The position of arts subjects in England’s schools has been heavily debated in recent years. Arts sector organisations and teaching unions have argued that changes to school performance tables and pressures on school funding have been causing a decline in take-up of arts subjects; these claims have been rejected by the Department for Education.
New research from the Education Policy Institute, published last week, is intended to provide clarity to this debate. It is based on statistical analysis of pupil exam entries over the past ten years, and supplemented by discussions with secondary school teachers and leaders.
It found that by 2016, entry rates to arts subjects by England’s sixteen-year-olds had fallen to their lowest level in a decade, despite several years of small increases up to 2014.
Behind the overall trend there is considerable complexity, relating both to the drivers of the change and the ways in which this change has been experienced by different groups of pupils. The introduction of new accountability measures (particularly the English Baccalaureate and Progress 8), pressures on school budgets, and school-level issues (including the priorities and decisions of school leaders, and attitudes of parents and pupils), are all likely drivers.
The English Baccalaureate (or EBacc) is particularly controversial within the arts sector because it incentivises schools to enter pupils for a selection of five core academic subjects—English, maths, the sciences, a language, and either history or geography. Pupils who attain at least a grade C in each of these subjects are said to have achieved the EBacc. Each school’s EBacc entry and attainment rates are published in performance tables, creating an incentive for schools to prioritise these subjects and potentially limiting curriculum time for the arts.
"Nearly two-thirds of girls take an arts subject, compared to just over 40 per cent of boys"Our analysis found that pupils who enter the EBacc are less likely to take at least one arts subjects than those who do not, with 49.2 per cent of EBacc entrants taking at least one arts subject, compared to 56.5 per cent of other pupils. But despite concerns about its effects, it is striking that nearly half of pupils who take the EBacc do take an arts subject.
Instead, our report identified Progress 8 as potentially more important. Progress 8 is a school performance measure introduced in 2016 and designed to measure the progress of pupils between the end of primary school and the end of secondary school across eight subjects—English, maths, three further EBacc subjects, and three “other” subjects. Understandably, schools will look to maximise the number of pupils entering this combination of subjects.
In 2016, the proportion of pupils entered for the full EBacc—that is, entries in all five of its component parts—rose by only 1 percentage point, but the proportion entered for four of its components increased considerably—by 10.8 percentage points. Schools are increasing entries to EBacc subjects—and so potentially leaving less space in the curriculum for arts subjects—but not in a way which is leading to substantially greater entry rates to the full EBacc. Instead, this pattern of entries appears to be an attempt to improve performance against Progress 8.
But even this is only part of the story. Arts subjects cannot count towards five of the eight Progress 8 subject slots, but they can be included in its three “other” subject slots. This means that Progress 8 provides an element of protection to arts subjects: schools in which pupils achieve high results in the arts have an incentive to continue to offer them in order to demonstrate strong pupil progress in the “other” Progress 8 slots.
The report also identified wide variations in the entry rates of different groups of pupils. Disadvantaged pupils have experienced a notable change in arts entry rates over the past decade. Ten years ago, pupils eligible for free school meals (FSM) were substantially less likely than other pupils to enter at least one arts subject. This gap has since been reversed, following a sharp increase in entry rates amongst FSM pupils between 2011 and 2014. This is likely to be associated with the coalition government’s reforms to the performance tables that reduced the value of a range of non-GCSE subjects. This may have initially prompted schools to encourage pupils away from these qualifications and into arts subjects as an alternative.
We also found a large gender gap in arts entries: nearly two-thirds of girls take an arts subject, compared to just over 40 per cent of boys. Similarly, entries are high for pupils from Black Caribbean backgrounds and relatively low for those from Indian and Pakistani backgrounds.
There is also a notable north-south divide in entry rates, with southern regions consistently showing higher entry rates than northern regions over the past decade. In 2016, the proportion of pupils entering at least one arts subject was 57.3 per cent in the South West but only 47.8 per cent in the North East.
The key challenge facing policymakers is to identify an appropriate balance between arts and other subjects within the curriculum, and to ensure that this balance is available to all pupils. Existing research indicates not only that exposure to the arts is linked with various benefits, but also that schools which have substantially increased EBacc entries have also experienced improved GCSE results in English and maths. Schools will experience further change over the next few years, as they adjust to Progress 8, as reformed GCSEs continue to be phased in, and as the government seeks to increase the proportion of pupils entering the full EBacc. It will be important to monitor the impact of these changes on the position of arts subjects in schools, and the implications for different groups of pupils.
