Sadly, I get emails from teachers and parents worried about cuts to music education in their school or local area fairly regularly. The following correspondance arrived yesterday and I’ve posted it here with the permission of the parent:
My daughter’s school have done exactly what you describe in your article on teaching music and I am desperately trying to solve the problem. They have introduced the EBACC as compulsory, and as a result, dumped Music GCSE and Drama, lumping them together into a ‘Perfoming Arts GCSE’. I have fought the school ever since learning of this back in March. They just don’t care about children who want to do Music but do not wish to act, or learn stage management, or, in my daughter’s case, are already doing GCSE drama a year early outside school to facilitate her studying Music (we knew she would only get ONE option after the forced straitjacket of the EBACC.)
If I were a Music teacher in today’s climate, I would be thinking about leaving school and setting up a private business to teach such children. I actually think that children should be released in school time to study music rather than follow a course which is of no use to them.
I hope you and others like you keep fighting!