The Curriculum and Assessment Review is finally out, and despite the initial consultation feeling very maths and English focussed, recommendations have been provided for each subject, including music.
It is particularly heartening to see references to music in this document outside of the subject-specific sections, and in particular the use of the phrase: “We also seek to guarantee access to a broad and rich primary curriculum, including subjects such as Citizenship, Languages, and Music.” This will perhaps go some way to maintaining the status of music in primary schools now that one of its key drivers – the Ofsted Deep Dive – is no more.
Curriculum Content
The review proposes a revision of curriculum content at KS1-3 ‘to ensure a curriculum pathway which gives all pupils a rigorous foundation in musical understanding and enables broader access to further study at KS4.’ Residual trauma from the Gove era makes me twitch slightly at this language, wondering what exactly they mean by ‘rigorous foundation’ and ‘musical understanding.’ I fervently hope that this will not result in a reframing of music as a theoretical rather than a practical subject! The main thrust of music should always be exploration of sound through practical skill-building, whether that be through performing, composing and improvising, or analytical listening. Given that the government’s response statement to the review acknowledges that music education is ‘a powerful tool for connection and expression’ and should be ‘creative,’ I hope we are not going to see a revision that results in a curriculum where learning facts about music is prioritised over actual music-making. I imagine, however, that will almost entirely depend on the ideological perspective of the individual who has been appointed to write it…
As far as a curriculum revision process goes, I think the suggestion of ‘revisiting the purpose and aims, ensuring that they better reflect intended outcomes’ is a sensible one. I base this largely on the fact that the current national curriculum doesn’t really have any real outcomes or aims for music! It is very much a list of activities with no clear end points or benchmarks that one could standardise to; I am always being asked what standard pupils should be at different year groups and key stages, and the official answer currently is we don’t know. I think more of a steer on exactly what we’re aiming for would be useful, with the caveat that this is likely to cause pain points for some schools. Systemic issues such as the lack of music content in Primary ITT, and the rising amount of non-specialist teaching in secondary caused by the recruitment and retention crisis compounded by the removal of bursaries for music at Secondary ITT and the fall in GCSE and A Level numbers over successive years affecting the trainee teacher pipeline, mean that many schools will have initial difficulties in delivering a ‘more rigorous’ curriculum. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it – but let’s learn from the failure of the Model Music Curriculum, and make changes in a sustainable and attainable way that don’t frighten the living daylights out of schools and put them off music altogether!
I am interested to see the suggestion that the curriculum should add ‘further specificity, without increasing volume’ which I agree would be helpful, particularly for primary, but I am surprised to see the statement go on to say ‘to clarify how pupils should progress in the three pillars of musical understanding (technical, constructive and expressive)’ which were introduced by Ofsted in their subject research review. Are we now allowing Ofsted to dictate government policy on the curriculum? I rather thought it was meant to be the other way around… This is of particular concern when we know that numerous of the Ofsted subject research reviews have been hotly contested by subject experts, including some who have suggested that their own research was misunderstood in these reports. Admittedly the music report is less problematic than some of the others appear to have been, but even so, when did we all collectively decide that the three pillars of musical understanding were ‘a thing’, because I missed that memo…
KS4 Music
The review suggests that KS4 music qualifications are reviewed concurrently to ensure that the qualifications are clear and distinct from one another. This, I have to say, is the only sensible thing they say about KS4. Buckle up, this blog is about to become an uncomfortable ride…
The review makes frequent references to the idea that instrumental teaching and music reading is essential to high attainment at GCSE, which it vaguely attributes to stakeholder opinions. Now, this may be reported entirely in good faith, however if one is going to carry out a consultation of this nature one should really be sure the people being consulted know what they are talking about.
Let me be clear. Having instrumental lessons is not and never has been a requirement for GCSE. If this opinion has been expressed during the consultation it is not based on exam board requirements – there are no entry requirements to KS4, under Ofqual regulations. It is based solely on how schools are choosing to deliver and interpret the specifications. There is a long tradition of schools choosing to devolve the preparation for the performance component to instrumental teachers, and focusing curriculum teaching on listening and composition, but this is a choice, it is not mandated. Now of course many schools will say this is the only way to get through the spec, or that it makes more logical sense to devolve to an instrumental specialist, and I’m not here to argue against that or any other reason for why schools might approach GCSE music in this way. However, the exam boards are not making them do this, and the specifications are designed so that success is achievable regardless of pre-KS4 experience or extra-curricular input, the same as for all the other subjects as all qualifications at the same level must be equitable. We need to stop making access to instrumental lessons a barrier to GCSE, because it’s an artificial barrier that we have collectively invented. If we’re really concerned about equality of access, from a practical standpoint it makes much more sense to revise the way we teach GCSE rather than go round and round the same issues we have always had with affordability of and access to instrumental teaching and on which we’ve never made significant and are never likely to make permanent headway. Folks, this may be the incredibly niche hill that I’m prepared to die on…
Similarly it is disappointing to see this review reinforcing the myth that ‘success in GCSE Music relies on the ability to read music’. Whilst specifications from the individual boards differ, the music reading content of GCSE is reasonably slight, limited to a few instances of following a simple score and some dictation, carrying comparatively little weight in terms of the mark scheme, with much more weight given to aural awareness and musical understanding. I worry that this misunderstanding is what is driving the obsession seen across successive administrations with music literacy, and I don’t think we should be dictating curriculum policy based on erroneous information.
In fact, should we be dictating anything that happens in KS1-3 on the basis solely of what is good for KS4? This may make sense for subjects like English, Maths and Science which all children study up to the end of KS4, but for subjects that become optional at GCSE, should GCSE preparation be the focus? (And lo, somewhere, in the distance, I hear Professor Martin Fautley activating his train diagram!) If KS3 is the end point for (currently) most / (ambitiously) some pupils then should we not be designing a curriculum that draws to a logical conclusion at the end of KS3, but also allows for further exploration at KS4? Why focus on teaching students ‘passing the exam’ skills that they are never going to need at the expense of musical skills that they could take on to their informal learning during the rest of their lives? Gosh, at this rate I’m going to have to do a funeral procession across several inaccessible and undistinguished hills…
Instrumental Teaching
Another recommendation is that the government ‘explore ways to better optimise its investment in music education to support the teaching and learning of musical instruments and the reading of music to ensure equitable access to, and progression in, music education.’ This statement alone is bound to cause concern across the sector – not because there’s anything wrong with it, but because it indicates more potential upheaval for music hubs, who are already in limbo regarding the NPME, the new National Centre for Arts and Music Education, and long-term funding arrangements. I note the use of the word ‘optimise’ and am clinging on to the hope that means don’t reinvent the wheel rather than let’s come up with a whole new idea. The government’s intial response seems to bear that out, repeatedly referring to continued investment in music hubs rather than indicating that they have any radical new plans.
I find the inclusion of a recommendation about instrumental learning in a curriculum review interesting. I said something similar when the Model Music Curriculum made reference to whole class instrumental teaching, which is not a feature of the statutory curriculum, and I questioned therefore why references to it were included in a curriculum document. I have the same feeling here. Regular readers will know my concern around the correlation of music education and instrumental teaching; the former is a component of the latter, not the other way around! Furthermore, the instrumental learning within the curriculum itself is different from ‘having instrumental lessons,’ which is an extra-curricular activity. We have a real problem in music education with people assuming that music education means instrumental teaching, and I this review is giving me more than a whiff of that fallacy, potentially driven by the misunderstanding about GCSE requirements evident above.
(By the way, I am all for instrumental teaching, extra-curricular music, and the work of music hubs! I just want people to understand that is not the totality of music education!)
Eagle-eyes will have spotted that this recommendation also includes a reference to reading music. As we’ve seen above, this is not as pressing a requirement for GCSE success as we might have been led to believe, and I think its inclusion here as an adjunct to a statement about instrumental learning is reminiscent of a Gibbsian obsession with music literacy equalling musicianship. There are many, many musical traditions where music reading is not a requirement – the majority, in fact, outside Western Classical Music. Given that the review also shares concern around schools limiting the number of ‘diverse genres and styles’ in their interpretations of the curriculum, this strikes a discordant note. The more you push a music-reading agenda, the more you push schools away from exploring non-Western-classical music in an authentic and appropriate manner. By linking together, as this review does more than once, the idea that learning to play an instrument is how you learn to read music, it – unwittingly perhaps – reinforces the view that music education is learning to play Mozart on the violin. Nothing wrong with Mozart, or the violin, but there is a whole world of music out there to discover and if the aim of this review is for children to discover it, some thought might need to go into whether its philosophies are in conflict.
Dr Liz Stafford, November 2025. Copyright © 2025 Music Education Solutions Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Further information and support:
Click here to read more blogs about music education
Click here for information on our webinars and certificate programmes
Click here for information on our online self-guided courses
Click here to join our mailing list