10/15/2018 Arts education makes pupils more employable, not less | Tes News

Arts education makes pupils more employable, not less

By Andrew Law 05 September 2018

Creative arts can't be an 'optional extra' – they equip pupils to be successful post-school, writes
Andrew Law

Today, HRH the Prince of Wales convenes a star-studded gathering of the great and the good
from drama, music, art, dance, comedy, teaching (and politics) to thrash out a plan for
resurrecting creative arts in our state schools.

The conference – organised by the Prince’s Children and the Arts foundation – would be better
described as a “summit”, such is the urgent need for action to save arts teaching in our schools, let
alone enabling it to thrive.

The statistics make grim reading: 9 in 10 state secondary schools have cut back on lesson time,
sta or facilities in at least one creative arts subject. There has been a 15 per cent reduction in
teaching hours for arts subjects over the past ve years, allied to a 20 per cent decrease in the
number of specialist teachers. This has led to a sharp fall in the number of children studying
art, design, music and drama to GCSE level (declining from 172,550 to 165,100 last year). It has
also had a knock-on e ect outside of the classroom – with 30 per cent fewer 5- to 10-year-olds
participating in out-of-school arts activities.
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Rosie Millard, chief executive of Children and the Arts, sums it up bluntly: “Creativity within state
schools has e ectively fallen o a cli .”

The situation in private schools is quite di erent. Pupils are exposed to fantastic opportunities to
experience and enjoy the arts on a daily basis – whether that’s drama and music lessons in state-
of-the-art facilities or trips to see professional performances and exhibitions that inspire and
bring these subjects to life. In fact, in the ultra-competitive world of private education, it’s now the
multimillion-pound performing arts centre that holds the key to persuading prospective parents
to part with their hard-earned cash.

State schools are not to blame for the current situation. I don’t for a second believe that any
headteacher has cut resources and teaching in these areas because they are cultural philistines.
No, it is due to the wider nancial and political pressures exerted on state schools and their
teachers to target limited resources on delivering strong results in “core” subjects, such as maths
and English.

'Core' combines with 'creative' 

The league-table culture in British education has been much commented upon, but one
consequence is that creative arts are increasingly viewed as “optional extras”. This is a huge
mistake. There should be no distinction formed between “core” and “creative” subjects – they
complement each other to form part of the rich educational experience that every young person
deserves. This combination is vital for shaping state school students who are more creative, more
intellectually curious and (critically) more likely to demonstrate the skill set required to impress
universities and top employers.

That’s the philosophy we’re putting into practice at the Laurus Trust, a multi-academy trust in the
North-West of England that I sponsor. We believe students can only achieve their full potential in
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10/15/2018 Arts education makes pupils more employable, not less | Tes News

life if they are given the full spectrum of learning opportunities – including extensive, dedicated
and expert exposure to the arts.

But while it’s important to foster a love of music and drama from an early age, there are more
hard-nosed reasons for why we’ve placed such emphasis on the arts within our teaching
programme. Working with pioneering voice coach Patsy Rodenburg OBE (mentor to Hollywood
star Orlando Bloom, among others), we have created a unique Culture, Creativity and Rhetoric
programme (“the Cicero Curriculum”) for students across Laurus Trust schools. The curriculum is
designed to embrace the skills developed in creative arts subjects, such as performance, stage
presence and rhetoric, and, crucially, to harness them in real-world settings: from intimidating
Oxbridge interviews to assessment-day selections at FTSE 100 employers.

Likewise, it develops an attribute in our students that our teaching sta now call their “cultural
capital”. This means increasing their general knowledge of types of quotes, language and cultural
references; from Shakespearean quotes to classical references, these are the reference points
that state school students like me have traditionally missed out on. This will form part of their
vocabulary in the wider world and levels the playing eld with those people from more privileged
backgrounds.

Barrier to Oxbridge and top jobs

So here’s the crux. The great irony of state schools cutting back on their creative arts teaching in
favour of more “employable subjects” is that it’s having the reverse e ect. These cuts will make
academically successful state school students less likely to secure the best university places and
the very top jobs. The most disadvantaged state school students will be hurt the most because
they have less access to this cultural development at home; they're even less likely to break down
cultural barriers to social mobility; and less likely, again, to see all their hard work matched with
outstanding achievements.

Take Cheadle Hulme High School – the Laurus Trust’s founder school and my alma mater – which
has just announced exceptional A-level results, with two students getting into Oxbridge. More
pupils achieved the results to get into Oxbridge, but fell short at interview – demonstrating clearly
that achievement at the very highest level is about more than good grades. Others lacked the
aspiration to apply, as they did not regard Oxbridge as being for “people like them”. This is at the
heart of what we’re doing with the Cicero Curriculum: raising each student’s cultural capital
alongside academic excellence.

The Prince of Wales describes arts teaching as “returning a bit of magic into our children’s lives".
That’s absolutely true. But it’s also about ensuring that every state school student has the skills
and creativity they need to reach the very top in whatever they decide to do. Now that’s
something worth making a song and dance about.

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10/15/2018 Arts education makes pupils more employable, not less | Tes News

Andrew Law is chairman and CEO of hedge fund Caxton Associates, and chairman of trustees for
Speakers for Schools

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