17-Year-Old Wins Battle To Get Female Composers on A-Level Syllabus
Kate Bush is one of the composers who will be studied on the new curriculum. Image: Kevin McKay/Shutterstock
17-year-old Jessy McCabe has won her campaign to include female composers on the 2016 A-Level syllabus.
“I was part of an in-school gender equality and leadership programme for young women (Fearless Futures),” McCabe said on Change.org. “I was shocked to realise I had never before noticed that there are no female composers included in my Music A-Level. So I decided to do something about it.”
Jessy assumed the exclusion of female composers was a simple mistake since Edexcel - one of Britain’s biggest exam boards - advocate that students should “engage in, and extend the appreciation of the diverse and dynamic heritage of music.”
She wrote to the board in hopes of rectifying the situation. Shockingly, the Head of Music responded to Jessy, telling her: “there would be very few female composers that could be included [in the A-Level syllabus].”
Jessy McCabe. Image: Twitter @jessy_mccabe
Determined to level the playing field, Jessy launched a petition on Change.org which garnered almost 4,000 signatures. She also wrote an open letter to the Education Secretary, Nicky Morgan, the Executive Director of exam regulator Ofqual, Ian Stockford, and Mark Anderson, Managing Director of Edexcel’s parent company, Pearson UK. She urged them to “ensure women are included in the 2016 A-Level Music syllabus so that girls are freely able and inspired to become composers, to enrich the A-Level syllabus and to ultimately ensure that women’s works are valued, as they should be.”
The campaign received broad media coverage and in the face of mounting public pressure Jessy received a personal apology from Mark Anderson and assurance that the course will change.
In December 2015 Edexcel announced the inclusion of five female composers on the 2016 A-Level syllabus. The compulsory set works now feature compositions by Clara Schumann, Rachel Portman, Kate Bush, Anoushka Shankar and Kaija Saariaho, while a further twelve wider listening pieces are by women composers.
Clara Schumann. Image: Rex/Shutterstock
Jessy is delighted by the outcome and has asked supporters to “please continue to promote works by women composers and challenge injustices in our education system.
Congratulations Jessy!
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