You shrug. It doesn't matter, does it? The students can choose something else, can't they?
Yes. They could. If they wanted to be a writer they could take English Literature instead of English Language; there is definitely something to be said for studying other authors before you do your own writing. A mathematician could take Physics as their second subject rather than further maths. Never mind that Universities make lower offers to students that study further maths. Fluent Spanish speakers could easily swap to French, one foreign language is much like any other. But what if it was music A level and they were planning a career as a musician? Would dance be just as good?
It's still not a problem, is it? They could go to a different school or a sixth form college. A daily bus ride and associated cost of about £250 a term is manageable for every student, right? But what happens when the school withdraws these options long after the deadline for applying to other sixth forms has passed? Surely, that is immoral.
Ah, but think of the school, you say. They school has a budget to manage. They can't possibly be expected to run a subject if there aren't enough students taking it. Imagine a school with spare music teachers floating around, singing in corridors and playing the piano, it would cause havoc. I mean if they only have eight students (a 166% increase on the year my daughter took the subject) they would have so much free time, they might even be able to speak to their families in term time and we all know that teacher's own children need protecting from their parent.
Call me cynical but I can't help thinking this is all a very clever strategy, marking the beginning of the end of the subject that aren't in the right buckets. If you have no students taking A level music your inspirational players have gone from the school. You can stop offering it at GCSE and then, well anyone can do a bit of singing with the year sevens and eights in their (bizarrely) still compulsory music lesson; the school principal has heard the ladies in the canteen sing and part time workers are so much more expensive.
If you've read any other of my blogs you will know that I am passionate about music education. It is such a brilliant, all round subject that trains and tests so many areas of the brain at once and it can be fun too. What kind of hell is education without music going to be?
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