Thoughts on the GCSE RE Proposals – David Ashton
17 November, 2014
A Reminder of the Problem
Earlier this year I wrote a blog titled ‘Why GCSE RE Fails Pupils.’ It illustrated how poor content and perverse assessment in popular GCSE RE courses, neglect and distort religion, and argued that the number of routes available to achieve a GCSE in RE has encouraged a race to the bottom and rendered the notion of it as a qualification meaningless. Yet, whilst the current GCSE situation may be indefensible, it is not without its perks for some. It is therefore, no surprise, that as proposals for a future, more rigorous GCSE emerge, previously masked fears and vulnerabilities are surfacing.
A Head of RE once recounted to me how at the start of year INSET, her headteacher had given her a bottle of wine and praised her. The reason for this was that both she personally and also her RE department, had achieved the best GCSE residuals in the school. Requests to observe her soon poured in from other teachers asking ‘how do you get such great results in an hour a week?’ ‘How do you get the children so engaged in your subject?’ After weeks of dodging observation requests, and pretending that she possessed some sort of magic beans, she decided to come clean. Whenever a colleague asked if they could observe her GCSE lessons, she gave them an exam paper and mark scheme and told them that if they still wanted to watch her after reading it, they would be welcome. No one came. Whilst admirably, this teacher was honest, others have ridden the wave of dumbed down courses, in order to enhance their reputation and responsibilities, and even to elevate themselves into senior leadership roles. These are the Deputy Heads, who wink at the RE teachers on GCSE results day, insiders on the secret, the great charade.
Courses which are ‘accessible’ (by which I mean easy) and ‘relevant’ (by which I mean don’t have much to do with religion) have masked a multitude of sins. Entry numbers have remained healthy, but pupils have remained religiously illiterate. Pupils have achieved A*s, but no real knowledge of religion. Artificially high results have refuted the argument that RE needs more curriculum time. Pick ‘n’ mix scripture and social studies have created the very caricatures of religion that RE should confront. School leavers have been left unable to navigate a world permeated by religion and belief. We should not mourn their passing; these courses have done us no real favours.
Where are we now?
Though not without fault, the criteria’s desire for more rigour and a serious study of two religions, is an improvement and it provides a better platform for further study. However, my concerns are twofold.
Firstly, in the response to the criteria there is a familiar negative discourse that the study of religion is boring. This only ever undermines RE, and there is a risk that it could both compromise the final criteria and negatively influence subsequent decisions of exam boards. However, I fear there are points at which the criteria give ammunition to this rhetoric, by failing to go deep enough below the surface of the nuts and bolts of religions.
Secondly, the failure to integrate Textual Studies and also Philosophy and Ethics into the study of religion means that not enough has been done to prevent Exam Boards from constructing courses that are incoherent, unchallenging and crude caricatures of RE.
1. A Discomforting Discourse: Religion is Boring
Years of dumbed down courses have contributed to a view amongst many RE teachers that the study of religion is boring for pupils, and that RE should focus on contemporary issues. On social media, some people have lamented the dry, dour focus of the new criteria and the lack of ‘sexy RE.’ Though I am not overly familiar with the notion of ‘sexy RE,’ from what I can work out it doesn’t involve learning much about religion. Perhaps it is a phrase that Ofsted encountered, when Subject Leaders repeatedly explained to them that they had “moved to study social and ethical issues because they could not see a way of making the direct study of religion challenging and engaging.”
The study of religion has great value. This controversial and ever changing force has, and continues to direct our human story. Barbaric at times, beautiful at others, but never boring; it is our failure of imagination that is so. Religion is not some subculture, in need of replacing by philosophy, it remains a driving force for the vast majority of the human population.
When I hear RE teachers complaining about the focus on religion in the criteria, I wonder what it is they were expecting to teach when they became an RE teacher. It is like complaining there is too much chocolate in one’s chocolate bar. It is not the study of religion that will bore pupils and turn them off the subject; it is a teacher who thinks religion is boring. My experience is that pupils greatly enjoy discussing abortion and animal testing. They also enjoy discussing x-box and football, but as I have written here, enjoyment is not the purpose of education. Our responsibility is not to pander to limited, parochial interests of pupils but to take pupils beyond them, widening their horizons through access to a richer world of ideas.
Contemporary issues may be provocative, but if they are not related to religion, then they aren’t ours to touch. ‘Sexy’ they may be, but RE they are not. RE should not be a ragbag of the waifs and strays of the curriculum unable to find a home elsewhere. Our survival requires distinctive disciplinary integrity. RE will not die out because it focuses on religion, it will cease to be RE if it does not.
An Alternative Discourse
2. Interdisciplinary Tension and Unclear Identity
The relationship at GCSE RE between Religion and Philosophy and Ethics (P+E) needs clear definition. This interdisciplinary tension has not been confronted adequately by the new criteria. It has dislocated the study of religion from Textual Studies and P+E, by designating them as separate sections, and suggested that “Awarding Organisations can develop, combine or cross reference the required content in any way appropriate to the specification.” I fear that this is where problems will arise.
There is an acknowledgement of the concerns of subject experts, Ofsted and Ofqual over the nature of Philosophy and Ethics in current GCSEs, but the criteria reduces the concerns to a problem of too much ‘personal response’ in place of ‘religious teachings.’ Whilst this is part of it, the problem is much bigger as I have illustrated here. What we call ‘Philosophy and Ethics’ in GCSE is predominantly social studies with tenuously linked religious references bolted on. In its distortion and misrepresentation of religion, it is bad theology. It certainly does not constitute philosophy, and it is academically undemanding.
Despite acknowledging concerns over P+E, the criteria fail to confront the deeper issue, in fact it simply describes it. It states that pupil responses to contemporary issues should be ‘grounded in religion’ with ‘scope for the study of critiques of religion and of non-religious beliefs’ and also ‘include a study of different philosophical and ethical arguments and their impact and influence in the modern world.’ This is an overloaded, conflicting and incoherent pseudo-academic discipline. If P+E is going to be academically demanding then it needs to be, either real Philosophy, or be an integral part of the study of religion, which emerges from it.
If P+E is Philosophy, then it is a separate subject that involves the study of philosophers, uncompromised by having to crassly name-check religious and non-religious worldviews. If, as I hope, P+E is meant to be part of RE, then it needs to be clearly integrated in the study of religion along with Textual Studies. This would still allow pupils to consider secular challenges to religious ideas.
Despite the requirement to understand beliefs and teachings in Part A, there is still a risk of Exam Boards either making P+E RE’s ‘bit on the side,’ or forcing religion into a dumbed down P+E framework. Under the false guise of P+E, unchallenging pathways through the qualification could be created, which would be comparably easier than more intellectually robust alternatives. For example, if a course is weighted 50% P+E with no Textual Studies, what relevant religious source will pupils be applying? Their answers will lack depth, compared to a course in which the weighting was 25% Textual Studies and 25% P+E. The temptation for Exam Boards will be to ‘creatively’ integrate already existing material from Part A to Part B, not to add more. This could continue the existing problem, where for example, the theologically rich creation narratives of Genesis are simply used as a means of illustrating that global warming is wrong, or that Christians should not be racist.
An Alternative Proposal
The way in which the currently dislocated areas are integrated is pivotal to the success of future GCSEs. Therefore, their epistemological relationship needs to be clearly defined in the criteria. History shows it would be naïve and irresponsible, for those forming the criteria, to shirk from this challenging task, leaving this epistemological issue in the hands of commercially motivated exam boards. Neither should is it be passed off as a matter for Ofqual further down the line. The criteria’s suggested weighting of each part acts as useful guidance, but if it is to prevent religion from becoming fodder for social studies, it is vital that the current dislocation is replaced with greater integration of the different content areas. The criteria’s diversity should be in content, not discipline.
In a more holistic or integrated approach, philosophical and ethical issues would be explored, because they naturally arise out of the religion being studied, not simply because they seem relevant or provocative in their own right. If philosophical and ethical study is to be academically challenging and avoid misrepresenting religion, there need to be specific texts, genuine arguments relating to the issue, and strong examples of engagement with the issue from the religious community being studied. A more integrated, cumulative approach would allow for deeper mastery and progression within areas of study. Pupils would be drawing upon and applying a rich understanding of beliefs, practices, texts, tensions and contemporary challenges, and expressing genuine theological insight to issues of genuine relevance and concern to the religion being studied. This would far better meet Ofqual’s much improved proposed assessment objectives.
Concluding Thoughts
As Mark Chater has already said, we have a golden opportunity to restore “the academic and professional kudos of our subject.” For RE teachers to argue against putting religion at the core of a more rigorous GCSE is counter productive. The spirit of the criteria is right, but the devil is in the detail, and that detail needs some careful attention.
David Ashton is a secondary school RE teacher. He blogs about RE on thegoldencalfre.wordpress.comhttp://thegoldencalfre.wordpress.com
Follow David on Twitter @thegoldencalfre