CLA annual Report Card 2025 published

The Cultural Learning Alliance (CLA) has published the second edition of it's annual Report Card, written by Baz Ramaiah, CLA Policy and Evidence Associate.

CLA’s second annual Report Card distils their annual evidence work and reporting into a clear set of five annual indicators, based – as far as possible – on national time series data drawn from government data sets. Occasionally they broaden the scope of these annual indicators in new editions when they are able to include new evidence – for example this year they have added Arts vocational qualifications data and data on an ‘Arts entitlement gap’. 

In summary, our 2025 Report Card reveals:

• Clear evidence of a relationship between child poverty and not studying Expressive Arts. Art & Design, Dance, Drama and Music account for only 6.6% of all GCSE entries and 4.2% of A Levels in the most deprived fifth of local authorities. By contrast, in the least deprived fifth of local authorities these subjects account for 8.3% of GCSE and 5.4% of A Level entries, thereby revealing an ‘Arts entitlement gap’.

• A crisis in Expressive Arts Initial Teacher Training Recruitment. We have identified that Arts Initial Teacher Training recruitment has fallen on average by 66% since 2020/21 and has decreased on average by 30% since 2022/23. 

• A long-term trajectory of decline. Despite small glimmers of good news for music between 2022/23 and 2023/24, we are still largely seeing a trajectory of Arts decline in secondary education, including across technical qualifications.

View and download the Annual Report Card here: https://www.culturallearningalliance.org.uk/evidence/#annual