Laura Nicholson is Head of Children and Young People’s Dance at One Dance UK, the national support organisation for Dance. Here Laura reflects on the importance of Dance in the lives of children and young people, the factors that have been limiting access, and the opportunity now to recognise its value through changes to the curriculum in schools.
As the Subject Association for Dance in schools, One Dance UK’s aspiration and our core message is quite simple – every single child and young person must have the opportunity to receive high-quality Dance education as part of the mainstream curriculum. This unwavering belief drives our work on a daily basis, but year after year (and at times day after day) we have faced a fresh set of challenges and barriers to that aspiration being realised. The Dance education sector has seen cuts and attacks at every turn.
After years of systemic decline, the ongoing Curriculum and Assessment Review (CAR) – which One Dance UK continues to be heavily consulted on – provides a long-awaited opportunity for a vital turning point for Dance education in English schools; a chance to reset and re-establish Dance as a critical part of a broad and balanced educational entitlement.
Perhaps the starkest illustration of the urgent need for change is painted by the long-term decline in exam entries at Key Stages 4 and 5. There was a 59% reduction in entries to GCSE Dance between 2010 and 20241. A parallel decline in A Level Dance entries led to fewer than 1,000 young people taking the qualification in both 2023 and 2024.
A simple explanation here would be that young people are simply not interested in studying Dance but looking below the surface reveals a very different picture. We consistently see that where Dance is a genuine option for young people there is a huge appetite and demand, at both recreational and exam level.
Teachers and students tell us in no uncertain terms that the marginalisation of Dance in their school is down to a narrowing of the curriculum, linked to the EBacc and Progress 8 performance measures. For years, parents, students and educational professionals have heard the damaging rhetoric – from the previous government and amplified through the media – that Dance and other Expressive Arts subjects are ‘low value’, ‘non-priority’ and ‘Mickey Mouse’ subjects.
This narrative has disadvantaged whole generations of young people, and there is no doubt that some subgroups are even more disproportionately affected. Within a female dominated sector, this is a case of young women being denied the chance to fulfil their potential. It’s an uncomfortable truth that financially and socially disadvantaged young people have been more severely impacted than their wealthier counterparts. Dance continues to thrive in the independent school sector and in out-of-school provisions, which usually come at a significant cost to families. It is unacceptable that this two-tier system, in which Dance becomes the preserve of the elite, is allowed to continue.
The UK is proud of its world-leading Dance sector. If we are to sustain this, then a strong Dance offer in all schools is critical in providing a vital first step towards a career in Dance – on or off the stage – for those that want this and have the skills to succeed. In addition to the significant economic contribution of Dance and the arts to the UK economy, this is a social justice issue. Young people from all walks of life must be given every opportunity to fulfil their potential. But the issue is much broader than the need to sustain a talent pipeline. Access to Dance education is the birthright of every child, for the wider cultural and life skills it offers, not to mention the enormous range of health and wellbeing benefits that Dance brings.
Employers from all sectors are crying out for the very skills that young people acquire through participation in expressive arts subjects – creative thinking, resilience, problem solving and collaboration. While Dance is a valuable part of the expressive arts suite of subjects, alongside Art & Design, Drama and Music, it also holds a unique additional superpower as a physical activity. The UK is dealing with both an obesity pandemic, with 26.8% of children aged two to 15 are overweight or living with obesity, and a mental health crisis, with one in five children and young people having a probable mental health condition according to NHS England. In this context, Dance must be championed for its intersectionality between creative and physical curriculum areas – and not be allowed to fall between the cracks between the two.
There is of course much discussion about the placement of Dance in the national curriculum and whether its current status, as an activity within PE, is appropriate. With the Curriculum and Assessment Review’s emphasis on the mantra “evolution, not revolution” with regard to curriculum change, it might be wise to assume there will not be significant change. But regardless of where Dance sits within the curriculum, there is an opportunity here for its unique qualities to be recognised. Most importantly, Dance must be delivered at a high quality and with consistency for all children, with a focus on the intertwined skills of choreography, performance and appreciation.
The current postcode lottery, whereby children may receive Dance education to a poor standard, inconsistently or not at all, depending on the school they attend (as identified in Ofsted’s 2023 PE Report Levelling the Playing Field) must not continue. Dance can and should be recognised as a valuable, discrete curriculum area, built on its own subject-specific skills and knowledge, whether viewed through an Expressive Arts or a physical activity lens. We believe that this is a moment for Dance to come out of the shadows and hold its head high.
Dance brings joy, it allows us to express and feel and explore the full range of emotions and to experience all it is to be human. Surely that is something we owe to all our young people.
- Cultural Learning Alliance 2025 Report Card ↩︎
Image credit – One Dance UK
