Teachers call for curriculum reform to prevent ‘cultural divide’ in arts access

Teachers have condemned the ‘decimation’ of creative subjects at the National Education Union conference 2024. 

This follows a recent motion that teachers across the UK passed calling for damage to arts education ‘ caused by government intervention since 2010’ to be urgently addressed at the NEU conference. 

Called Creativity in the curriculum, the motion also instructs the NEU to push for sector-wise curriculum reform to ‘identify the loss of arts resources from schools and what funding is required to replace them’. 

Northumberland arts teacher Sarah Kilpatrick proposed the topic at the conference, warning that ‘the arts have been stolen from those who need them most’. 

Kilpatrick also described cuts to arts education as ‘cultural vandalism’ and ‘decimation’. 

A SEND music teacher in Sheffield, Emma Davis, seconded the motion, stating: ‘creativity and the arts cannot be squeezed into a corner of the curriculum’ or only accessed by the ‘privileged few’. 

These statements were reported on by Cerys Turner - journalist at TES. 

General secretary of the NEU, Daniel Kebede, said: ‘The disappearance of arts subjects from state schools, while thriving in the independent sector, is creating a cultural divide.’

He added: ‘For many, schools will be the only place that [access to the arts] will happen as the cost of private music lessons, visits to theatres and concerts are beyond the reach of an increasing number of families’. 

The Creativity in the curriculum motion was also amended by one spokesperson for arts education from Haringey who added that ‘current government policies do little to recognise diverse youth culture and restrict access to arts education for working class and black youth in particular’.