Lots to report on at the start of this year, including warnings of school budget challenges for 2025; Ed Sheeran using CLA data to inform his work in setting up a new music education foundation; the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill; details of the new Creative Industries Taskforce; news about the first state school in the country to be set up in conjunction with a professional symphony orchestra; news from the head of Ofsted that SEND is the biggest issue facing schools; signals of the government’s desire to create a future-facing curriculum in its scrapping of a school Latin programme; why the impact of the pandemic on children was not sufficiently analysed and researched; how arts and creative subjects are being impacted through Higher Education cuts, including at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School; and finally, our look back to what we did in 2024 – and a look forward to what we will be publishing and launching in 2025.
Warning of school budget challenges for 2025
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has produced its latest report on Education Spending in England 2024/5. The report summary highlights specific data for primary schools, secondary schools and FE/HE, and made two main points on total spending:
- In 2023-4, total public spending on education in the UK stood at £116 bn (including the net cost of issuing student loans). This represented an 11% or nearly £15bn fall since 2010-11 and represented the level in real terms of 2006-7. This drop mostly represents a shift in the cost of higher education from the taxpayer to graduates over time.
- Education spending has also fallen as a percentage of national income from about 5.6% in 2010-11 down to 4.3% in 2023-4. This equals recent historic lows seen in the 1960s, late 1980s and late 1990s. There has been no long run increase in the share of national income devoted to public spending on education, despite large rises in education participation over the long run.
In terms of schools, the report estimates that the current planned increase in education spending for 2025/6 will fall short on an expected rise in actual consists of 3.6%. The IFS warned that some schools will struggle to meet their costs this year without making savings and cuts.
The report prompted a strong response from a range of headteachers, academy trusts and unions such as the NAHT. Julie McCulloch, ACSL’s Director of policy responded in The Guardian: “This report reveals the reality that is facing many schools and colleges – yet another round of cutbacks. It will inevitably mean further reductions to pastoral support, curriculum options and classroom resources.”
This financial outlook makes clear the ‘weather’ for schools in 2025, and highlights the continuing financial pressures which will no doubt have an impact on school trips, on the ability to invite artists into schools, and on Expressive Arts resourcing more generally. We continue to track data revealing school access to Arts subjects – look out for our 2025 Report Card in March to learn more.
Ed Sheeran launches music education foundation
Ed Sheeran has launched a music foundation in his name to support music education in the UK. It will aim to improve access to music for more than 12,000 children and young people by providing instruments, creating performance opportunities and opening pathways into the industry. On the Foundation’s website and socials, Sheeran references the CLA and our 2024 Report Card data.
He writes on Instagram “Music has shaped who I am. I’ve always enjoyed playing music and it has led to some of the best moments in my life. I set up the Foundation because recently there has been less and less importance put on music education. Even when I was in school it was seen as a ‘doss subject’ and not taken seriously. There is a misconception that it is not a real job when the music industry accounts for 216,000 jobs in so many fields and brings in as much as £7.6 billion in a year to the UK economy. Not to mention the power our art has worldwide to bring joy to people. It is something we should be proud of and championing in the UK. It was incredible for my mental health as a kid, feeling a sense of purpose and achievement, even just learning piano or cello at a young age way before song writing. I want kids to be able to learn instruments, learn production and song writing, performing, and have apprenticeship schemes help them learn different skills to enter the industry.”
As well as providing hands-on support, the Foundation will advocate for greater recognition of music’s transformative power in young people’s lives and the essential role of music teachers. The Foundation offers grants to schools and grass roots organisations (18 to date) and will also act as an advocate for music education to enable young people to:
- Have equal access to instruments and other music-making equipment
- Feel empowered through meaningful music education
- Have musical freedom to be themselves
- Build brighter futures with the support of local communities
CLA is delighted to see a new player into the landscape of arts education funding, particularly in light of the fact that some longstanding funders in this field are ‘sunset’ foundations which are set to spend down in the near future. The Foyle Foundation is set to close this year, and Clore Duffield has always been set to spend out over time. New arts education foundations are rare. It is particularly good to see a new foundation informed by such personal experience, based on CLA’s published data, and on real evidence of the benefits and the need.
We can only hope that other successful artists follow Sheeran’s example and that similar funds can emerge which support art and design, drama and dance, given that all Expressive Arts subjects have evidenced benefits in providing children and young people with skills for life and for work, as well has being so important for their personal, social and creative wellbeing.
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
On 8 January this Bill had its second reading and passed to the next committee stage. The debate gained considerable attention, particularly around changes to academy freedoms and the calls from the Conservative party for a statutory enquiry into grooming gangs. The Public Bill Committee has now put out a call for evidence with a tight deadline of 11 February. Details of all the Bill’s proposals can be found via the link. The Bill has two parts, the first deals with social care and wellbeing, the second with schools. The proposals affecting schools directly are summarised below:
- Breakfast clubs and school food standards: Includes requiring state-funded primary schools to provide free breakfast clubs
- School uniforms: Place statutory limits on the number of branded items of uniform state funded schools can require
- Children not in school: Introduce local authority consent mechanism for the withdrawal of certain children from school, including those at special schools; introduce requirement for local authorities to maintain a register of children not in school
- Independent educational institutions: Includes expanding their regulation and strengthen Ofsted’s powers to investigate unregistered, and therefore illegal, independent schools; amend Ofsted’s requirements to report on independent school inspectorates
- Teacher misconduct: Broaden the teacher misconduct and prohibition regime
- Changes relating to academies: Includes requiring academies to teach a revised national curriculum and requiring new teachers in academies and free schools to have or be in the process of achieving, qualified teacher status (QTS)
- School admission arrangements: Includes requiring schools and local authorities to cooperate to manage school admissions, and the supply of local school places
- Opening new schools: Remove the requirement for most new schools to be academies, and restore local authorities’ and other bodies’ powers to propose opening new maintained schools and pupil referral units (PRUs)
The Bill still has a long way to go and is likely to receive further challenges at Committee stage, in the House of Lords and from within the sector itself, particularly around academisation. CLA welcomes the mission to prioritise children’s wellbeing, to ensure no child falls through the gaps in different services, and to support children in underserved communities.
Membership of the Creative Industries Taskforce announced
The Creative Industries Taskforce met for the first time in late December under the leadership of its co-chairs Baroness Shriti Vadera and Sir Peter Bazalgette.
The Taskforce, announced in November, will work towards the development of an ambitious and targeted Creative Industries Sector Plan, helping to provide growth as part of the Government’s Plan for Change and deliver on the decade of national renewal.
The plan will be published in the spring, alongside the Industrial Strategy, and will set out new policies and government interventions that will help to deliver a further boost to the creative industries’ potential for spreading growth and opportunity for all.
The creative industries have been identified as a key growth-driving sector in the Government’s Industrial Strategy, and will form a central part of the government’s mission to grow the economy.
Creative Industries Minister Sir Chris Bryant said: “Our world-leading creative industries, which are worth £125 billion to the economy and employ millions of people, were identified as a key growth-driving sector in the government’s Industrial Strategy. The sector will have a critical role to play in helping us deliver the mission of this government to drive economic growth into all of our towns and cities. This taskforce will be central to achieving that goal, by helping to draw up a bold and ambitious Sector Plan which will enable further growth and innovation in the creative industries by unlocking private investment, boosting exports and developing our highly skilled creative workforce.”
The members of the Creative Industries Taskforce are:
- Baroness Shriti Vadera (co-chair), chair, Royal Shakespeare Company, and future CIC co-chair
- Sir Peter Bazalgette (co-chair), current Creative Industries Council co-chair
- Francesca Hegyi OBE, CEO, Edinburgh International Festival
- Prof Hasan Bakhshi MBE, director, Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre
- Caroline Norbury OBE, CEO, Creative UK
- Stephen Page, executive chair, Faber
- Caroline Rush CBE, CEO, British Fashion Council
- Prof Christopher Smith, CEO, AHRC
- Tom Adeyoola, co-founder, Extend Ventures, and non-executive board member, Channel 4
- Lynn Barlow, academic and TV producer
- Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire
- Philippa Childs, deputy general secretary, Bectu Sector of Prospect
- Saul Klein OBE, investor and member of the Council of Science and Tech
- Sir William Sargent, chair and co-founder, Framestore
- Prof Jonathan Haskel CBE, professor of economics, Imperial Business School
- Syima Aslam MBE, founder and CEO, Bradford Literature Festival
As we say in our CLA Blueprint for an arts-rich education we require a new social contract for education in order to meet the needs of all children and young people, and to grow the future workforce. The country’s investment areas and industrial strategy needs to align with a new and ambitious national education and skills strategy, with the Expressive Arts embedded
as a valued and equal curriculum area. This starts with supporting the ambition of schools to provide a high-quality, future-facing and well-rounded educational experience for all students.
Shireland City of Birmingham Symphony Academy
Shireland CBSO Academy is the first state school in the country to be set up in conjunction with a professional symphony orchestra – the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Music is incorporated into lessons of all subjects, not just in dedicated music classes, and every child is provided, free of charge, with a hired instrument for which they receive tuition every week, provided by the music and arts service in Sandwell.
Principal David Green says “We do things differently here but we want to make it clear this is a normal school and it is a school for everybody. I am really passionate about making sure that any child feels they have a place here, regardless of background, family income, musical exposure. The majority of students who come here haven’t played an instrument before. But all we ask is they come with a passion to learn.”
The school opened in 2023 and has 300 students, but it will have 900 when it reaches full capacity, and it is intended that all pupils will take GCSE music (at a time when our own Report Card data tells us that 42% of schools no longer enter any pupils for GCSE music. The school is in the borough of Sandwell in the West Midlands, the 12th most deprived local authority in England – 38% of pupils at Shireland are on free school meals – and is trying to level the playing field in music.
“If we have a broader pipeline into the music industry, we will be more representative, more inclusive, more relevant,” said Catherine Arlidge, a CBSO violinist who works with pupils in the school and sits on its performance and standards committee.
“Imagine if every major arts organisation had an affiliation with a school. Imagine how transformative that could be – if there was a state school in your area that specialised in theatre, or film, or dance, or music, or visual art. Then you would have a choice. I think it’s a model that could be absolutely transformative to cultural education.”
The Langley Academy, which opened in 2008, was the first Museum Learning School in the UK and works with a range of museum partners. Shireland hopes its model of fully incorporating music into daily school life through working with a leading cultural partner can become a blueprint for schools in other locations.
There are, of course, other projects across the UK where schools in underserved communities boost access to music by working with orchestras, but Shireland takes this to new level. We look forward to seeing how this approach impacts learning across all subjects as the school progresses.
Ofsted announces SEND is the biggest issue facing schools in England
According to Ofsted’s Chief Inspector, special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) is the “biggest issue” affecting schools in England.
Sir Martyn Oliver told the Education Committee that the SEND system’s high costs and poor outcomes represented a “lose-lose situation” and said the inspectorate had a duty to support the government in its plans to provide for SEND children.
Government figures for the 2023/24 academic year reveal more than 1.6 million children with SEND, an increase of 101,000 from 2023. In December, the Department for Education announced funding to increase the number of places available for SEND pupils in mainstream schools.
Sir Martyn went on the say that the new report card inspection system – to be introduced in September after the change to one-word judgements last year – would “recognise” the work done by schools to be as inclusive as possible for the increasing number of SEND pupils in mainstream education. One-word judgements were removed following the death of head teacher Ruth Perry, who took her own life following an Ofsted inspection which downgraded her school to “inadequate” due to safeguarding concerns.
“If you said to me now, ‘Do you think children safeguarding in schools is the burning bush?’ My answer would be no. We do not see safeguarding as the biggest issue in schools. I would say that, by far, the needs of SEND children is a much bigger need.”
Last year a report by the Education Policy Institute showed the high number of SEND pupils missing from school. In response to this OFSTED as reported by Schoolsweek will now work with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to assess provision for SEND pupils not in school.
The government does not commission equalities analysis of its GCSE data for Arts subjects and does not publish publicly available datasets on pupil demographics such as SEND and entry into specific subjects. However, a 2017 analysis by the Education Policy Institute (EPI) provides some suggestions of trends, revealing that pupils with SEND have higher entry into Arts subjects at GCSE compared to their peers without SEND (EPI, 2017). Given the significant and increasing number of children with SEND, we would welcome more data on their access to and take-up of Arts subjects, given the evidenced benefits of these subjects in providing personal and social skills for life and for work.
Signs that the government wants a future-facing curriculum
In 2023/4 the last government made bursaries available for those wanting to train to teach specific subjects, including chemistry, computing, maths, physics (£27,000); geography and languages, including ancient languages (£25,000); biology, design and technology (£20,000); and English (£15,000). The ancient languages of Latin and Greek were prioritised above Expressive Arts subjects.
This focus on ancient languages was also reflected through a Latin in Excellence programme which started in 2022. The scheme provided a centre of excellence to create resources for partner schools, and also funded teacher salaries and trips to Rome. The scheme was led by the Future Academies Trust with around 1,000 pupils at 29 schools due to sit the GCSE in summer 2025.
The £4 million scheme was supposed to run until 2026, but the new government has enacted a break clause to end it earlier, from February 2025. The government said it was ending funding for a number of subject-specific support schemes.
A spokesperson said: “This government is putting education back at the forefront of national life, with key priorities protected in the budget and an additional £2.3bn announced for schools. But the £22bn ‘black hole’ we inherited means tough decisions are needed across the public sector. While a decision has been made not to continue the Latin excellence programme beyond the end of its contract, our expert-led curriculum and assessment review will ensure every young person leaves school ready for work, life and the future.”
CLA is hoping that the Curriculum and Assessment Review Panel, due to report this spring, will determine that Expressive Arts subjects should be revalued within a future-facing curriculum, accountability and assessment system, and that that a new evidence-based approach will be used to determine a healthy balance across subjects and curriculum areas.
Children dropped down the agenda in the pandemic
A specialist in children’s mental health says the interests and voices of children and young people should be respected after they were “dropped down the agenda” during the Covid lockdown.
An article by Prof Tamsin Ford in the British Medical Journal said efforts should be made to bring children and young people on board, even during an emergency situation like the pandemic. It followed findings that 200,000 research studies on mental health impacts were carried out at the height of the pandemic, but only 35 concerned children. Professor Ford said big decisions were made about children and young people, but they were barely involved.
The report (Neither seen nor heard: the evidence gap on the effect of covid-19 on mental health in children) summarises the challenge. Covid is described as “a systemic shock to the wider determinants of child health, with impacts on family functioning and income, access to healthcare and education.”
The report makes a number of recommendations to provide better evidence on how children’s mental health could be affected by health shocks, like the Covid pandemic, and how this evidence is essential to inform policy responses. Central is that children’s interests and voices must be represented and respected to tackle a wide evidence gap.
This policy commitment to learner voice is mirrored in our own Blueprint for an arts-rich education, in which we call for whole school commitment to the voice and influence of children and young people. We talk about their views and experiences contributing to the Arts offer in all schools, but this is also important more widely if we are to learn from major events like the pandemic, and respond properly to the needs of children and young people. We know that Arts subjects were hit particularly hard during Covid.
Arts degrees closed and under threat in the Higher Education sector
As the new year starts we are seeing the continuing threat to undergraduate arts degree course at universities following the closure of a number of courses in 2024. The wider context to the challenges facing UK universities was laid out in a report from the Office for Students in November 2024.
Their analysis suggests a potential net reduction in annual income for the sector of £3.4 billion against the forecast position, and could, without mitigating action, result in up to 72% of providers facing a deficit in 2025-26. They expect the number of providers facing financial challenges to have increased, and state that “we know that this picture will be of significant concern to universities and colleges, as well as to their students”.
Last year saw the closure of a number of arts courses at institutions such as the University of East Anglia, the University of Kent, Oxford Brookes University, University of Birmingham, University of Newcastle, Chichester University, Goldsmiths London, and the University of Surrey.
As reported in Arts Professional, the Office for Students report highlights a particular challenge for universities which specialise in creative subjects, with up to seventeen at financial risk in 2025-6.
Our 2025 Report Card, due for publication in March, will be reporting on progression to HE for Arts and creative subjects, and the implications of this for young people and for the creative industries.
Interestingly, in his new report on Higher Education for the Resolution Foundation, published on 20 January, David Willets asserts the value of a university education, stating that “Teaching at university level is at its best when it encourages students to dig deep into a subject, preferably one they love or come to love. Then, as a happy by-product, they develop a wider set of skills. They learn stuff that interests them and have to organise their thoughts. That is better than skimming the surface of something which doesn’t really interest you. Indeed this freedom to pursue a subject you choose because it interests you is one of the delights of HE.” If access to arts degree courses is diminishing, then the opportunity to study a subject you love may become harder to find for young people wanting to pursue creative study when they leave school or college.
Closure of Bristol Old Vic Theatre School undergraduate degrees
One of the casualties to the wider challenges facing Arts subjects in Higher Education is Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. The School, founded in 1946, is to scrap its undergraduate degrees due to a range of financial challenges, saying its undergraduate training model was now “financially unsustainable”. The decision does not affect Bristol Old Vic theatre, which has been a separate organisation since 1986.
The school said the capping of student fees, restrictions to international student visas, cuts in grants and increases in costs of living and teaching had all influenced the decision to shut down the undergraduate programme from September 2025. The school will continue delivering postgraduate and short courses.
The principal and chief executive of Bristol Old Vic theatre school, said: “Along with many arts and higher education organisations, we are facing unprecedented funding challenges which we need to address as our current training model, focusing on teaching undergraduate degree courses is not viable in the future.”
The school also singled out a decision by the Office for Students (OfS) to temporarily stop accepting new applications from universities and colleges seeking to register with the higher education regulator.
Fraser Amos, a student officer with Equity, the performing arts and entertainment trade union, said: “Urgent reform including public funding is required to safeguard the future of performing arts education in the UK, reduce financial barriers to access and ensure performers from working-class and marginalised backgrounds are supported to enter the industry.”
See more about the growing problem for arts and creative courses in Higher Education – and the diminishing options for young people – in our upcoming Report Card.
CLA – looking back on 2024 and what to look out for in 2025
2024 was an extremely busy year for CLA. It was our first full year of operation as a new charity following more than a decade operating as an informal alliance, and it was full of new milestones, all expressing the ambition we have for young people’s arts experiences and for their futures.
- We appointed six new trustees as well as our first Senior Evidence Associate – Prof. Pat Thomson – and Baz Ramaiah as our first Policy Associate.
- We launched a new website and a new visual identity, aligning with the design of the Arts in Schools report (now available on our website) – and featuring speech marks in our logo to reflect the fact that children and young people have lots to say and express through their arts experiences.
- We published our new Strategy Map setting out our vision, mission, values and four core activity strands.
- The day before the 2024 General Election was called, we published our first annual Report Card, setting the detailed picture of Expressive Arts take-up through GCSEs and A Levels since 2010, as well as progression to HE creative subjects, Arts teaching hours and Arts teacher recruitment and retention, and setting out the disparity between arts access for state and independent school students.
- We published our new Blueprint for an arts-rich education in advance of the General Election, to make clear to an incoming government what changes would be required to ensure access to Expressive Arts subjects for every child.
- Our new Evidence and Value Narrative Working Group convened throughout the year, chaired by Jacqui O’Hanlon MBE, Deputy Executive Director at the Royal Shakespeare Company. The formation of this group was a significant new step for CLA, reflecting the centrality of evidence and value narrative work as two of CLA’s four key activity strands.
- In November we made our detailed submission to the government’s important Curriculum and Assessment Review, and prior to that shared a special CLA newsletter with guidance and evidence to support all of our members and colleagues in making their own submissions.
- Our newsletter featured latest news and insights every month in the new-look ‘Latest News’ section, and we commissioned op-eds from experts across a range of subjects for our new ‘Latest Thinking’ section.
Throughout the year we were extremely grateful to our two core funders, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and Paul Hamlyn Foundation for their continued support. They enable us to continue to champion the value of arts subjects and cultural learning on behalf of all children and young people.
Meanwhile we have a lot happening in 2025, including the release of our 2025 Report Card in March; the launch of our new Capabilities Framework; and publication of the findings of four Rapid Evidence Reviews into arts and cultural learning, co-commissioned with the Royal Shakespeare Company (the only performing arts organisation in the UK with Independent Research Organisation status).
Our evidenced Capabilities Framework will enable all of us to rigorously communicate the personal and social value of studying Expressive Arts subjects. We are reframing arts and cultural learning to build a shared language about their value, and to ensure that we never again see the policy-driven erosion of this important curriculum area in schools. Watch this space.
We are also launching CLA Webinars – look out for details of our first on 25 February, when Professor Pat Thomson, CLA Senior Evidence Associate, will be launching her major report on the Expressive Arts in primary schools.
We are also delighted to welcome Jacqui O’Hanlon MBE as new CLA Evidence Associate, following her long-standing involvement with CLA as Chair, and her role chairing our Evidence and Value Narrative Working Group. Jacqui, who is Deputy Executive Director & Director of Creative Learning and Engagement at the Royal Shakespeare Company, will be chairing our first webinar.
Wishing you all a happy and productive 2025, full of reasons to be cheerful!
The CLA team.
