suppose agolden age for arts education existed before 1988, which the NationalCurriculum has now swept away. Our reason for publishing the report in thefirst place was that the arts were historically undervalued and poorly providedfor in state schools. Our aim was and is to secure a full and balanced artseducation for all pupils as a matter of basic educational entitlement. This isbest done within an agreed statutory framework in all schools. The newdifficulty is that the particular provisions of the Education Reform Act forthe arts do not go far enough, and in one respect at least are badly misconceived.The legislation identifies mathematics, English and science as core subjectsand art and music as two of the other seven foundation subjects. The inclusionof art and music within the National Curriculum is very important and mayprove to enhance the place of all the arts in schools. In terms of the argumentspresented in this report, however, there is no reason to elevate these two areasof the arts above others, notably dance and drama. Ministers have been keento argue that drama is included in the National Curriculum within English,and dance as part of PE. This argument betrays a basic misapprehension ofthe nature and relationships of the arts in schools. Being aware of this, theNational Curriculum working group on English, under the chairmanship ofProfessor Brian Cox, concluded that 'the inclusion of drama methods inEnglish should not in any way replace drama as a subject for specialist study'(DES 1989 Para 8.3).As we argue throughput this report, music, dance, drama, visual arts andverbal arts share similar processes and fulfil related roles in education andshould be planned for collectively as a generic area of the curriculum. Thedivision of art and music from other arts disciplines and the inclusion ofdrama and dance as aspects of English and PE is as inappropriate as a divisionbetween, say, chemistry and biology from the rest of science, and the inclusionof physics under maths. This is feasible, but misconceived.Sensibly, the National Curriculum identifies 'science' as a generic area of thecurriculum. The Secretary of State commissioned a specialist working groupto identify in detail the range and depth of science education appropriate toall pupils, drawing on the varied knowledge and expertise of the variousscientific disciplines (DES 1988). A similar approach is needed in the arts andachieving it is an urgent task. The National Curriculum is not set in stone.One of the tasks of the NCC is to keep the curriculum under review and toadvise the Secretary of State on proper revisions. A medium-term objectivemust be to ensure a more coherent provision for the arts within an equal andcommon framework for all disciplines.XV