Specialist arts teachers make a difference

PAT THOMSON AND CHRISTINE HALL, SCHOOL OF EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM, UK Arts education is a required component of the National Curriculum in England. There are, however, no national statistics that show whether primary arts education is affected by the same decline as secondary arts enrolments (Cultural Learning Alliance, 2025). While all primary schools are expected to cover music and art and design, the vast majority of classroom teachers do not have specialist arts knowledge. A primary classroom teacher’s arts repertoire draws on a complex mix of their own prior arts experience, their initial teacher education programme and the quality of their school teaching experience, including how much formal and informal professional development is available (Hennessy et al., 2001). Teachers in England cannot rely on initial teacher education for a solid arts education. Recent research into arts provision in primary initial teacher education showed that while some universities