Ofsted’s research also found that 44% of primary headteachers and 67% of secondary headteachers reported that responses to financial pressure had led to some reductions in curriculum breadth.41 We asked the Department whether it was monitoring whether schools were dropping humanities or languages, because they did not have the staff to cover them or these subjects were too expensive to offer. The Department said that it did not want teachers to have to make financially driven decisions that reduced curriculum breadth. It told us that it kept a very close eye on this issue and monitored the number of hours taught in different subjects to identify any areas of concern. For example, it explained that hours taught in art and design and in music had held up relatively well, with a small drop between 2015–16 and 2020–21. The Department noted that there was more cause for concern about a couple of subjects – for example, the hours taught in design technology had fallen, which was something that it confirmed it would want to look into and keep an eye on.42