Employers highlight the importance of arts and technical subjects - In 2019 the Confederation of British Industry reported that businesses have noticed a narrowing of the curriculum in recent years and stated that ‘we need to provide a curriculum that instead of narrowing horizons, broadens them, and fosters skills such as creativity, resilience, communication, and problemsolving.’[15] Parents believe that creativity is vital to the economy and crucial for wellbeing - In a Universities UK survey of over 2,000 parents with children of 18 or under, nearly two thirds agreed that creative courses at university benefit the UK economy, while more than two thirds said that students gain vital creative skills at university that are essential to powering the UK’s creative industries.[16] Parents were clear that creative activities were crucial to boosting wellbeing during the pandemic, while making music in particular helps people to make meaning in their lives and to create social connection. [17]
HOW DOES THIS RELATE TO PROGRESS 8? The initial decline in arts subjects corresponds to the introduction of the EBacc as an accountability measure in 2010, which focused secondary schools’ curriculum on five ‘core’ subjects at GCSE: English, maths, the sciences, a humanities subject and a language. Progress 8 has reinforced the negative impact of the EBacc on arts and technology subjects. Introduced in 2016, it was designed (in part) to measure how well pupils progress between the end of primary and GCSEs, rather than focusing on the numbers who achieve 5 A* to C at GCSE level. In Progress 8, a score is assigned to each pupil based on whether their actual GCSE scores in their best eight subjects are higher or lower than those achieved by pupils who had similar attainment at the end of primary school.