The Henley Review
The Crafts Council responds to the newly published Henley Review
Darren Henley was tasked with leading a review of music education and ‘to make recommendations as to how cultural education could be delivered, based on a set of proposed models for music’. The Henley Review published yesterday is great news for music and deservedly so. Yet acknowledgement of the wider subject of cultural education is not as extensive as many non-musical cultural organisations across the UK (whose work ensures that our young people are exposed to as rich as cultural education as possible) would have hoped for.
The Review mentions maintaining the position of the UK’s creative industries on the world stage through encouraging a skilled workforce of musicians. The very strength and reputation of our creative industries is dependent on its depth and diversity – from art, craft and design to dance, drama and film.
All creative subjects have unique benefits, and craft in particular can claim many of the same ones as music. Working with one’s own hands in a real-world 3-D environment is imperative for full cognitive and intellectual development and as with music. And developing craft skills improves behaviour, numeracy, literacy and language as well as nurturing strong links between school, home and work and between generations and within communities.
It would be wonderful if this meticulously researched and excellent Review could be sensitively translated into models for all the other cultural forms so children can be given the opportunity to learn more than one creative subject. Music, craft, art, drama, dance should be taught for their own sake and on their own merit – all offering something different but equally valid.
See our letter to the Guardian here
