In debates about education reform, the arts are often described as “enrichment.”

The word itself is revealing. It implies that creativity is supplementary. Valuable, perhaps, but not essential. Something added once the serious work is complete.

But what if creativity is not enrichment? What if it is anthropological necessity?

Since the introduction of the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) in 2010, arts subjects have seen sustained decline in uptake at GCSE level in England. Government performance measures prioritise English, mathematics, sciences, a humanity, and a modern foreign language.[i]

The logic is straightforward: these subjects are considered academically rigorous and economically strategic.

Yet multiple reports have documented a contraction in arts provision. Entries to GCSE arts subjects have fallen significantly since 2010, particularly in state-funded schools.[ii] Teacher numbers in creative subjects have also declined.[iii]

The effect is not merely curricular. It is cultural.

When performance frameworks privilege certain disciplines, institutional behaviour follows. Timetables tighten. Budget allocations shift. Staffing decisions reflect accountability pressures.

What is measurable becomes structural.

What is structural becomes normative.

The arts do not disappear entirely. They narrow.

Creative disciplines resist the tidy logic of quantification.

A painting cannot be reduced to a progress score. A drama rehearsal cannot be fully captured in a data dashboard. Musical improvisation does not sit easily within a standardised assessment rubric.

In a system oriented toward measurable attainment, this creates tension. The bias toward product — examination output, grade distribution, performance metrics — can subtly displace process.

Yet it is precisely in process that much of the formative power of the arts lies.

Educational research has consistently demonstrated that arts participation supports cognitive flexibility, emotional regulation, and social development.[iv] The benefits are not confined to artistic skill. They concern the whole person.

This is especially significant for children with SEND, many of whom access learning relationally, physically, and creatively rather than through linear academic progression.

To treat creativity as peripheral is therefore not neutral. It privileges certain cognitive modalities over others.

Developmental psychology has long recognised the centrality of play to human growth. Lev Vygotsky argued that imaginative play enables children to inhabit roles beyond their immediate capacities, expanding both cognitive and social horizons.[v]

Play is not frivolous. It is rehearsal for personhood.

Through drama, art, music, and movement, children experiment with agency, empathy, failure, and resilience. They encounter constraint and possibility simultaneously.

This is formation, not performance.

The anthropologist Hartmut Rosa has described modern societies as marked by acceleration and instrumentalisation, where activities are increasingly evaluated according to output efficiency.[vi] Within such a context, creative play becomes quietly countercultural.

It resists reduction.

The marginalisation of the arts is not only an educational issue. It is theological.

Christian anthropology begins not with productivity but with personhood. Human beings are described as bearing the image of God (Genesis 1:27). The Creator’s first self-disclosure in Scripture is creative. To be human is therefore not merely to calculate or produce. It is to imagine, to shape, to name, to cultivate.

Creativity is not ornamental to this identity. It is derivative of it.

When educational systems narrow creativity to enrichment, they risk narrowing what it means to be human. But the same distortion can surface in the church.

If church life becomes primarily about measurable outputs — attendance growth, programme expansion, platform reach — then creative formation is quietly displaced by performance. Worship becomes production. Ministry becomes management. Discipleship becomes content delivery.

This is not unique to ecclesial contexts. It reflects a wider cultural logic in which value is conferred by visibility and efficiency.

In such a climate, imagination becomes suspect because it is slow. Play becomes indulgent because it is not optimised. Art becomes expendable because it does not scale.

Yet biblically, formation is rarely efficient.

The Psalms are poetry. The prophets speak in image and symbol. Jesus teaches in parable rather than proposition. Divine revelation itself is richly creative.

If the church neglects the arts, it does not simply lose aesthetic diversity. It risks flattening its theology.

There is a profound overlap between play and worship.

Both involve structured freedom. Both create alternative space within ordinary time. Both allow participants to inhabit a reality that transcends immediate utility.

Play forms children by expanding imagination beyond current capacity. Liturgy forms disciples by expanding vision beyond present circumstance.

In societies marked by acceleration and instrumentalisation, as Hartmut Rosa argues,^6 activities are increasingly judged by output and efficiency. Within such a framework, creative practices — whether in schools or churches — function as quiet resistance.

They assert that human beings are more than producers.

For children with SEND, this resistance is especially significant. Creative modalities often provide access to agency and expression where conventional academic metrics do not. In drama, music, and art, children who are marginalised by standardisation can inhabit competence and leadership.

Theologically, this matters.

If the image of God is borne equally by every child, then educational and ecclesial structures that privilege only narrow forms of cognition risk misrepresenting divine intention.

The purpose of arts education is not primarily vocational. It is formative.

It cultivates attentiveness, patience, empathy, collaboration, and the capacity to dwell with ambiguity. These are not decorative traits. They are civic and spiritual virtues.

A society that reduces creativity to optional enrichment may inadvertently produce technically proficient but imaginatively impoverished citizens.

A church that sidelines artistic formation may produce efficient congregations but thin worship.

The question is not whether the arts improve attainment data, though evidence suggests they often do.[vii] The deeper question is whether we believe creativity belongs to the core of human identity or merely its margins.

If creativity is anthropological necessity, then its erosion — whether in schools, churches, or public life — signals more than curriculum change.

It signals a narrowing of what we believe a person is for.

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[i] UK Department for Education, English Baccalaureate (EBacc) (London: Department for Education, 2023), https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/english-baccalaureate-ebacc.

[ii] Cultural Learning Alliance, The Arts in Schools: Trends in GCSE Entries (London: Cultural Learning Alliance, 2023), https://www.culturallearningalliance.org.uk/the-arts-in-schools.

[iii] National Society for Education in Art and Design (NSEAD), The State of Art Education Survey Report 2022 (London: NSEAD, 2022), https://www.nsead.org/downloads/surveyreports/.

[iv] Education Endowment Foundation, Arts Participation: Impact on Educational Outcomes (London: Education Endowment Foundation, 2021), https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/teaching-learning-toolkit/arts-participation.

[v] Lev Vygotsky, Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes, ed. Michael Cole et al. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978).

[vi] Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of Modernity (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013).

[vii] Education Endowment Foundation, Arts Participation: Impact on Educational Outcomes.

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Series Note: This is the third of eight posts exploring SEND reform, creative education, inclusion, and the theology of the Broken Church.