Creative Education

Simon Opher Excerpts

Tuesday 9th December 2025 Westminster Hall

[Graham Stuart (in the Chair)]

I remind hon. Members that they may only make a speech with prior permission from the Member in charge of the debate and the Minister. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention for 30-minute debates.

[Dr Simon Opher (Stroud) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered creative education in schools.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stuart. I welcome the Government’s curriculum and assessment review, which recognises the need for a broad and balanced curriculum and recommends the removal of the English baccalaureate, allowing greater space for arts subjects. At present, far too many children do not have access to these opportunities. Research from the Arts and Minds Campaign reveals that participation in arts subjects at GCSE has fallen by 42% since 2010, even though 90% of young people want to study a creative subject. The decline is sharpest in the most disadvantaged communities. School leaders in socially deprived areas are almost 50% more likely to report being unable to find specialist arts teachers, and one in four schools does not have the funding to run creative GCSEs at all.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way and sorry to intervene so early in the debate. I want to make a point about outdoor education, which is also about enrichment and helping young people to be resilient and to have better outcomes. Is he aware that among state schools in wealthier postcodes, 52% of young people get an outdoor education residential opportunity while at school, while in the poorer areas, only 18% have this opportunity? Does he think that the Government need to be aware of this and fund access to outdoor education experiences for children, wherever they are from?

[Dr Opher]

I totally agree. In fact, there is evidence that creativity outside is even more effective for people than inside. This is clearly about access to natural spaces.

I am chair of the all-party parliamentary group on creative health. There is really strong evidence that creativity reduces mental health problems in children.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for bringing forward this debate; he is right to do so. Creative education is so important. Creative education will give thousands of children the opportunity to thrive, and will be the tool that gets them the careers for the future. Those children who have special educational needs must have additional opportunities so they are not left behind, and must have the opportunity also to succeed. Does he agree that helping those people who are less well-off educationally and at a disadvantage is important, and that the opportunity is here, in the creative industries, to do the best for them?

[Dr Opher]

It is interesting that creativity is particularly important for children with special educational needs. Indeed, there is some evidence that including creativity can actually make them attend school on a more regular basis.

I have visited loads of schools in Stroud over the last 18 months, and one common theme has been the rise in mental health problems in young people, who are under countless assessments and the pressure of living in a 24/7 social media world. I do feel that this is pushing a lot of children to the brink, and that creativity may be a way of repairing that. One in five young children has a probable mental health condition, and this figure is rising every year. As a GP, I have been using art to treat mental health in children and adults for about 26 years, quite often with really spectacular results. The lack of art subjects has contributed to this pandemic of mental health problems. The Southbank Centre just across the river is doing a project as we speak around introducing creativity to children who are on the child and adolescent mental health services waiting lists. It will be quite exciting to see whether that can make them better as well.

[Matt Rodda (Reading Central) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that the role of community-based arts organisations is central to supporting our schools? I hope he will also support my campaign to turn Reading Gaol into an arts and heritage hub, which, one day, in showing the possibilities of an arts-based education, may be able to support local schools across the Reading area.

[Dr Opher]

I know that my hon. Friend is incredibly supportive of the developments in Reading. I commend him on that.

Because I am a scientist, I thought I could provide some reasoning on why the creative arts can help. They help on three different fronts. Biologically, they can influence physiological symptoms of anxiety—they reduce anxiety. Psychologically, they can improve self-expression, confidence and, probably most important, self-esteem. That is because often when we do a creative thing, we feel that it came out a little bit better than we anticipated. It is the same for children. There is good, strong evidence that the creative arts build self-esteem in children, and in social terms, they build connections and a sense of belonging.

I want the Minister to join me in a campaign to make teaching children how to play musical instruments available in every primary school. I shall talk a little bit more about music. In Stroud, schools such as Bussage primary school are leading the way by making sure that every key stage 2 child has exposure to musical education. Last week, we had a roundtable in the House of Lords with a group called Rocksteady, which takes rock music into local schools. I was really impressed by what I heard. Not only were the effects of the group’s work really impressive, but there was a measurable reduction in pupil absence rates. It had an effect on the whole school, and made everyone feel better.

In Gloucester, we have the Music Works, where quite deprived children can learn how to DJ, to play the drums or guitar, or to sing. That has been transformative for many children. There are other examples, such as the fantastic Big Noise in Scotland. Some big organisations, including the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the English National Opera and the Royal Opera House have big programmes that reach into schools. There is some evidence that they can teach the teachers, which is one of the problems I will explore.

[Jessica Toale (Bournemouth West) (Lab)]

SoundStorm is a multi-award winning lead partner in the music hub in my constituency. It has helped more than half a million young people since being founded in 2002, but like any publicly funded body, it is worried about future funding, so I welcome the Education Secretary’s commitment to working through music hubs. Does my hon. Friend agree that we must continue to support music hubs in their work to teach teachers and get music into schools, so that kids at all ages can have a great music education?

[Dr Opher]

My hon. Friend has made exactly the point I was coming to about the role of music hubs. There are 43 music hubs in the UK, delivering something like half a million lessons and interventions up and down the country. Their reach is incredible, taking in about 90% of schools, although there is an issue in that they sometimes charge for their lessons, which I shall come back to.

I welcome the upcoming launch of a new national centre for arts and music education, to support the delivery of high-quality arts education in schools and ensure that high-quality arts education is open to all. I would welcome further information from the Minister on the plans for that establishment.

Creativity in education does not just mean musical or visual arts. Recently, I met Tash Alexander, the inspirational director of Head Held High, which ran a comedy and performance workshop for teenage students in London schools; I also met one of the graduates, Ro. What really struck me about the programme is the way it uses creative expression to build confidence, especially among children who do not always thrive in more traditional learning environments. One aspect of creativity and the arts is that they often really suit people who do not get on very well at school. They are made to feel a failure, whereas actually they can make fantastic artworks or music. We must give them that opportunity. That is the real power of a creative education—it reaches young people differently and gives them a space to discover who they are. Despite Tash’s excellent work over the last 12 years, funding is a challenge all the time. I urge the Department for Education to meet her and discuss how we can continue to fund that programme.

One of the main barriers to creativity in education is that teachers are not qualified or do not have experience of teaching the creative arts. The less creativity there is at a school, the less likely the teachers are capable of teaching it. One third of school leaders cannot find specialist teachers, for example, so big national organisations may have a role to play in taking them under their wing, showing them how to teach and giving them the confidence to teach. That is one big problem.

Another problem is cost. Half of all parents cannot afford extracurricular arts activities. As a result, children’s creative futures are increasingly dictated by family income, not by talent or passion. It is already mandatory that looked-after children are provided with free musical instruments. Should that be extended to those on free school meals? Could we use the pupil premium for music lessons? Libraries can lend instruments easily and musical hubs provide the organisational ability to spread teaching through a school.

Groups such as the Ed Sheeran Foundation and the Nicola Benedetti Foundation are supporting music education, and we could perhaps use them more, particularly with less advantaged children. Creativity should never be a postcode lottery. It should not be a luxury for families who can afford instruments, lessons, dance shoes or even theatre trips. If we are serious about tackling inequality, we must rebuild creative opportunities into the heart of every child’s school experience.

[Anna Gelderd (South East Cornwall) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. Every child deserves a broad curriculum that values creative subjects alongside the core skills, but financial education from an early age is also vital. In communities in rural coastal settings such as mine, we face specific barriers to allowing children to access these important subjects. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to examine the barriers and include these subjects as part of our offer to children across the whole of the UK?

[Dr Opher]

That is very true, and it comes back to the capabilities and confidence of the teachers, particularly in smaller schools. My children all went to smaller schools and they were lucky to have an inspirational music leader, but not every school has one. We can go further; we could have a world-class curriculum, but it cannot be world-class if we sideline the arts. All schools need the resources, staffing and flexibility to deliver meaningful creative education. I believe that the curriculum review provides that flexibility.

To finish off, I have requests of the Minister. I would like the Government to consider funding free music lessons for all less well-off children, and teacher training in the arts for all teachers. I would like them to expand the arts in the curriculum and offer all children in primary schools musical instrument teaching by the end of this Parliament. For the sake of our young people’s wellbeing and our future creative industries, we must restore creativity to its rightful place in our schools.