Curriculum and Assessment Review

Baroness Keeley Excerpts

Thursday 26th March 2026 Grand Committee

[Baroness Keeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Freyberg, on securing this short debate and introducing it so well. I thank the ISM—the Independent Society of Musicians—Dr Anthony Anderson and Professor Adam Whittaker of Birmingham City University, and Dr Robert Gardiner of the RNCM, for their analysis and briefings on the implications of the Curriculum and Assessment Review for music.

The review found that inequalities in music education are substantial, with music showing the widest disadvantage attainment gap of any subject, driven by unequal access to instrumental tuition and wider inequities in school and community resources. I have also raised with Ministers the fact that music teacher supply is a related problem. Since 2010, we have seen persistently high vacancy rates for music teachers. In fact, in 2023-24, that vacancy rate was among the highest of all subjects, and the Department for Education has missed its music teacher recruitment target in 12 of the past 13 years. There was a small increase in recruitment during 2024-25, after the brief return of the £10,000 bursary, but recruitment still reached only around 40% of target.

The conclusion is clear. The music teacher bursary must be restored. The Government’s opportunity mission makes it clear that we want high-quality music and arts education for every child in all state-funded schools. The curriculum review has recentred music and arts as core to a rounded education, not as optional extras, and it has challenged the narrowing of the curriculum that has squeezed music out of timetables, particularly in disadvantaged areas.

But these are only starting points. Organisations such as ISM are clear that curriculum changes alone will not close the participation gap for pupils from low-income backgrounds, who remain much less likely to take GCSE music and, when they do take it, achieve lower grades because cost is still a major obstacle. For too many families, paid lessons and instruments are out of reach, so school provision is the only option. But, as we have heard, shortages of specialist teachers—particularly specialist music teachers, especially in primary schools and in some regions of the country—limit what can be offered.

The Francis review and the Government’s response to it mark a welcome change of direction, but I ask my noble friend the Minister whether the Government will consider two steps that could genuinely close that participation gap. The first is the return of the music teacher bursary, which makes a career as a music teacher possible for those who would otherwise be unable to afford the cost of tuition. The second is the implementation of the Hodge review’s recommendation that the DfE, DCMS and Arts Council England work with philanthropists, trusts and foundations to create a joint fund to improve the cultural offer in schools, including the cost of training and paying for specialist teachers, now that we have the very good news that the Government have accepted all the recommendations of the Hodge review. If we are serious about opportunity for every child, those are the levers that we need.