Speaking Up for Music Education at the APPG

Music Mark CEO, Bridget Whyte, was invited by the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Music Education secretariat, the Independent Society of Musicians (ISM), to speak at the APPG meeting on 8th June and provide an update on the music hub network. The meeting also featured a presentation from Stefano Pozzi from the Department for Education (DfE). The meeting was attended by both MPs and peers. To support ongoing discussions about music education, a short summary of Bridget’s speech was shared for the politicians to take away. Bridget’s full speech is reproduced below.

Can I start by thanking the Chair, members and secretariat of the APPG for Music Education for inviting me to speak.  I am honoured to do so as the CEO of Music Mark.  We are the UK Association for Music Education, representing music hub leaders and partners across England, as well as many music education providers and schools across the whole of the UK.  We work to support our Membership, to help them connect, and to influence on their behalf.  We are one of the three subject associations for Music Education – alongside the ISM and the Music Teachers Association – and we are proud to have funding from Arts Council England as a sector support organisation.    

We see our role as being part of a national network for music education, which, of course, was originally something that the Labour party were proposing to set up within their manifesto!  We remain committed to working in this way, and are hopeful that the organisation or consortium who are appointed to run the new National Centre for Arts and Music Education will recognise the existing network of national bodies who work to support music education and will want to learn from us and work with us as they develop and implement their plans. 

In addition to the national network, on a regional and local level, as you will know, there is already a rich and diverse music education infrastructure, and Music Mark stands ready to help the National Centre to understand and connect to this so it can signpost schools to the great training, resources, advice and guidance that already exist and is valued across the country.   

As some of you may know I will be leaving Music Mark in less than 3 months now, but I have no plans to take my foot off the pedal until the very last day… there remain so many ‘spinning plates’ which are in play currently. To give you an idea of what I mean, here are the current topics we are supporting the music education ecology to navigate: 

• As mentioned already, a key topic is how the music education sector will work with and be commissioned by the new National Centre for Arts and Music Education 
• Then there are the implications and impact for music of the new National Curriculum 
• The music industry current employs over 220,000 people.  How will the review of assessment at KS4 including the development of other qualifications and training routes for young people support skill development for the next generation to succeed in this growing sector?
• Sitting alongside curriculum music, most schools engage organisations and individuals to provide elective instrumental and vocal music tuition during curriculum time (as well as offering enrichment provision such as ensembles beyond the school day).  Our members who provide this tuition are asking us to encourage DfE to review its Charging in Schools Guidance to reflect and respond to the growing diversity of musical learning opportunities schools are hosting, reflecting growing concerns that leaders do not understand this guidance. 
• Knowing as we do the transformative impact musical learning can have, the sector has really welcomed the recent specific focus on supporting children with additional needs to fully access education, but how do we ensure that access to musical opportunities for this growing percentage of pupils is universal?
• More broadly, how will the entirety of the new Children’s Welfare and Schools Act play out?  How do we get ready for all schools across all ages, stages and abilities to deliver the National Curriculum and an enrichment programme especially when we don’t actually have enough teachers in and out of the classroom?
• And of course we’re still waiting for the Enrichment Framework to understand how that offer sits alongside national and broader curriculum musical learning.
• And what of Ofsted – with all this change, are they going to change their frameworks of inspection again and how might that affect music education?
• In sport we accept the word ‘elite’ means something positive, to strive for.  In the arts it isn’t seen in the same way.  Why not?  What is wrong with training artists to be world class?  Investment in the Music and Dance Scheme and our amazing National Youth Music Organisations by the DfE and Arts Council respectively is valued, but like other areas of the sector the funding is not meeting increased costs and demand for subsidies to ensure equitable access.
• Post 16, Music in Further and Higher Education and Initial Music Teacher Training are also of concern. We are the subject association for higher education, and our university music department members are concerned for their future and the removing the bursary to train is already seeing falling roles on teacher training courses.
• On a more positive note, is there finally a glimmer of hope that very outdated legislation around Child Performance Licenses will finally be revised?  This topic has been on my agenda since my first day at Music Mark!  For too many colleagues the significant administrative burden, additional costs and inconsistency at a local authority level is making it harder and harder to offer performance opportunities as the culmination of education programmes.
• Coming back to the topic of a pipeline, Music Mark is keen to connect with the DCMS’ ambitions set out in its Youth Matters strategy and Music Growth Package which clearly overlaps with the work of the DfE.  Progression routes into the creative industries must be clear and available to all, wherever a young person lives and regardless of their background and we are working to consider how we can support this.
• Beyond education and culture specific change, as Devolution continues in England – what does that mean for music education?
• Alongside this is Local Government Reorganisation (LGR). It is already having an impact, and horizon scanning tells us that this will continue to be a real challenge for several of our Local Authority Music Services – hub leaders and key partners.  We are truly concerned that LGR will have a significant impact on music provision in many parts of the country (and we have already seen the fallout of at least one music service that was required to split into two…)
• To finish my list, the final few plates we try to keep spinning all relate to recent and not so recent government decisions which impact budgets.  They each increase core operational costs which make it harder for the sector to deliver an equitable music education, to provide both initial opportunities and progression routes.  I won’t go into the detail, but they include: 

• • The increased Teachers Pension Scheme employer’s contribution.
  • The increase in employer National Insurance Contributions
  • And very ‘hot off the press’ is the recent HMRC decision to increase the tax-free mileage allowance from 45p to 55p per mile – an increase which will of course hit our Rural Music Services and other Hub delivery organisations the hardest. 

I should point out that the sector has welcomed the support (in line with that for schools) the DfE has been able to provide to those affected by the first two of these – although some Local Authority colleagues report support offered is not reaching them – but concern around uncertainty of future revenue funding and additional decisions like the increase in milage allowance can only have further impact.   

I realise all that’s a lot to take in, but hopefully it demonstrates that all these plates make for uncertain, challenging times…  

 So what can the members of the APPG for Music Education do to help?  

Firstly please keep doing what you do!  Keep championing the importance of a music education for all children and young people in England in both houses.  I have heard all of you talk passionately about music – you know it’s power and you know how much it can contribute to developing the whole child.   

Be champions, advocates.   

I can’t not take the opportunity to ask you to advocate for increased funding and I know many of you have already done so for which the sector is grateful. 

I could spend the next half hour providing evidence of the effects of standstill government revenue funding over the past 6 years, the ongoing reductions in other accessible funding streams, stretched council and school budgets, and rising demand for financial support from parents and carers that current remission funds cannot meet. I of course don’t have time to do that, but just to say that a survey of music hub partners we sent out last month told us that continued expectation to do more with significantly less is now leading to above-inflation fee increases, tighter eligibility for subsidies, and most dishearteningly cuts to staffing, programmes and projects.  

If I had time I could also expand on the challenge of staffing music education provision.  The financial pressures organisations are facing mean some employers have had revise or are in the process of revising contract terms and conditions to save money, and a number have told us they are worried they cannot offer a pay rise to their staff this year.  Both result in good staff leaving the profession.  Others report imposed recruitment freezes as staff leave.  All this additional pressure is resulting in leaders who are at risk of, or have already, burnt out.  Routes into the profession are also at risk, including due to the cuts in access to music in further and higher education and the removal of a bursary to train to be a teacher.   

Over the years the Music Hub network have worked hard to balance their books, but at this point the efficiencies have already been made, there is nothing left to cut! 

Of course I know the APPG will already be aware of these financial pressures and their impact on equity of access, progression opportunities and staff recruitment and retention. So instead, can I reflect on something Baroness Keeley once asked me – in another APPG (the one for Classical Music) – ‘if there isn’t any more money what can we do to help?’   

Whilst everyone in this room knows how great music is, there are still many school leaders and parents who need to better understand why it is so important for their pupils, their children to access this transformative subject in and out of the classroom.   

Can I therefore encourage you to consider as an APPG what more collectively and individually you might do to amplify that narrative, to tell the story of the great work being done up and down the country by the amazing organisations who are part of the 43 music hub partnerships and why it is so important?  We have to change the ‘Govian’ core subjects mantra which has become entrenched! 

To help you do this, could I suggest you get out and visit one, or more of the hub partnerships?  Hearing first-hand about the work they are doing and the lives they are transforming will help you in that advocacy work.  And when you do, ask hub leaders to tell you about the ambition they and their colleagues have for children and young people which is being stifled by a lack of funding and resources?  Ask them what more could they do if the funding was available to meet that ambition? 

I’ve run out of time, I know, so to finish, can I say that, whilst I may be kept awake at night worrying about the spinning plates, of an increasingly fragile music education ecology, what keeps me in the sector is seeing how resilient colleagues have been.  How, despite everything I’ve highlighted, the sector Music Mark is proud to represent is still changing lives through musical learning.   

The stories of individual children, whole classes or schools/communities transformed by musical opportunities available to them through the Music Hub network which includes schools, specialist institutions, music services, orchestras, venues, artists and community musicians across the country are many and varied.  Pupils who re-engage with school because of a music project, of teachers building confidence to sustain and develop learning for their pupils, and of schools turned around and communities brought together through music.   

Everyone is doing their best, putting in 150%, because we all believe in what we do, in the power of music to change the lives of the next generation as it has for the generation before.   

With your continued support and advocacy, I am confident that we can secure the future of music provision that is doing so much for those who will be our future workforce and our future audiences. 

Thank you

Explore the ongoing advocacy work Music Mark does on behalf of the UK Music Education sector on our Advocacy Timeline