Last year, in a series for Music Teacher called ‘Examining Change’, I wrote about the working models of some of the UK’s instrumental exam boards and how these were accommodating the creative voices of those from traditionally underrepresented groups. Equally, I was keen to know about changes being made within these organisations that would ensure they become more representative. It was clear from my conversations that there was a strong awareness of the need to become more relevant in an increasingly diverse and changing society. It’s not only children and young people who wish to learn to play a musical instrument and take an exam, but adults too, and from all backgrounds.
Society has changed considerably since most of these organisations were born. It’s difficult to move away from words such as ‘institutionalisation’ and ‘tradition’ and the structural implications that accompany this narrative. The desire and enthusiasm for change was both clear and heartening. The next stop seemed, quite naturally, for me to find out more about the academic exam boards.
Many instrumental music students with aspirations of taking their music-making beyond school will be involved in academic music courses. For those with aspirations towards higher education, A Level Music is a nailed-on requirement. I was keen to find out about the journey UK academic exam boards have taken and with decolonising the curricula in particular. Like the instrumental exam boards, in my view, there was a need to increase the relevance of content and to engage a wider community of learners. I spoke to the UK’s leading academic boards – OCR, AQA, Pearson and WJEC Eduqas – to find out more.
Wider context
Before I shine a light on those conversations, I think it’s important to mention the challenges of engaging a wider community in the context of studying music in secondary education. Primary schools – one of the first places that children get exposed to music-making – have a decreasing number of specialist music co-ordinators. The effect of this is exacerbated in secondary education, where, increasingly, schools fail to offer GCSE Music. Given recent findings from the Hamilton Commission, which shows that under two per cent of teachers in England’s schools are of Black heritage, and nearly half of all England’s schools (46 per cent) fail to employ Black teachers, there’s an additional onus on academic exam boards to show sensitivity for what young people learn at this important stage in their development.
Unlike the instrumental exam boards, there is a predetermined uniformity to the academic exam offer; the framework they all work within is the same. All of the boards contributed to the last major revision of the GCSE and A Level Music syllabuses, in 2016. The exams are rigorously governed by the Department for Education (DfE) and Ofqual.
Tackling traditional assumptions
Common to all is a requirement to use staff notation, though 60 per cent of the OCR GCSE Music exam, for example, uses this for practical work and composition. We know that so many young people are making music using technology within the privacy of their own homes. While notation underpins Western classical music, the acknowledgement that notation should only form part of the musical knowledge base is reassuring – it’s possible to pass the OCR GCSE without acing the notation aspect of the exam. This is relevant, too, when one of the areas of focus at GCSE is music from other parts of the world, including Africa, Central and South America, India and the Punjab, for which staff notation is less relevant.
For the performance aspects of exams, there is a progressive approach in the choice of instruments. Performers can use traditional Western classical instruments, of course, but may also be DJs, MCs or sequencing specialists – exams boards seem proud to consider all instruments. Marie Bessant, Subject Lead Advisor at OCR, was keen to emphasise that understanding the assessment barriers and parameters was important to the process of involving a wider community of learners; to decentralising and increasing the relevance of curricula. It was heartening to see artists from underrepresented groups in recommendations for recordings of set works.
Of course, not all GCSE music teachers will necessarily have been busy honing their DJ or MC skills while studying at university or conservatoire. It’s good to know that exam boards provide resources to support teachers in understanding different genres and instruments, and to help them teach these enthusiastically. Sandra Allan, Head of Curriculum (Creative Arts) at AQA, told of one instance where a school was able to grow its GCSE music cohort after the music department was introduced to a DJ team.
Challenging ‘the canon’
For me, the barriers begin to reaffirm themselves at A Level. While there should always be room for what has gone before and what represents the Western classical canon, it’s clear that shifting the focus away from set works by Bach, Haydn, Stravinsky and, in the film world, Bernard Hermann or Daniel Robert Elfman still has some way to go – before creating space for Herbie Hancock, Kris Bowers, Terence Blanchard and other composers from underrepresented groups.
All of the exam boards show a willingness to encourage students to learn of a wide range of composers and performers. Eduqas and WJEC (Wales) have produced an online learning resource called Increasing Diversity, which is a support tool to allow those studying GCSE or A level Music the freedom to explore composers from a wider cultural heritage. Their Music team is currently revising the set works offer at A Level to include a more inclusive range of composers. Given the work taking place with the Welsh education curriculum more generally, I hope that Eduqas and WJEC will make impactful progress with the GCSE and A Level exams along these lines.
All of the exam boards have coherent EDI strategy plans and are using lived experience to develop better representation within their organisations and to have better traction with a wider community of learners. For Suha Yassin – Pearson’s lead for diversity, equity and inclusion – recruitment, promotion and retention were important factors to the internal narrative of inclusion, representation and culture. For Suha, data is a significant driver in this process.
Roberta Thompson, product director for academic qualifications and professional development at Pearson, told me about the stakeholder discussions the company is having to support wider representation and to decolonise. These stakeholders include teachers, the youth voice and external experts.
Work in progress
Frustratingly, but realistically, change takes time. With the pandemic, the heinous murder of George Floyd and subsequent visibility of the BLM movement, the decolonisation conversation has moved somewhat since my last review of music exams in England and Wales. The mood music from all four of the exam boards not only suggests they can do better, but must in terms of the report card. It’s clear to me that there is a lot more that can be done – in some way this accounted for the apparent reticence on the part of one or two examining boards to open up in conversation. A number of educational organisations have been criticised in recent years for their lack of movement in decolonising. In one visible case, the removal of the only composition from a Black composer on the A Level set works list of one exam board resulted in enough public protest for that work to be reinstated.
Openness will go a long way to connect with a wider community, and sends a clear message that, having embarked on the path of diversifying and decolonising, there will not be an about-face. While the exam boards work under a strict framework as prescribed by the DfE, there’s always work that can be done between the periodical reviews that allow them to move positively towards decolonising the curriculum and exam offer. The workforce, to my mind, is an important consideration for making progress. Collectively, I hope more work can be done to incentivise and increase the diversity of teaching staff and, subsequently, to address the paucity of diverse examiners and staff in this area. It’s crucial to remember that lived experience informs change.
