Nick Gibb's weasel words

[Cockney Sparrow]

Yes
and not the ones where our "leaders" send their children

Free and Independent schools also don't have to employ qualified teachers.

Apologies if these have been mentioned in threads I haven't read. Whilst we were abroad, we listened (long car journey) to this constructive and informative discussion:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00013vs (13th November) Front Row

Arts Education in schools - a Front Row debate from Leicester

Arts education has become the focus of a great deal of passion and concern recently, since the core, knowledge-based subjects took precedence over the creative subjects when the EBacc was introduced in England by the then Education Minister Michael Gove, announced in 2010.

With the arts not being a requirement in the GCSE syllabus for the English Baccalaureate (the EBacc), leaders in the arts and the lucrative creative industries have been very vocal in their criticism of government policy.

Stig Abell chairs a discussion on the subject from a state secondary school - Soar Valley College in Leicester - with leading figures in arts and education.


And this past evening - on Front Row, Dr Savage challenged Nick Gibb, but didn't quite manage to skewer him before the inevitable "time has run out for this part of the programme":
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00027yt (from 14:42)

New Music Curriculum
Earlier this month, the Department for Education announced plans for a new model music curriculum with the aim of stopping the decline in the number of pupils studying music at GCSE and A Level. The plan has faced criticism including thirty academics with backgrounds in music and education signing an open letter to the DfE. The Right Honourable Nick Gibb, Minister for School Standards, and Dr Jonathan Savage from Manchester Metropolitan University, and former Chair of Expert Subject Advisory Group for Music 2013, join Gaylene to discuss if the proposed new curriculum is the right answer to the right question.


But whatever comes from it, it won't be part of the National Curriculum and of course it wouldn't in any case bind all those non Local Authority schools. So music education will be voluntary and down to Headteachers (and, supposedly, governing bodies). The first programme shows there are indeed some enlightened and supportive heads but that leaves all the rest…………………. (And most state school pupils short changed as never before).

[oddoneout]

I read this yesterday. It raise questions and possibly is not helpful in the argument for school provision when viewed through the distortions of current 'education' policy, but without having read the original report I don't know.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/jan/31/two-thirds-of-british-children-make-music-study-finds