Arts Participation Is Worth +3 Months, Yet Cut For Maths

This is the education commute. Both voices on this show are synthesized. The judgment isn't. So, uh, I want you to picture the curriculum review meeting. Oh yeah. We have all been there. Right. We are in March and you are sitting there with the rest of the senior leadership team, the SLT. and you got the timetable in front of you and it is just incredibly tight. It always is, isn't it? Exactly. The options block is completely oversubscribed. There are just, you know, way too many things you want to teach and simply not enough hours in the day to actually teach them all.

Yeah. And you reach that inevitable painful point in the meeting where someone or, well, something has to lose a slot. And it's music. It is. It's music. Two lessons of Fortnite just gone. wiped right from the grid. Yeah. And they're immediately reallocated to extra maths intervention. And the thing is, I really want you listening right now to just sort of picture the reality of that staff room when that decision happens. Right. Because nobody actually enjoyed the decision. Nobody was celebrating. But, and this is the tough part, nobody fought it that hard either.

You know, that is the part that always fascinates me. That silence in the room. Why is that? I mean, why does nobody fight it? Because it's the nice extra. The nice extra. Yeah. That is the harsh reality of it. Yeah. It's the thing you protect when times are good, right? When budgets are flush and time is plentiful. And it is the absolute first thing you cut when they're not. Yeah. And look, that's not me being callous. And it's not the SLT being malicious either. That is just where the arts sit in the pecking order.

I think both staff rooms, if they were being completely honest with themselves, would say the exact same thing out loud. They would. You look at a tight timetable, you look at a cohort that desperately needs maths intervention, and suddenly the arts just become the nice extra. You know, I want to actually test that assumption this week, rather than just sort of sit here and disagree with you on principle. Well, let's do it. Well, just to introduce where I'm coming from for you listening, I am coming at this as the arts curriculum lead.

And yes, I freely admit that I am biased. I care deeply about this subject. So I am making a conscious choice not to just sit here and assert that the arts matter based purely on my own feelings or my own passion for the subject. Want to check what the evidence actually says and for you listening as I mentioned I am coming at this from the SLT side I am the one who sat in that room and made that exact call in March. You actually made the cut I did I looked at the spreadsheet I took those two music lessons of fortnight and I gave them to maths and I genuinely want to know Looking at the hard evidence if I got it wrong.

Okay, so We are going to look directly at the Education Endowment Foundation. We are opening up the EEF toolkit, and specifically we are drilling down into the arts participation strand. Right. And what is crucial to understand here is the sheer scale of what we are looking at. We're not looking at a small sample size here. We aren't looking at one or two localized projects. This strand encompasses 80 studies. 80. 80 studies. That is a massive evidence base. It really is. So when you take all of that data, all 80 of those studies, and you boil them down into one single actionable metric for a school leader, what is the headline number we are actually looking at?

Plus three months. Three. That's it. Plus three months of additional progress. I have to be brutally honest with you. That is genuinely not a big number. I know. It's not what you wanted to hear. It's just when you are sitting on the senior leadership team and you are agonizing over these options blocks, weighing up where to put your limited resources. three months simply does not move the needle. Yeah, I get that. Because you open up that same EEF toolkit and you look at something like feedback, that gives you plus six months.

Right. You look at oral language interventions, that gives you plus six months. A plus three does not win you back a curriculum slot against those heavy hitters. No, it doesn't. If I am sitting in that March meeting and I have to choose between a plus three and a plus six for a cohort that is falling behind, the plus three loses every single time. It does. It absolutely does. And I am not going to pretend for a single second that three beats six. It doesn't. Right. But I need you and I need the listener to not just glance at that headline number and walk away.

I want you to just sit with me on where those three months actually land. OK. Because this is where the evidence forces you to look past the top line summary. That plus three months of progress. It is not evenly spread across all subjects. Oh, really? Yeah. The effect is actually higher for writing and maths than it is for reading. Wait, I want to make sure I am hearing that correctly. You are saying that arts participation is quietly doing something for writing and maths specifically. That is exactly what the toolkit reports.

The impact they found isn't just about developing, you know, general art skills or becoming better at painting. It is actually showing up in the students' writing and math capabilities. Wow. Okay. But, and I have to give you the caveat before you find it yourself because if I am going to be the arts lead who relies on evidence, I have to be completely objective about this. Fair enough. What's the caveat? Some of those 80 studies were evaluated by the very organizations running the arts program that was being tested.

Ah. So they were marking their own homework. That is the toolkits own phrase more or less marking their own homework Unbelievable. Yeah, and they point out something very important about how this skews the data They say that evaluations connected to the approach typically have larger impacts Well, which makes sense, right? Exactly when the people running the program the people who were deeply invested in its success are the exact same people measuring that success The numbers tend to look a little better, right? Therefore, that headline number, that plus three months, we have to accept the reality that it might already be an optimistic ceiling, not a floor.

You know, I really appreciate you leading with that honest caveat rather than making me dig through the toolkit to find it. Well, we have to look at the whole picture. Right, but we have to look at the reality of what that means for a school leader. It leaves me, as an SLT member, holding a very weak hand. I have a three -month gain. And we have just admitted that some of that three -month gain is likely inflated because the evaluators were marking their own homework. So I am taking a heavily caveated likely inflated three -month gain and I'm supposed to put it up against a curriculum slot that I could hand straight to a maths intervention with a much bigger much more secure number.

Which is an entirely fair trade to weigh. Honestly, if you are only looking at academic months, if that is the sole metric on your spreadsheet, that is exactly how you should weigh it. But academic months are not the whole case for the arts, and that is genuinely not me dodging your point about the numbers being low. Okay, what else is there? The toolkit separately reports on wider benefits. We aren't talking about the headline plus three months number anymore. This is a second entirely different finding that emerges from the evidence base.

Across these 80 studies, they report more positive attitudes to learning and increased well -being. And the toolkit explicitly notes that these wider benefits are consistently reported across the board. I hear that. I do. But I'm going to push back on that, and I'm going to use the exact same logic you just used on yourself a moment ago with the caveat. Oh, here we go. Well, consistently reported isn't proven. How do you mean? Well, you can have a very consistent pattern of people feeling incredibly good about an arts program.

The students might love it. The teachers might love it. The attitudes might seem visibly improved in the room. Right? But subjective observations do not hold the same weight as a rigorously proven academic game. consistently reported is just, you know, people saying it works. Yeah. It's not the hard proof we look for when we make these drastic timetable cuts. That is a completely fair catch. I concede that entirely. Yeah. It is not proven in the way a strict randomized trial proves something. It is a consistent pattern across a massive amount of studies, which by definition is weaker evidence than the rigorous isolated trials sitting behind the plus six month strands like oral language.

And I promise at the start of this commute that I wouldn't let my bias as an arts lead show, so I'm not going to sit here and inflate this to sound scientifically stronger than it actually is. It's a consistent pattern, yes, but it's weaker evidence. So where does that actually leave us? Yeah. Because where does that leave my March decision? If I'm summarizing this, the academic number is a heavily caveated three months and the wider benefits regarding well -being and attitudes are a consistent pattern. but fundamentally weaker evidence.

So far, sitting here, cutting those two music lessons of Fortnite for maths intervention, still feels like the correct, if slightly painful, call. And this is the turning point. This is the piece of evidence that I actually think should change your mind, and it has nothing to do with the academic month. It's not about the plus three. It is about who we are talking about. The toolkit frames this entire arts participation strand explicitly around disadvantaged pupils. The stated goal here is ensuring that these specific pupils get access to a rich arts education, specifically because they are the group least likely to get it anywhere else.

That hits differently. Changes the entire perspective, doesn't it? It does, because that is not just some abstract equity line and research paper for us on the school floor. When I sit in that SLT meeting, when I am staring at the options block spreadsheet, I'm not thinking about the individual lives outside the school gates. No, of course not. You're just looking at blocks of time. Exactly. Yeah. But when you look at who actually gets hurt when we make those cuts, half of those options block cuts hit the exact same disadvantaged pupils.

Yeah. We were talking about the pupils who do not have private lessons. Yeah. We were talking about the pupils who don't have a parent who could drive them to a Saturday class. Exactly. Those are the exact pupils the toolkit is putting a spotlight on. When we cut arts from the school day, the students who have private lessons at home, they're perfectly fine. The students whose parents have the disposable income to pay for Saturday classes They're fine. But for disadvantaged pupils, the school building is their only access point.

Right. Once you take it off the timetable, it is gone from their lives entirely. Wow. But as with everything in the EEF toolkit, this comes with its own honest warning, which I will give you straight. OK. The EEF explicitly says that schools must carefully monitor whether this aim is being achieved. Meaning what, exactly? What does that monitoring look like? Meaning that offering arts on paper, Just being able to point to your timetable and say, look, we have an art slot is not the same thing as disadvantaged people's actually accessing it.

Oh, man. That is a terrifying thought for a school leader. It is, isn't it? So even if I walked into school tomorrow and completely reversed the March decision, even if I fought tooth and nail to keep that slot on the timetable, we could still get this entirely wrong if the provision isn't genuinely reaching who it's meant to reach. That is the trap. Keeping the lesson on the timetable is not the finish line. Checking who is actually in the room is the finish line. That really scares me.

Yeah. The idea that a disadvantaged kid is sitting in my school right now, technically having access to arts on paper, but not actually being in the room. Yeah. Let's break this down. Let's look at three rooms because I want you and the listener to picture what getting this right actually looks like in practice. Yeah. different phases and different settings. Okay, let's do it. Let's start with the primary setting. In a primary setting, getting this right might be as simple as taking a hard look at the primary drama club.

Right. You have an after -school drama club. It runs every single term. Yep. But you have to make sure that the primary drama club isn't just quietly filling up with the exact same confident already enrolled families every term. Oh, because we all know how this works. Exactly. The forms go out, and the families who are already highly engaged, the families with the bandwidth and the confidence, they return the forms immediately. Yep. and the club fills up. It is incredibly easy for a school to tick the box to look at the register and say, we offer primary arts provision, while completely ignoring the fact that the disadvantaged pupils are nowhere near that room.

Exactly. And then when you move up to a secondary school, the dynamic changes entirely. How so? You have to look closely at the secondary options block. It's about watching who actually opts out. of the Arts Options Block and having the courage as a school leaver to ask whether that is a genuine preference from the student or if it is a subtle cost barrier. Oh, the Secondary Options Block cost barriers are huge and they are incredibly quiet. We are talking about instruments, we are talking about trips, we are talking about materials.

Think about the psychological barrier here for a teenager. It's massive. A student might look down at that secondary options block sheet and declare to their teacher, I don't really like music or I don't want to do art. But what they're really saying, what they're internalizing is, I know my family can't afford the instrument. Yeah, or I know the materials cost extra and I don't want to carry the shame of asking my parents for the money. Exactly. It is so much easier for a disadvantaged teenager's pride to just say the subject is boring.

If we aren't carefully monitoring that, if we aren't interrogating why certain groups are opting out, we're letting those cost barriers make the decision for them. That is exactly how it happens. And the third room we have to look at is the specialist provision. In a specialist setting, arts participation often does something that the standard academic curriculum simply cannot do. It provides a genuinely accessible way to express something a pupil can't yet say in words. Which is something the toolkit tries to capture, isn't it? It tries.

The toolkit uses the line well -being. But honestly, for anyone who works in this space, that well -being line barely captures the reality of it. Every specialist practitioner already knows this. When a pupil cannot communicate through standard oral language, when they cannot communicate through writing, the arts aren't just a nice extra. They aren't just about feeling a bit happier. They are a fundamental method of expression. Calling that profound connection just well -being almost undersells what is actually happening in that room. So if we look at the reality of those three rooms, we have the primary drama club quietly filling with the already confident families.

Yep. We have the secondary options block cost barriers, silently pushing out disadvantaged kids through the hidden costs of instruments, trips, and materials. Exactly. And we had the specialist provision offering vital expression beyond words that really refrains his entire conversation away from just looking at a spreadsheet and saying, plus three months. It changes everything, which actually changes how I want you, the listener, to look at your rec. There is something you can try today. Just one thing for you to do. What is it? Pull the register.

Just pull the register. Pull the register for whatever arts provision you have got left this week. Just grab it and check it against your disadvantaged pupil list. This is not a policy change. You don't have to rewrite your entire curriculum today. You don't need to call an emergency SLT meeting. Just look. You know, that right there? That is the governor question. What do you mean if a governor asked you tomorrow? Who is actually in that room? Could you answer or would you be checking for the absolute first time same as me?

Wow Because I have to admit when I sat in that meeting when we cut those two lessons of fortnight in March I was looking at the timetable. I wasn't looking at who was left in the remaining rooms It's the assumption that catches us every time we assume because it's sitting there on the timetable. It's equitable. Yeah So let's pull all of this together, three things off the drive. One, the headline number. Plus three months is real, but it is modest. And we have to always remember the caveat.

Some of the evidence behind it is optimistically marked by people close to the program. Right, they are marking their own homework. Exactly. They are marking their own homework so that three months is an optimistic ceiling, not a floor. Two, the stronger case for arts participation isn't the academic months at all. It is well -being. It is attitudes to learning. And specifically, it is making sure disadvantaged pupils actually get access, which the EEF clearly says needs carefully checking, not just assuming. And three, before your next curriculum review, before you find yourself sitting in that March meeting with an impossibly tight timetable and an oversubscribed options block pull to register, look at who is actually in the room, not just whether the slot survived the cut.

Everything's linked in the show notes. We're the trailer, not the film. Both voices on this show are synthesized. The judgment isn't. Safe trip in. See you at the gates.