CHAPTER ONE
Background
1 In Scotland, the National Guidelines in Expressive Arts ( SOED, 1992) sought to ensure that the arts were embedded within the curriculum in the primary school and the first two years of secondary school. These guidelines have supplied local authorities and head teachers with advice and information on how to structure the curriculum while taking account of the importance of Art and Design, Dance and Physical Education, Drama and Music in young children's lives. Regular inspections by Her Majesty's Inspectors have been carried out since the guidelines were first published and reports such as 'Effective Learning and Teaching in Scottish Secondary Schools: Music' (Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools, 1998) have indicated the relative success of each school's implementation of the guidelines as they affect each arts subject area in the secondary curriculum. Similarly, HMI reports on Primary schools in Scotland indicate the extent to which the arts are successfully integrated into the life of the school, including reference to individual music tuition, whole class activities in all four arts areas, opportunities for public display of skills learned in classes and extra curricular activities, and the effect that these can have on the ethos and cultural climate of the whole school.
2 The report on the 'Survey of local authority provision for arts and culture' ( SEED, 2001) focused mainly on the contributions made by libraries, museums and art galleries, sports facilities and theatres and entertainment toward the cultural life of society and the importance placed on these activities by all of Scotland's local authorities. There appears to be little evidence, from Scotland, of the impact of expressive arts guidelines nationally with regard to their effectiveness in providing support and guidance for schools, the importance placed on the arts by schools and local authorities and on the qualitative benefits accruing from participation in the arts by children in schools.
3 The national survey of youth music provision (Broad, Duffy & Price, 2003) looked specifically at out of school music provision for young people across Scotland. Currently, in England, a large scale ESRC funded project is concerned with investigating young people's music in and out of school (Lamont et al, 2003), particularly their engagement with musical activities. A unique aspect of this study is that it elicits the views of nearly 1500 young people aged between 8 and 14 years. Also in England, several reports have been commissioned over the last 8 to 10 years which have variously focused on the state of the arts in a small number of representative secondary schools (Ross & Kamba, 1997), the importance and value that society places on the arts (National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education, 2001) and the arts in primary schools (Downing, Johnson & Kaur, 2003). This last survey represents the most substantial piece of research to date in the primary school and its findings make interesting reading for those interested in arts education in Scotland.
4 No comparable study in Scotland has been carried out into the effectiveness of the arts in the primary school and early years of secondary school curriculum. Examples of good practice are available through HMI reports although these are unlikely to have reached a wide audience. Nationally, it is not clear how schools interpret and implement the advice on proportions of curricular time devoted to the arts. Teacher's levels of confidence in teaching the different arts subjects need to be established in order to target and support teacher development. The views of teachers and head teachers on how prepared they feel their schools are to foster and develop good practice in arts teaching needs also to be established. It is also important to know if teachers favour one arts area over the others and whether they perceive, as their counterparts in England appear to do, (Downing et al, 2003) that Art and Design is the one area that is taught with a high degree of confidence by most teachers.
5 In England, there is a view that the government, through OFSTED, exerts pressure on schools to achieve and excel in the key areas of the curriculum such as mathematics and language and that this implies a perceived downgrading of the arts. This perception is being resisted at school level and has resulted in an increased commitment to the arts.
6 Those who work most closely with primary school pupils recognize the importance of the arts and are frustrated that others do not.
'The emphasis on the academic for the last 14 years has made it so that schools are afraid to develop the arts because publicly they are not given their full value and worth as a significant contributor to the development of the whole child, particularly by politicians and the Df ES' (head teacher, sample survey).
(Downing et al, 2003)
7 In Scotland, the extent to which the philosophy of better arts provision in schools has impacted upon practice has yet to be established and this study addresses the balance of the curriculum by allowing the views of head teachers, senior school managers and teachers to offer insights into the perception of the arts in primary and secondary schools in Scotland.
Aims of the study
8 This study aimed to develop baseline information on the views and attitudes of schools and teachers concerning the value of the arts in the life of schools and in the lives of young people at school. The study explored the views of teachers on a range of issues relating to the teaching of the arts in primary schools and the first two years of secondary schools. The study explored issues such as teachers' views on the balance of the curriculum, the specialist knowledge they perceive as necessary or not in order to teach each subject with confidence, and the benefits which, in the view of teachers, accrue to the school through participation in the arts. The impact of the arts upon the general life of the school and the ways in which the arts permeate the curriculum will be examined. It is anticipated that this study will also act as a point of departure for future research that would further investigate the role of the arts within education.