Learning to Teach RE in the Secondary School

A Companion to School Experience

Anne-Marie Brandom, Andrew Wright, Anne-Marie Brandom, Andrew Wright

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2005
• eBook ISBN: 9781134649211
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Learning to Teach Religious Education in the Secondary School draws together insights from current educational theory and the best contemporary classroom teaching and learning, and suggests tasks, activities, and further reading designed to enhance the quality of initial school experience for the student teacher.
It aims to support teachers in developing levels of religious and theological literacy, both of individual pupils and the society as a whole. Practising teachers and students will appreciate this comprehensive and accessible introduction to the craft of teaching Religious Education in the secondary school.

Part I

The context of Religious Education

1

The Place of Religious Education in the Curriculum

Linda Rudge

No boy or girl can be counted as properly educated unless he or she has been made aware of the fact of the existence of a religious interpretation of life.

(Spens Report, 1938 (Cox and Cairns 1989, p. 5))

Who said that religion was dead—or that religious education has no part to play in a secular society? Where is this secular society anyway?

(David Pascall, Chair of the NCC, 1992 (Copley 1997, p. 172))

The Government’s aim…is to improve the quality of the religious education curriculum.

(Department for Education (DFE 1994a, para. 5))

My dream for the future of RE has to be earthed in answering the challenges of the three Ts—time, teachers and training.

(Ian Wragg, HMI (ret.) (Copley 1998, p. 5))

This chapter begins with an overview of a range of factors influencing the place of RE in the curriculum. It then explores some controversial aspects of RE’s development, exemplified by the fact that the subject is both compulsory but optional and local but national. The ownership of RE, the subject’s aims and its relationship with religion(s) are noted, as the origins of current realities are explored. The concluding section considers current and future possibilities for RE as it finds a place in the new revised curriculum.

Any review of RE’s place in the curriculum has to take account of wider debates about the whole curriculum in state schooling, from the early years of education to (and through) adulthood. The perceived purposes of education affect RE’s position. The main focus of the legal framework described in this chapter is RE in the maintained (county) secondary school curriculum in England, with some references to Welsh provision. School collective worship is mentioned, but only as part of RE’s history. The chapter explores the maze of structures, people, and their communities, that are intended to support the subject in a variety of different schools. The intention is to reach the centre of the maze, the pupil, and hence the heart of RE.

OBJECTIVES

By the end of this chapter you should:

• understand some of the debates surrounding the purpose of RE and its position in the curriculum;

• be familiar with aspects of Agreed Syllabus construction, and the aims of RE;

• know about the legal requirements which affect RE teachers;

• be able to formulate a justification of RE’s place in the school curriculum.

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION: REALITIES AND RUMOURS

RE’s place in the curriculum presents new teachers with many possibilities and, inevitably, some problems. Here are five possible aims for the subject, though there are many more possibilities. RE can:

• be an important contributor to personal development, enabling pupils to develop their own beliefs and values, and to consider thoughtfully those of others;

• provide an academic and rigorous way of understanding the world(s) in which we live, introducing pupils to the fascinating realm of rituals, ceremonies, symbols and lifestyles;

• help develop critical thinking and skills of communication and expression, providing a literacy for dealing with religious questions and experiences;

• offer pupils a chance to reflect on the ultimate questions in life, and so open doors to worlds known and unknown;

• stimulate interfaith dialogue and understanding, and offer an interface between the secular and the spiritual.

A tall order? Some, or all, of the above claims for RE may have been why you decided to become an RE teacher. This chapter is not only about RE’s place in the curriculum, and how it is kept there, it is also about aims for RE and for RE teachers. As you develop a rationale for the subject, and for your teaching methods, you will need to consider where that rationale has come from, and what alternatives exist. You also need to be hard-headed about the realities. How is it possible to fulfil any of these aims given the complexity of the task and, if government guidelines are actually met, a mere 5 per cent of curriculum time is available (Dearing 1994)?

TASK 1.1

DEVELOPING A PROFESSIONAL RATIONALE FOR RE TEACHING

Before you read any further, think about the question ‘What is RE?’ During the course of your career you will encounter many definitions and models of RE, and you may find yourself identifying with one or more of them. Despite this diversity most good RE teachers will work with a clear understanding of, and commitment to, their own personal rationale for the subject.

• Look at the five suggested aims of RE outlined above, and try to place them in descending order of importance according to your own developing approach to the subject.

• Are there any possible aims you would like to add to the list?

• Write down a summary of your professional aims as an RE teacher and share your perspectives with those of your colleagues.

• Seal your summary in an envelope and put it in a safe place. In a year’s time go back to it and consider how your views have changed.

RE is a comparatively new subject, although it has many ancient and contemporary relatives, such as Theology and Religious Studies. RE was effectively created by teachers and other educators during the period between 1944 and 1988, and it was legally recognised and given its current name by the 1988 Education Reform Act. During those forty-four years it was also officially (if inadvertently) divorced from its partner, collective worship. RE, like all school subjects, continues to evolve and develop, reflecting the changing nature of society and of schooling. In thirty years, between 1945 and 1975, the subject changed (at different speeds in individual schools and regions) from semi-confessional religious instruction, usually based on Christian Bible study, through thematic approaches to social and ethical issues usually addressed from a Christian viewpoint, to a multifaith experience in which pupils became engaged in the phenomenological study of religion(s). After 1975, the year of publication of the ground-breaking Birmingham Agreed Syllabus and its accompanying teacher’s handbook Living Together, the stage was set for the developments and debates about RE’s place in the curriculum described in the rest of this chapter (City of Birmingham Education Committee 1975). By 1988, RE had to be reviewed alongside the dramatic proposals for a state National Curriculum and broader intentions for schooling as a whole.

The Education Reform Act 1988 sets out as the central aim for the school curriculum that it should promote the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils and of society, and prepare pupils for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of adult life.

(DFE 1994a, para. 1)

A curriculum is a programme for learning within and across subjects, and outside them. There is a curriculum in each school, and there is a basic formal curriculum that educators, politicians and others refer to in discussions about schools, their purpose and their effects. Part of this basic curriculum is the National Curriculum, another part is RE.

RE is required to be included, alongside the National Curriculum, in the basic curriculum which all maintained schools must provide for their registered pupils… The special status of RE as part of the basic but not National Curriculum is important. It ensures that RE has equal standing in relation to National Curriculum subjects within a school’s curriculum.

(DFE 1994a, para. 20)

The current realities affecting RE’s place in this curriculum are presented below in some detail. The detail is provided so that you can become professionally informed about RE, and be able to deal accurately with rumours which you may encounter. These realities have to be seen as a whole picture; none is fixed for ever, but they are certainly the givens which impact upon the place of the subject, its aims, and its rationale.

The teacher of RE

Teachers of any subject immediately affect its place in the curriculum as perceived by others. Professional standards, combined with personality, values and attitudes send messages about the subject, its aims and content. They affect the religious education of your pupils. The formal standards you have to reach to become a teacher, published by the Teacher Training Agency (TTA) and the Department for Education and Employment (DfEE) in 1997 and revised in 1998, emphasise this central role of the teacher. RE teachers face specific challenges in their training, because the subject is not organised through one set of national Statutory Orders (DfEE 1998a). In certain circumstances, teachers can decline to teach RE (DFE 1994a, paras 141, 144) but as a specialist teacher of the subject your future employers will assume that you will not use that right (DFE 1994a, para. 145).

The pupils, their families and their communities

Attitudes to religion in society inevitably influence attitudes to RE. At a time when secularism, individualism and religious diversity have increased, public and professional perceptions of the subject are often confused and contradictory. Consider the following broad range of opinions: RE should

• teach children to be religious;

• mould them into good Christians;

• teach pupils about religions;

• encourage them to learn from religion(s);

• educate them in religion, or spirituality.

RE can be inspiring, interesting and relevant, but given this broad spectrum of opinion it is not surprising that some of the expectations are not met. Most pupils and teachers can be loosely affiliated to the ‘religion of the silent majority’: that is, those in society whose religious beliefs and attitudes are often implicit and even invisible, being related primarily to forms of civic and common religion rather than formal religious institutions (Wolffe, in Parsons 1993, p. 309; cf. Rudge 1998a); they too have a share in RE’s place in the curriculum. There will, however, be pupils in your lessons who come from families and communities where formalised religious belief and activity are still a central part of life.

Just as teachers have a right not to teach RE, parents and guardians have the right to withdraw their family members (even in sixth-form school education, Years 12 and 13) from all or part of RE (DFE 1994a, para. 44). The withdrawal clauses are theoretically the most damaging challenge to the integrity of RE, and their existence has been questioned in recent years (Copley 1997, p. 207). However, in practice, the number of secondary school withdrawals is very small compared with the total school population. Nevertheless you may find yourself having to deal with a parental request for a child to be withdrawn from your lessons, in which case your school will advise you on the correct procedure.

TASK 1.2

INVESTIGATING CHANGING ATTITUDES TO RE

Identify a group of adults, including if possible colleagues from any subject in your PGCE year, teachers in schools, family, friends and acquaintances. Try to ensure that the group embraces a broad age range capable of reflecting changing attitudes towards the subject.

Ask each member of your selected sample to:

• recall their own primary or secondary religious education;

• express their attitudes and feelings towards their experiences;

• outline their perceptions of the nature and purpose of contemporary religious education.

Consider the responses as a whole. What patterns emerge? Which issues constantly push themselves centre stage?

Do the members of your sample have a fair and balanced understanding of your chosen professional role? Or are you misunderstood? Is, in your judgement, your sample typical of public understanding of RE? How should you and your colleagues respond to public perceptions of RE?

Pupils contribute to RE’s place in the curriculum by their attitudes and responses to it, and by their use of their religious education in their wider communities. They help mould the identity of RE together with their teachers and their peers. Their lives, and the lives of teachers, are part of the substance of the RE curriculum itself (Copley 1998, p. 39).

The RE department

The department with delegated responsibility for RE usually has a head of department and other staff working with them. Sometimes RE is organised through a Humanities faculty or PSE team. The staff teaching RE will have a range of qualifications and experience, and you must expect to find yourself working alongside non-specialists, some of whom may be unwilling conscripts to the team. The department’s schemes of work, the resources it deploys, and the school’s internal syllabus for RE, with its interpretation of the local Agreed Syllabus, all affect RE’s place in the curriculum of individual schools. Standards in departments across the country will also affect national policy and so help determine RE’s future.

Every school must by law provide religious education and daily collective worship for all its pupils… It is a matter of deep concern that in many schools these activities do not take place with the frequency required or to the standards which pupils deserve.

(DFE 1994a, para. 5)

The school

RE takes place in a variety of types of schools, including special schools (DFE 1994a, Annex B). This chapter focuses on state-maintained or ‘county’ schools, although some of its discussion is relevant to teachers in denominational schools. The place of RE in the secondary school curriculum has to take account of developments in primary education, and standards for Qualified Teacher Status require you to consider issues of continuity and progression in RE. The variety and types of schools have had a complicating effect on these matters. However, reports from the Office of Standards in Education indicate that standards of RE in primary schools have risen, and that Key Stage 3 RE is gradually following the trend (OFSTED 1997). The type of school, its relationship with feeder primary schools, its management and ethos have a far-reaching effect on RE’s place in its curriculum.

The RE syllabus

The 1988 Act requires all syllabuses to reflect the fact that the religious traditions in Great Britain are in the main Christian whilst taking account of the teaching and practices of the other principal religions represented in Great Britain.

(DFE 1994a, para. 31, referring to section 8.3 of ERA 1988)

Religious education in schools should seek: to develop pupils’ knowledge, understanding and awareness of Christianity, as the predominant religion in Great Britain, and the other principal religions represented in the country; to encourage respect for those holding different beliefs; and to help pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.

(DFE 1994a, para.l6)

RE aims to help pupils to: acquire and develop knowledge and understanding of Christianity and other principal religions represented in Great Britain; develop an understanding of the influence of beliefs, values and traditions on individuals, communities, society and cultures; develop the ability to make reasoned and informed judgements about religious and moral issues with reference to principal religions represented in Great Britain; enhance their spiritual, moral, so...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Notes on contributors
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• Introduction to the series
• Introduction: Becoming a Religious Education Teacher
• Part I: The context of Religious Education
• Part II: Teaching and learning
• Part III: Classroom issues
• Part IV: Religious Education and the whole school
• Part V: Supporting professional development
• Appendices
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index