Drama and media education1 were both excluded from the charmed circle of National Curriculum 'core' and 'foundation' subjects established by the Education Reform Act of 1988. Despite official assurances that the foundation subjects were 'certainly not a complete curriculum',2 the consequences of exclusion have proved serious: no nation-wide debate about subject content and purpose; no statutory orders based on a ten-level model of continuity and progression; no government-sponsored training programme; no compulsory assessment arrangements.