National Centre for Arts and Music Education

The Department for Education is contracting with a delivery partner to establish and operate a National Centre for Arts Education (previously called the National Centre for Arts and Music Education) (the "Centre"). The intention is to establish the Centre by September 2026. The Centre will play a pivotal role in delivering the government’s ambition to revitalise arts in schools in England, so every child can access a rich, high-quality arts education that nurtures creativity, confidence, cultural understanding, and personal expression. This ambition will be underpinned by close collaboration with leading arts and cultural organisations and sector bodies to ensure the Centre reflects the breadth, diversity, and excellence of England’s cultural landscape.

The Centre will act as a strategic system leader, working across national, regional, and local levels to strengthen arts provision in schools. By convening and mobilising a broad coalition of partners from across arts, culture, education and philanthropy, the Centre is intended to create the conditions for meaningful social impact. It will coordinate and align funding, investment, and activity to maximise the collective impact of all partners involved in arts education in schools. It will also generate and share data and evidence to guide decision making and target support where access to high-quality arts education is most unequal. In this way, the Centre will be an important partner in revitalising arts education, securing equitable access to high-quality teaching and enrichment opportunities, particularly for children and communities currently least able to access them.

The Centre will operate with transparency, accountability, and a commitment to sector engagement, building trust and long-term partnerships across the arts and cultural ecology.

The delivery partner will lead the Centre and therefore be responsible for the design, implementation, and oversight of the Music Hubs network to support delivery of these priorities:

• Priority 1: Providing strategic national leadership in revitalising arts in schools, mobilising a coalition of national, regional, and local partners to generate and direct investment to support equitable access to high-quality arts in school, with a focus on under-served communities.

• Priority 2: Supporting excellent teaching, through a new online CPD offer for primary and secondary school teachers and support to access existing high-quality teacher development provision available from others.

• Priority 3: Promoting arts education to school leaders, teachers, parents, and young people, including promoting opportunities for children and young people to progress in the arts and pursue their interests and career aspirations.

• Oversight of the Music Hubs network, including being fundholder for the network, monitoring hubs’ performance and delivery, and working with hubs to achieve the Centre’s three priorities.

The Centre will be established with a phased implementation plan for its programme of work, with the intention of commencing this work from 30 September 2026. The phased implementation includes Centre assuming responsibility for the existing Music Hubs network from 1 September 2027. There are 43 local partnerships that support schools to deliver music education and they are currently overseen by Arts Council England.

Arts Council England will work with the Centre to transfer this oversight function, during which the Centre can undertake preliminary engagement with Music Hub partnerships before September 2027. Future funding for the Music Hubs revenue grant from September 2027 will be confirmed in due course and is separate to this contract value.

In parallel with this, the Department for Education has asked Arts Council England to support the Centre to develop relationships across the cultural education sector. Potential areas for support and collaboration include: sector engagement; learning from previous and current programmes; data and evidence; and place-based alignment.