Letters, emails, online comments

LETTER of the MONTH

LEAVE THEM KIDS ALONE

It’s common knowledge that music provision in UK state schools continues to sink to new lows. Today, one in ive students has no option to study music at GCSE, let alone A level, and it will come as no surprise that the vast majority of such students live in the country’s most socio-economically deprived areas. In ive years as a classroom music teacher, I have seen a narrower and narrower focus on attainment in ‘core’ subjects at the expense of those that teach creativity, expression and teamwork.the shortening of lunch breaks, supposedly tothelp students learn more and misbehave less, has further restricted time for extra-curricular musical activities.

Like many of those interviewed in the article (‘Learning diiculties?’, June 2019), I was dismayed to learn that the government had chosen to partner with the ABRSM to design its new curriculum for music in schools. I’m sure some will welcome the emphasis on reading notation and ‘understanding the works of great composers’, but this attempt at restoring the place of music in schools is massively wide of the mark. Instead, we need two things: irst, the statutory commitment to providing all children under the age of 14 with at least an hour a week in which to explore and experiment with sounds and forms. Second, we should try to speak to these young people on their own terms and make space in our curricula for the kinds of music that actually excite them. Of course there’s a place in music education for ABRSM and their rigorous, traditional approach – it just isn’t in our school classrooms.