An interesting thread with some equally interesting ideas but really, what planet are you living on regarding inclusion in the curriculum? It's my observation that teachers are under enormous pressure to deliver ever improving results to satisfy the insatiable appetite of that monster called the SATs. It seems that Literacy, Numeracy and Science monopolise a childs' education up to KS2 level and every other subject has to fight for whatever time is left.
I suppose that dance could find a slot within the P.E. syllabus but who's going to teach it? Budgetry restraints and lack of expertise within the average primary school would make this a non starter except possibly as a one-off experience. Literacy could, I suppose, accommodate a unit dealing with traditional music but I can't see this having the effect that some posters seem to envisage.
Dancing round the maypole might be ok in rural schools or schools in the leafy suburbs but in some inner city schools where in the case of boys, if you still have your own teeth at 10 then you're sexual orientation comes into question, then I can see a great reluctance to participate.
Then the suggestion that Martin Carthy should be imposed on children, who need excitement and stimulation, is another no-no. Martin Carthy is an aquired taste much better left until an individual decides for themselves if that is the road that they want to take.
I think the best that any of us can hope for is if individual schools have the will or the forsight to expose children to the delights of country dance and traditional song but as in the case of RE, methinks other cultural traditions will compete, rightly so,for equal exposure.