Mastering Primary Religious Education

Maria James, Julian Stern

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781474297004
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Elementary Education

Mastering Primary Religious Education introduces the primary religious education curriculum and helps trainees and teachers learn how to plan and teach inspiring lessons that make religious education irresistible. Topics covered include:
· Current developments in religious education
· Religious education as an irresistible activity
· Religious education as a practical activity
· Skills to develop in religious education
· Promoting curiosity
· Assessing children in religious education
· Practical issues
This guide includes examples of children's work, case studies, readings to reflect upon and reflective questions that all help to show students and teachers what is considered to be best and most innovative practice, and how they can use that knowledge in their own teaching to the greatest effect. The book draws on the experience of two leading professionals in primary religious education, Maria James and Julian Stern, to provide the essential guide to teaching religious education for all trainee and qualified primary teachers.

Chapter 1

An Introduction to Primary Religious Education

Chapter objectives

• What is primary religious education (RE) and why should it be on the curriculum?

• Some aims of RE

• What does it mean for pupils to become religiously literate?

• How can RE contribute to a child’s whole development?

Introduction

To start at the beginning, welcome to Mastering Primary Religious Education. You are probably reading this book because you are learning to be a primary school teacher who will be required to teach RE or you may be a teacher from a variety of settings who wants to investigate the subject further. This book aims to help you develop critical understanding of the importance, purpose and relevance of effective RE in the primary curriculum. The text seeks to examine concepts and themes within RE and how these might be investigated and developed. In considering the art of teaching the subject and through exploring different pedagogies and conceptual frameworks, it is hoped that you will discover how the subject has at its heart the aim of nurturing confident, religiously literate citizens. Such pupils are increasingly aware of the positive contribution that they can make to their society while being respectful and appreciative of beliefs and cultures that are different to their own. In short, in learning through effective RE, pupils can develop more as critical human beings who can think for themselves, which is, after all, the ultimate purpose of all good education.

This chapter introduces you to the irresistible subject of RE for the primary classroom. Some of the main aims are considered as you get to know the subject. There are various tasks for you to complete throughout this chapter and those that follow, and it would be beneficial for you to keep a reflective notebook close by, so that you can note anything of significance as your knowledge and understanding of RE develops and as you grow as a reflective teacher of the subject. In addition, you will consider how you might develop religious literacy with your pupils and start to think about planning effective RE (Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1 Creation, by pupils from St Mary and St Thomas Aquinas Catholic Primary School, Gateshead

What is primary religious education (RE) and why should it be on the curriculum?

This first chapter introduces you to what RE is and why it is an important part of the primary curriculum. So, there are a few things you need to know. We begin with what one Secretary of State for Education had to say:

All children need to acquire core knowledge and understandings of the beliefs and practices of the religions and worldviews which not only shape their history and culture but which guide their own development. The modern world needs young people who are sufficiently confident in their own beliefs and values that they can respect the religious and cultural differences of others, and contribute to a cohesive and compassionate society.

Michael Gove, in his foreword to REC 2013b, p 5

RE is a subject with a unique, distinctive contribution to make to the curriculum, drawing on the cultures and histories of the world’s traditions, and on the personal experiences of the pupils in the classroom. It should be ‘academically challenging and personally inspiring’ (REC 2013b, p 7). So, in RE, pupils gain knowledge and understanding of the way people make sense of the world through religion and belief. These religions and beliefs are expressed in many ways, through writings, art, architecture, music, ritual and action. In effective RE pupils can come to an appreciation of the diversity of such expression and participate in dialogue about these in their society. Through starting to consider and develop their own ideas about how they make sense of their lives and the world in which they live, they develop as citizens of the world. So, look at the way these pupils chart their journey of faith (Figure 1.2).

Figure 1.2 Our journey of faith, by pupils from St Mary and St Thomas Aquinas Catholic Primary School, Gateshead

RE can help pupils ‘consider challenging questions of meaning, purpose, truth, values and commitments, and the answers offered by religions and non-religious worldviews’ (Pett 2015, p 2). The RE Council puts it this way:

Religious education contributes dynamically to children’s and young people’s education in schools by provoking challenging questions about meaning and purpose in life, beliefs about God, ultimate reality, issues of right and wrong and what it means to be human.

REC 2013a, p 14

RE is a statutory subject in primary schools, supported by non-statutory guidance and, for many schools, a statutory locally Agreed Syllabus. The National Curriculum document (DfE 2013) stipulates that all state schools must teach RE and must publish their curriculum by subject and academic year online. Schools with a religious foundation will follow their diocesan guidelines or syllabuses composed according to guidance from faith organizations. The subject is not, in primary schools, called Religious Instruction or Religious Studies but Religious Education. In RE, pupils can learn about and from Christianity and the principal religious traditions represented in Great Britain (DES 1988), considered to be Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism, while they develop and start to make sense of their own beliefs and views that help give meaning to their lives. They also explore non-religious worldviews. The subject has a unique contribution to make to community cohesion and citizenship by its mandate to develop knowledge and understanding of the different religions and secular worldviews that form part of the contemporary culture of a multi-faith society.

Pause for thought

Would you recognize the six symbols for Christianity and the other principal religions represented in Great Britain? How could you use the symbols to introduce your teaching about the religions? You may also like to find out about the Happy Human symbol and what it represents (see https://humanism.org.uk). Using this symbol, young children might consider what makes people happy and how sad people can be supported. What symbol would children design for what they believe?

RE is part of the basic curriculum, and although it is not described or prescribed in the National Curriculum (DfE 2013), it follows the National Curriculum’s remit for every state-funded school to provide a balanced and broadly based curriculum that

• promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils;

• prepares pupils at the school for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life.

(DfE 2013, p 4)

In this book, you will find a number of tasks that will help you engage with the subject more thoroughly. The plan is that through completing the tasks and engaging with suggested wider reading about the subject, you will develop and extend your pedagogical knowledge and further enhance your skill and art to teach the irresistible subject of RE with flair and confidence. That is why we have suggested keeping a notebook near to write down insights from the suggested readings and anything else that develops your thinking. You might like to use the following:

• What I did (I read, watched, spoke to a teacher in school, taught, etc.).

• What I learned.

• The significance of my learning for my development as an RE teacher.

Take your time over the tasks in this chapter, as you begin to consider the subject and yourself as an RE teacher. Take time to dwell. You might like to revisit some of the tasks as you continue through the rest of the book and as your experience of teaching RE develops.

Some aims of RE

To understand more about the value of RE, we begin by considering the main aims of the subject. There are numerous aims offered in all the documents associated with RE and sometimes this can be overwhelming. Like values, such aims can appear as abstract, until worked through in practice. It calls on the art of the teacher to take these aims and work with them for the benefit of pupils’ development. The aims need to be realized in schemes of study with effective modes of learning, so the school’s RE coordinator will need to collaborate with colleagues to plan effective RE, but you can engage with some of these here.

Task one: What does effective RE aim to do?

Look at the following grid. Decide which five aims you would list for the subject and two that you would discard. You might like to add a couple of your own if you think they are not included. Give reasons for your choices.

The writers of the non-statutory framework for RE (REC 2013b) list the following aims. These are not statutory, and they are not quite the same as the aims listed in the previous activity, or in the syllabuses your schools may follow. They are included in full here as they offer a good example of an approach to RE focused on gaining knowledge and understanding and developing religious literacy.

The curriculum for RE aims to ensure that all pupils:

A Know about and understand a range of religions and worldviews, so that they can

• describe, explain and analyse beliefs and practices, recognising the diversity which exists within and between communities and amongst individuals;

• identify, investigate and respond to questions posed, and responses offered by some of the sources of wisdom found in religions and world views;

• appreciate and appraise the nature, significance and impact of different ways of life and ways of expressing meaning.

B Express ideas and insights about the nature, significance and impact of religions and worldviews, so that they can

• explain reasonably their ideas about how beliefs, practices and forms of expression influence individuals and communities;

• express with increasing discernment their personal reflections and critical responses to questions and teachings about identity, diversity, meaning and value, including ethical issues;

• appreciate and appraise varied dimensions of religion or a worldview

C Gain and deploy the skills needed to engage seriously with religions and worldviews, so that they can

• find out about and investigate key concepts and questions of belonging, meaning, purpose and truth, responding creatively;

• enquire into what enables different individuals and communities to live together respectfully for the wellbeing of all;

• articulate beliefs, values and commitments clearly in order to explain why they may be important in their own and other people’s lives.

(REC 2013b, pp 14–15)

It is worthwhile highlighting some of th...