Tighter Examinations

Across the country hundreds of young people will be facing a mountain of revision this Easter as over the next few months they will be sitting their GCSE and A-Level exams. As students hit the books, move into the studio and perfect their performances the Education Secretary, Michael Gove, has announced the introduction of tougher exams for arts GCSEs and A-Levels, including dance. In September 2016 the Dance GCSE and A-Level exams alongside the Citizenship, Computer Science, Design and Technology, Physical Education and Religious Education exams will be completely transformed. These new exams have been created using the advice of experts such as the Arts Council England and the Musical Education Council. They will be more ‘rigorous’ in a bid to ensure children gain a high standard of cultural education as well as allowing all children access to a wide variety of art forms. After criticism that the arts in schools have been neglected in favour of core subjects such as English, Maths and Science the government’s attempt to pull up their ballet socks has been welcomed by the dance community. Indeed Youth Dance England (YED) ‘commends the government in recognising the importance of dance in the education of students’.

Over the last few years the government have been trying to promote the arts, these latest reforms come as an initiative, which provided more than £340 million pounds for cultural and arts education programmes between 2012 and 2015, draws to an end. This had allowed for schemes like the National Youth Dance Company to take fruition. Nonetheless, there is still a long way to go until dance achieves the higher profile in schools that dance teachers have been campaigning for. As part of Gove’s reforms however, dance will no longer be grouped with drama in the league tables allowing the situation to be better monitored in future.