Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has pledged to make the creative arts accessible to every child in the UK as part of his party’s vision to unleash a ‘generation of creativity’.
Delivering the Labour party’s creative education plans during a visit to a primary school in Harlow, Essex, Starmer said that if his party should win the next general election, it will act to reverse a “Conservative education policy that has hammered the uptake of arts subjects in state schools”.
Responding to Starmer’s vision, Advertising Association president, Stephen Woodford said the AA welcomes Labour’s pledge to “unleash a generation of creativity” by changing the curriculum to improve access to creative education for people from working-class backgrounds.
“We welcome the plan to introduce a Curriculum Assessment Review to broaden opportunities for state-school pupils and ensure that children don’t miss out on subjects such as music, art, design, sport and drama,” he said.
“This is an important step for improving social mobility within the industry, as our research has shown that 20% of UK advertising professionals attended fee-paying schools, versus a national average of just 8%.”
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When evaluating the current state of creative education in the UK, Starmer bemoaned the lack of opportunities for working class people to enter the creative industries – highlighting how they have been traditionally dominated by a privately-educated workforce.
Labour’s plan would look to smash that “glass ceiling”, Starmer said, with a view towards opening the creative industries to state-educated children, anchored in the belief that the sector should be “a path that every child deserves to have at their feet”.
Starmer’s creative education plan will revolve around a series of key pledges, namely that the curriculum should be broadened to ensure that state-school pupils don’t miss out on music, art, design, sport and drama; that schools should be more accountable in ensuring access to creative subjects, and that oratory and life skills should be embedded withing the curriculum – giving pupils more confidence to succeed.
Labour also pledged to create breakfast clubs in every primary school to improve children’s learning and development, as well as recruiting a further 6,500 teachers to help secure the next generation’s education.
