Education

Musician Ed Sheeran has been funding a local state school's music, art and drama education programmes for the last seven years after government cuts to the subjects left teachers with a meagre budget.

In an interview for Theo Von’s podcast This Past Weekend, the singer-songwriter explained how he came to finance creative subjects. “Basically, in 2017/ 2018, my old music teacher came to me, and he was like, ‘Look, the government that is currently in charge does not value art at all—arts, drama, music—and they cut all the funding for comprehensive high schools.

“I think they had to share between art, music and drama, like £700 per year for all three subjects. So, I started funding that at my local high school. And then you see a massive uptick in kids doing production, kids doing songwriting, kids doing this.”

Sheeran has used his own money to build a recording studio and to provide “loads of proper instruments that aren’t broken”. Seeing the impact encouraged him to expand his efforts: “I started doing that in the county that I’m from. And we’ve just now changed it to do it nationwide.

“Because I’m not an academic person and in the real world, I would be viewed as stupid, but I excelled at music, and therefore, people think that I’m good at something."

Speaking about the general election, he added: “I’m doing what I can to get funding for [the arts in state schools]. But I think getting the new government will be better at it. 

“We’re famous for music with The Beatles. We’re famous for painting. Damien Hurst. We’re famous for movies. You’ve got Danny Boyle coming out of here [and] Christopher Nolan. And the government is just putting importance on maths and banking, and we make arms, but no one is proud that we make arms, and no one is proud that our banking’s really good, but they are proud of our art.

“And so for a government to be like. ‘The art doesn’t matter,’ where do you think the art [is] going to come from? So the next part of my career is getting proper, proper funding and art, music, drama back into schools – and actually Ireland do a very good job of it.

"It worked so well for me, and I know it can work so well for other kids. I’m kind of proof that normal kids can just pick up guitars, work hard and do it.”

Post-16 vocational qualifications in art, creative and media subjects are meeting the needs of learners, according to findings from Qualifications Wales.

The review, part of a national programme across a range of employment sectors, includes qualifications in performing arts, media and communication, crafts, creative arts and design, and publishing and information.

Together these sectors employ 34,900 people in Wales with an annual turnover of £1.7bn.

While the report findings suggest that art, creative and media subject qualifications – which are available in English and Welsh – are meeting the needs of learners, it also identified areas that should be improved.

These include: that some qualifications need additional content; that creative apprenticeship frameworks should be reviewed as some no longer included funded qualifications; and that there is demand for one framework qualification to be made available in Welsh.

Gareth Downey, Senior Qualifications Manager at Qualifications Wales, said: "Our review findings show there are a number of strengths to the current range of qualifications, but that some areas require attention.

"We have been working with awarding bodies and other stakeholders to address the issues identified.

"This includes recommending that the Welsh Government review the apprenticeship frameworks in the sector and that awarding bodies update the content of some qualifications, alongside increasing the number of Welsh-medium qualifications available to learners.”