Joe Hallgarten, Director of Cultural Programmes for arts education charity, Creativity, Culture and Education (CCE), commenting on The Schools White Paper 2010, said: “Whilst we welcome a review of the National Curriculum, the Government must be careful that a ’slimmed down’ curriculum doesn’t ultimately pin down schools to an even narrower, centrally-prescribed set of priorities.

“We are concerned about the Department for Education’s approach to the arts and cultural education. The Department states that ‘children should expect to be given a rich menu of cultural experiences’ but there appears to be a heavy emphasis on music education. This should not be to the exclusion of other cultural forms. The ‘first sort music, then sort the rest of cultural education’ approach embodied in The Henley Review of music education could be a missed opportunity for some more radical, necessary thinking.”

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