Oak National Academy will miss its goal to release full curriculum packages for all subjects by this summer, Tes can reveal.
Full resources for secondary music will now not be released by the government-funded platform until next year, Tes has learned.
There are “additional copyright implications” caused by teachers wanting it to “have specific features which led us to make some changes”, a spokesperson for the online teaching resources and lessons provider said.
Secondary music teachers who have been in touch with Oak’s school support team have been informed, Tes understands.
The spokesperson added the arm’s length organisation is “on track to release all resources for the first batch of subjects in almost all areas”.
Oak confirmed all other subjects are on course to be completed in summer 2024, but specific dates could not be provided because content is released “as soon as it’s created and approved, rather than on a specific day”.
Writing in an Oak blog published last year, education director Tom Rose had said the first full set of new lesson planning and teaching resources would be available from autumn 2023, with “full curriculum packages by summer 2024”.
Second delay for music
Oak became a government arm’s length body in 2022 after launching as a national free online learning provider during the Covid pandemic.
It has been criticised by some heads for potentially driving other resource providers out of the market, and not being sufficiently “useful” to teachers.
Oak’s first phase of subject resources for English, maths, science, music, geography and history launched in September 2023.
Curriculum partners for these subjects had been unveiled in March last year, alongside subject expert groups, including Ofsted subject leads.
At the time, Knowledge Schools Trust, an 11-school multi-academy trust based in West London and the South East, was selected as Oak’s curriculum partner for secondary music. The trust has been approached for comment.
However, partners for primary music and secondary geography were delayed as no applications had met the “high-quality bar” it sought.
In March this year, Oak then named Bristol Beacon and Cathedral Schools Trust as curriculum partner for primary music and the Geographical Association (KS3) and Geography South West (KS4) for secondary geography.
New resources due in September
Oak’s second tranche of subject resources - for art and design, computing, design and technology, PE, religious education, modern foreign languages, relationships and health education, and citizenship - are set to be rolled out from this September.
Resources for primary music and secondary geography will also be rolled out alongside the second tranche of resources, as Oak previously confirmed.
New plans and resources for all national curriculum subjects are due by autumn 2025.
The delay to the secondary music curriculum package comes as the Department for Education has been asked to detail the evidence underpinning music hubs reforms and set out what steps the government is taking “to ensure that music education is adequately funded”.
Robin Walker, former chair of the Commons Education Select Committee, wrote to the previous schools minister Damian Hinds after experts appeared before the committee to discuss the reforms in May.
Music sector experts have sounded warnings about insufficient funding and the impact of the reduction of music hubs across the country.
Music hubs are currently being restructured, which will reduce the number from 116 to 43 from September this year. The move follows the publication of a national plan for music education (NPME) in 2022.
Music specialists have previously criticised this restructuring, with the Independent Society of Musicians (ISM) last year calling for former schools minister Nick Gibb to provide answers on the plan to cut the number of hubs.
Tes understands that music specialists have written to the new Labour government setting out their concerns and are awaiting a response.
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