ISSUE 9: WHO WILL STUDY THE ARTS AT SCHOOL NOW THAT THE ENGLISH BACCALAUREATE IS A SUCCESS?

Issue: Who Will Study the Arts at Scholl now that the English Baccalreureate is success

Convener(s): Stuart Lock

Participants:
Regina,
Henrietta,
Keely,
Stuart
Eleanor,
Max,
Gemma
Grainne


Summary of discussion, conclusions and/or recommendations:
The Baccaleareate consists of a narrow set of subjects and schools will be measured based on the performance of their students in the following Mathematics English Science a language and a humanities subject. Success in music and drama will not be measured. Concerns were:

• Will Music and Drama teachers lose their jobs? What are the implications further down the line?

• The group consensus was that Gove’s imposition on schools is bad for the child’s education and development.

We discussed values.
Values are forced on young people.
Parents may place more value on subjects that are perceived as having economic potential especially as students will leave university with a great deal of debt.
What does it say to young people about the decisions they make?

Value of creativity
Entrepreneurial skills are highly prized. There is a growth industry in digital and creative arts in this country. We therefore felt that the creative arts should be taught in schools. Also we discussed how the arts develop the child as a person. The arts should be valued in general. We discussed that fact that people see it as a luxury and an activity that people could do in their spare time.

We discussed the fact that school should try to create conditions in which children will flourish. The narrow band of subjects will ensure that a lot of people who are currently succeeding may well now fail.

Solutions
How can schools teach within these constraints?

Teachers must be more subversive. Perhaps there is more buy in from schools. What dominates the thinking? Perhaps a broader view of creativity is required ie in mathematics. We need to show them the benefits. How is it measured? Can we think of Performance rather than theatre when we consider creativity? Theatre is perhaps a little antiquated whereas we live in a performative society where people present themselves a great deal through social networking sites
and through digital media. Perhaps this needs to be embraced across school.

Names we mentioned:
Mark Prenski – he has written about how out dated our tests are. We should not be testing knowledge, but how to research it and apply it.

Sal: creativity through mathematics.