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A question often asked of RE teachers is how we make our subject ‘relevant’ to today’s young people, amidst what feels like a growing antipathy towards religion even in its broadest terms. The clichéd academic answer is to expound upon the presence of religion in the very roots of our society and culture, and the influence that another person’s values can have on your life whether you embrace them or not. While this is an important and valid answer it doesn’t do a great deal in terms of helping a teacher to engage a hormonal teenage boy who is more interested in shooting virtual enemies than grappling with the ethics of fertility treatment and euthanasia. So what tools do we have?

The truth is, most of us are already using resources that begin to tackle this apathy: television and film are widely used in schools to approach difficult topics. For example, Bruce Almighty is many teachers’ go-to resource for exploring the answers to prayer or the nature of miracles, as well as a whole string of themes related to the nature of God. Films are easily accessible and understandable for all ages and most RE teachers will have used some form of audio-visual resource to support their lessons. What this tells us is that amongst the very best resources at our disposal are perhaps those that some are so quick to blame for the apathy of the young: pop culture and all its trappings.

In a short series of articles I hope to demonstrate how we can use a wide variety of pop culture sources to enrich RE. Drawing on my own academic background, I will examine how film, TV, music, literature and video games can be fantastic resources for bringing our subject alive and, in turn, how RE can help the students to understand the pop culture of the world around them. RE is a two-way process, after all.

But how can these bywords for procrastination help us at all? We may already use film clips and Simpsons episodes, but surely a medium like gaming offers little to highlight reality? I disagree entirely. Taking a brief look at video games, we might consider that the very war game distracting a GCSE student from his studies may be a resource that can spark questions about the nature of war – does he know the story behind his virtual conflict? does it matter? It may even be that the storyline itself explores this, with other characters lamenting or celebrating the loss of life on a 24″ screen.

Just as it is to be found on the business end of a controller, so too might theology be discovered lurking in the Top 40 or on the pages of NME. More widely accessible than gaming or even television, the world of pop music is an incredible resource – a stream of classroom-friendly snippets to aid discussion or make a point. Classes can discuss Lady Gaga’s inclusion of Judas in her lyrics and whether it is suitable or ultimately a form of blasphemy, whereas a more mature class might be able to investigate Kelton Cobb’s assertion that modern love songs can be an unconscious call to the divine. The range of genre and theme is utterly staggering, with a song for every subject.

There is some resistance to so-called ‘edutainment’ in schools, and it is tempting to use this label for the attempts to integrate pop culture with RE. However, I think that it is just the ultimate expression of the dry academic notion of religion at the root, and if we are to convince students that the presence of religion in the world is important enough to merit their attention, we must prove it in ways that they understand and embrace. By using pop culture, we use their language and, most importantly, their current life experience.

Celia Warrick

Autumn 2011

The debate about what spirituality is, isn’t or might be can be discussed indefinitely. Spirituality is often associated with terms such as the ‘inner-self’, ‘feelings of the other’, ‘something more than meets the eye.’ All these terms imply a very ego-centric view of spirituality that focuses on it’s personal nature and impact. This is indeed a very important aspect of spirituality but we should also be challenging children’s thinking and asking them to think about, rather than just ‘experience’, spirituality.

Spirituality is about looking out as well as looking within. Fisher (1998) discussed a communal domain of spirituality related to morality, culture and religion. So this would involve interaction with others and relationships which Fisher states are enhanced by the personal domain. Spirituality therefore is seen as being holistic, giving meaning and involving moments of shared understanding.

Reflective spirituality links directly to Fisher’s communal domain and is concerned with thinking how children’s own encounters with spirituality may impact not only on their own lives but on those of others through a deepened understanding of themselves and those around them. Reflection allows children to have a dialogue with themselves and others in a safe environment that is concerned with discovery and exploration rather than with definitive answers. It also has particular significance* on children’s ability to engage in a meaningful way with people from a variety of beliefs. Nye (1998) refers to this as ‘meaning-making’ within the Value Sensing category of children’s spirituality. From this perspective, reflective techniques are a perfect partner of spirituality. Reflection is about walking around issues rather than making judgements and is an effective technique for supporting children in their exploration of spirituality through faith and beliefs.

Here are some examples of how this can be achieved in the primary classroom:

Using reflective journals

Journals are an excellent way of encouraging children to reflect in RE and can be used with any age providing you adapt the questions and support accordingly. Here is an example of some activities for Key stage 1 which focuses on ‘Who am I?’ Before each activity have a quiet, stilling time with music and ask children to ‘think’ about a question you pose.

1. Question: ‘Who are you?’

A circle activity with relaxing music playing. Pass around a box which contains a mirror.  A short discussion can follow this where children talk with a partner about the activity.

1. Question: ‘Who are you?’

Children draw a picture of themselves thinking about what they look like, using mirrors and friends to help. This can be extended to characteristics for older/more advanced children and the option to write if they choose to.

1. Question: ‘How do others see me?’

What do others think of them ?- family and friends write in journal or children can interview them. Back in class sat in a circle with music – What do the children think about what others have said?

1. Question: ‘How do you see others?’

Whats their view of others? Choose a friend or family member to draw and write about in their journals. Why do they think this?

1. Question: ‘How do you see others?’

Introduce a believer (based on a book or case study) – create a journal for them and show the children the entries, which should mirror their own. Read this to the children in a circle with music, how is this child similar and different to you?

Reflective spirituality is concerned with personal and communal aspects and aims to deepen children’s learning both about themselves and in relation to others. It opens up the doors for spirituality to be about more than feelings and experiences and engages the children in thinking about different perspectives.

Emma McVittie

Spring 2012

You never know what to expect with parents’ evenings. Some go well. Others you have to steel yourself for, knowing that there will be some tricky customers along the way, some hard facts to face or some issues to address. How well have the students done? What are the expectations of their parents? At the same time how can you convey pithy information about their progress and targets as well as what they have done in RE or can look forward to learning about in the forthcoming year? Statistics, data, results, forecasts, predictions are often the currency of this kind of discussion. But at other times the priority is mainly about boosting confidence, talking about study skills and revision techniques, encouraging dialogue at home about the topics covered, what strengths the student demonstrates. A smile and a handshake end the five minutes you are allocated, which usually go all too quickly.

Yr 9 Options Evening can prove daunting and not for the faint-hearted, especially with all the uncertainty over EBacc and the future of RS at exam level. Turning negative points and attitudes into positive ones is a skill that is demanded when parents comment that their son or daughter really likes the subject and then adds blankly ‘I don’t know where they get it from, because it’s not from me’. Throwing down the gauntlet with this opening gambit is just asking for a reaction, isn’t it? Usually, I discuss the merits and benefits of the subject with parents compared to ‘our day’ when it was so different. Pushing a sample syllabus under their noses and going through one or two examples often has parents commenting that they wished it had been like that when they were at school or shyly admitting a secret interest in the subject. The new specifications concentrating on Philosophy of Religion and Ethics are a definite hit in this respect. The thinking skills aspect of it and emphasis on debate usually wins parents’ approval straight away as they see the useful, transferable skills for the jobs’ market. Others latch on to the philosophy aspect and can see real benefits in stretching and challenging one’s own thought processes.

However, imagine my surprise when the tables were turned recently. Usually it is me who is doing the hard sell at Options Evening, steering parents away from misapprehensions about the subject or talking about the way the subject not only complements Arts subjects but can also be a good foil for those interested in the Sciences. Instead, I was greeted with parents confidently saying that despite issues about EBacc and uncertainty over RE, they still wanted their children to take the subject and that they were going to support them in that choice. I could have hugged the parent who greeted the parents following on by saying ‘Take the subject, it’s great.’ What better PR than parents selling the subject to other parents, their children and the wider community? Now there’s a strategy that would be worth developing further.

Jim Robinson

Autumn 2011

It may be that the government has taken stock a little in recent months over issues like the Ebacc, and recognised that the oversight in not supporting RE needs to be addressed. I hope the government is not too close to the thinking behind the National Curriculum Review Panel in their report of December 2011 (https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/NCR-Expert%20Panel%20Report.pdf ) as there is little comfort in it.  They propose to make ‘the arts’ statutory in KS4 and so further squeezing RE. They ‘thoughtfully’ recognise at section 4.19 (page 26) : ‘We are mindful however of possible unintended consequences for other subjects of such a proposal, for instance, for religious education’ but make no proposal to address the problem, and in fact describe RE as ‘outside our remit’ (section 4.10).  Most worryingly, their diagram on page 59 sets out, among other things, a column on ‘Understanding our world’ – History is here, but RE is left out in the cold at the top of the page, as if it had nothing to say.  Lord, save us from the Expert Panel.

If it is true that at last Nick Gibb is taking some kind of genuine interest in our subject http://www.religiouseducationcouncil.org/content/view/233/62/  then this means that the RE community has an opportunity to present its case for the way forward. It is clear to me that this path is a secular way, arguing for the end to the conscience clause and for an RE National Curriculum.

The RE community should not join the bandwagon of slating the present wave of secular campaigning as secularism is no enemy of RE.  There is a great difference between secularism and atheism and by no means all people promoting a secular approach in RE are atheists. Rabbi Romain, chair of the Accord Coalition recently called for a National Curriculum for RE.  The National Secular Society has spoken out in favour of (a reformed) RE being included in the National Curriculum (http://www.secularism.org.uk/uploads/nss-response-to-national-curriculum-review-april-2011-11.pdf ).  Even the demonised Richard Dawkins thinks that Religious Education is essential (http://www.religionandsociety.org.uk/faith_debates/faith_in_schools – 33 mins in). Localism cannot work for the subject as it will splinter into a myriad of different approaches.  Why would the government never tolerate a localised Mathematics? Because it is too important.  Faith schools never had to listen to their local SACRE and with the onward march of Academies, nor do many other schools; so the pivotal role of the SACRE is being undermined.

The local faith school would, however, look at great deal more enticing to the atheist parent if he knew that RE would be secular, based on a recognised National Curriculum and that any evangelising would be in clearly identified sessions. In my 20 years of teaching, use of the conscience clause is incredibly rare. In all that time, one, maybe two parents have exercised the right. Even many Jehovah’s Witnesses have stayed in my classroom. The clause is only justified if there is evangelising going on and in mainstream state education that does not happen and hasn’t for years.  The only area where evangelising has survived is in faith schools, but of course now there is the potential for it to mushroom in Academies and Free Schools. The RE Community cannot get rid of the conscience clause until this issue is dealt with, and the only way to do that is to have a secular National Curriculum for all state-funded schools.  Faith schools could then deliver their evangelising ‘Religious Instruction’ in additional lessons which would preserve the conscience clause. While this gives even more time to ‘religious’ topics in school, I don’t see it as very different to the specialist school movement, where schools often gave more time to their specialist subject. Consider faith schools as ordinary schools with a particular specialism.

What is the alternative? In the recent Religion and Society debate, Robert Jackson engages with this issue but doesn’t seem to fully appreciate the distinction between secularism and atheism (“every young person in Europe has a right to hold a particular view, whether religious or secular”) and his proposals about the way forward are frankly disappointing. His paper (http://www.religionandsociety.org.uk/attachments/files/1329132926_Jackson-final.pdf ) fails to engage with the issue and he blandly affirms the right ‘to have one’s children educated as one sees fit’ without exploring at all the difficulties and implications of the status quo. I too have no real objection to faith schools, and given the historical perspective of this country, they are obviously not going to go away, but that does not mean that they cannot be made to bend to the will of the nation. Religious Instruction and Religious Education are not the same things. Jackson appears to talk down the aim of RE, implying that it is merely learning about different faiths, when, as I have said before, RE has a truth claim. It has a clear idea of what it is to fail in RE and how to succeed. The truth claim of RI is not the same as RE. If a school is telling young people that Christianity is the true religion and all the others are wrong, then that might be good RI but it is bad RE. You cannot do both in the same lesson, so let’s keep them separate, force schools to do RE and let them do RI if they want to. I could imagine RI moving into the same areas as collective worship, perhaps delivered out of curriculum time.

There has been an enormous fuss recently in the media about religion and secularism and in all this shouting I think the most significant event passed quietly and almost without notice. (Why didn’t we spot it?) Perhaps Dawkins is right and actually we’re not that religious : http://richarddawkins.net/articles/644941-rdfrs-uk-ipsos-mori-poll-1-how-religious-are-uk-christians .)  The Queen gave a speech at Lambeth Palace to members of all faith communities in the country (http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/articles.php/2358/the-queen-attends-multi-faith-reception-at-lambeth-palace ). She talked specifically and clearly in the language of her son Charles, who said some time ago that when crowned, he wished to be ‘Defender of faith’ rather than ‘Defender of The Faith’. A small shift maybe, but coming from the Queen this is quite clearly no casual remark. I believe it is very significant. She recognises that the special status of the Church of England must no longer be seen a place of privilege, but an opportunity to serve ‘our faiths’.  Time and again she referred to the benefit that ‘faith’ brings. Not ‘Christianity’ or ‘The Church of England’, but ‘faith’. Even the Queen has seen the necessity of making some conciliatory moves towards secularism.

Tradition does not need to be torn up and thrown away. There is no doubt that Christianity has been a major force for good in education in this country and will continue to be for some time to come.  But the way it acts can change.  Society can alter the direction of travel. If RE does not take the initiative and stand up for its place as a secular, vital, national subject with a need for a National Curriculum and an ending of the conscience clause, then the subject will merely stagger on, caught between the yelling of fundamentalist and atheist alike.  Sometimes it is your enemies who do you more favours than those you consider to be your friends.

Andrew Strachan

Spring 2012

Film is a wonderful resource for RE, and while it’s tempting to stick to the films that boldly display their RE themes – Bruce Almighty, The Greatest Story Ever Told, The Prince of Egypt – there is a lot to be gained from the ones we might be passing over. Two of my classroom favourites are the classic children’s film E.T. and the somewhat gruesome Blood Diamond. I also favour superhero films and the entire Harry Potter canon, where themes of good and evil, loyalty, betrayal and personal sacrifice are played out in child-friendly sequences: everyday morality writ large. However, it can sometimes be difficult to decide how to tease out the RE aspects, and how best to use a film to support a topic.

Finding a religious thread in modern Western cinema is a fairly simple affair – even the most saccharine Disney film contains conflict and dilemma (the key elements of moral choice), and the testosterone-fuelled antics of Hollywood schlock like Cowboys and Aliens can provoke discussion about violence, retaliation and teamwork. Find a point to develop from and see how far you can chase the thread through the plot. It may only work for you in a single scene, or it might arc over the entire plot, but you need to be familiar enough with it that you can expand upon it for your class. For the hesitant, I have included a brief list of suggestions for various topics at the end of the text.

After identifying your film and its RE theme, the first consideration one must make is whether enough lesson time is available for what you want to show. Obviously, one class a fortnight only gives enough space for short clips, whereas an allocation of five lessons allows the luxury of studying a whole film. Time available greatly affects the choice of film, as some issues may be presented as part of a plot too convoluted to abridge. For example, Blood Diamond in unsuitable for short clips as most of the ethical considerations of the diamond trade come from the characters’ entire story arc. I have, however, used the ‘going home’ sequence from E.T. (about 20 minutes of fantastic ascension imagery) as a stand-alone clip in a single lesson.

The next task is to decide exactly what the class should be learning from the clip, and how you are going to achieve it. Students need something to focus their mind on the points in hand, rather than having the opportunity to let their minds wander. A sheet of questions to be answered during the film, ranging from factual (main characters’ names, brief scene descriptions) to critical (do you think X’s actions were right?) ensures that the students are led through the main points of your selection. For a short clip, making a list of keys words summarising the scene’s emotions, action, imagery etc., is a good focus task that can be tailored to the ability and maturity of the class. This is also the point in planning where you can firmly decide whether the content is suitable for your class – it goes without saying that your first point of reference needs to be the school policy for using age-rated films!

Lastly, I think that it is important to keep referring to the film during the lesson or topic – it is a resource for helping achieve clarity, and by failing to repeat the connection there is a risk that students may miss the point, wasting the usefulness of the clip. For example, younger students could have discussion questions about the characters that link to the topic (How does Elliott feel when E.T. goes home? Use this to help you explain how the disciples might have felt at Ascension.) whereas older students can answer more complicated essay questions (‘Criminals are always immoral people.’ Discuss with reference to the ferry scene in The Dark Knight.). Team up with Drama or English to script and perform role plays based on what the students think the characters’ moral choices should be, or create posters for the film that belie the morals discussed in class.

Students love films, and it’s great that we can harness this enthusiasm and use it to support the important issues that our subject raises. A clip from a gripping movie is going to stick in a child’s mind far longer than any case-study from a dry textbook, with the same educational benefits. By being selective about the films we use, and creative in our approaches to related tasks, we can create lessons that will stay with our pupils for years to come and that will hopefully be remembered every time they watch their favourite films.

Aladdin (1992)- ethics of crime, materialism

Any superhero film ever – the ethics of vigilantism

Avatar (2009) – environmental ethics, exploitation, war

Blood Diamond (2006) – business ethics, consequences of actions, personal sacrifice, ethics of journalism, child soldiers, slavery, corruption, arms trade

Captain America (2011) – (particularly grenade sequence in training) what is goodness?, war, sacrifice

District 9 (2009) – immigration, segregation

Dogma (1999) – a rude but searingly insightful look into the rules of man and God, and the politics of religion

Evan Almighty (2007) – call to witness

Fight Club (1999) – identity, use of violence, cult behaviour

Hotel Rwanda (2004) – genocide, bravery, ethics of peacekeeping

Spiderman (2002) (Tobey Maguire version) – responsibility of power (particularly the death of Uncle Ben)

Star Trek (1966-2009) – personal sacrifice, revenge / retribution

The Dark Knight (2008) – moral dilemmas, morality of criminality

X-men I, II & III (2000, 2003, 2006) – identity, intolerance

Celia Warrick

Autumn 2011

With our worries over the EBacc, the reduced numbers of PGCE trainees, the status of RE in Academies and other issues flying around at the moment, it is worth taking stock and looking to a longer perspective to see that things are not so bad as we might fear.

The feeling of imminent decline in the subject may well be very wide of the mark. As early as 1915, this sense of deterioration was present. The National Society published R. Holland’s The Problem of the Bible Class in which he bemoans: ‘[Bible classes] produce little or no fruit worth speaking of in earnest Church workers, or even in zealous attendants at Divine Worship’. The Bible class may have failed to regenerate the pews of the Church of England, but the subject transformed itself and did not die out.

Another National Society publication in 1962, edited by P. Rogers, was called A Guide to Divinity teaching. The stated aim of Divinity (it says) is to give ‘adequate preparation of children for responsible membership of the Church when they have left school’, but the tone has changed. The authors assert that it must be examined – ‘Religion is at least as important as [other subjects]’ and there is a desire to be rigorous and scientific. Most interestingly, after long chapters on doctrine, the Bible and worship, there is an innocent little chapter at the end called ‘Christian Apologetics’. Not a title many RE teachers would recognise today, but if they looked at the content, there is much that is familiar – the traditional proofs of God, Science and Religion, other Philosophical Systems, other Religions and towards the end of the chapter some heart-warming lines: ‘Children rightly expect recognition of the noble qualities in non-Christian persons and systems’ and even: ‘All truth is God’s truth’. 45 years and we have moved on some way, begrudgingly perhaps, but it is there to see.

It was Harold Louke’s Teenage Religion, published in 1961, that is considered by many to have set the pace for change, drawing Religious Education to see the world more from the perspective of the student, although the book was not totally without precedent. In 1915, Holland was saying: ‘We have asked ourselves often enough, “What ought we to teach our scholars?” Not so often have we asked, “What do they really want to learn? What are the problems of life and conduct which in street and shop and factory they really discuss, and with which they are really concerned?” Perhaps our lesson material has been ill chosen and out of touch with life itself.’

By the time of a report by the British Council of Churches called Religion and the Secondary School, published in 1968, the non-confessional elements of RE had become well-established: ‘church membership is the duty of the churches, not the schools’; the multi-faith element of RE is now recognised: ‘the presence among our fellow citizens of an increasing number of followers of other faiths makes this provision urgent’ but surprise, surprise, the subject is still dealing with difficulties. The report says: ‘We are aware that a good many teachers and older pupils regard religious education with some suspicion and contempt as a kind of admittedly ineffective brain-washing’.

Jean Holm’s book of 1975 Teaching Religion in School describes two fundamental shifts in RE outlook in the 1960s and 1970s. The first is a move away from confessionalism towards the idea that the student should be encouraged to find a faith to live by, which in practice meant Christianity or atheism. Holm says that the dilemma for RE in the 1970s was to avoid making the mistake that a multi-faith approach was merely a pick’n’mix solution where students and teachers rate each religion. We have moved on since the 1970s, but these ghosts still survive to haunt us. Politicians still talk in shrill tones about the dangers of ‘multicultural mish-mash’.

Terence Copley’s RE being served? from 1985 reflects an emergent and confident subject: ‘it should be open-ended … it should be concerned with religion as a wide phenomenon as well as giving proper place to Christian studies, … ‘

And so on into the 90s and early 2000s, a time of confidence and growth.

The point of this brief reflection on the history of RE is that you can look back to times long past in British classrooms and find that this subject has constantly worried about its status and lack of security on the timetable. Yet it survives. And it seems to me that it achieves this because, as a subject, it always manages to adjust itself; it moves its focus and approach dynamically in the face of contextual changes and challenges.

This leaves me with a question or two: am I implying that because it is a good time to take stock, that there is a new transformation about to take place? What shreds from the past still remain that will be shed as we move into the next phase? Perhaps Jean Holm can help me. In 1975, she said: ‘If the role of Religious Education is seen as educational … then there is no need for a conscience clause for teachers or pupils. Both are engaged in an objective study of religion; they are not assumed to be committed to any religious position.’

Put your bets in now. I would argue that in 20 years RE will be called Philosophy and we will have a national curriculum that is binding on students in all schools whether faith-based or not. A fiendish vision maybe, but a vision of a subject with a sustainable and valuable future. For all our worries, RE will survive and prosper.

Andrew Strachan (Head of RE at Torquay Girls’ Grammar School)

Autumn 2011

Well, RS isn’t in the English Baccalaureate, so I guess you should choose another subject to study, shouldn’t you? Well, no, actually, you shouldn’t.

To start with, did you see the support RE received from the public in the NATRE surveys, the REACT Campaign and the EDM? One thing’s for sure: the public value RE, even if the Government don’t seem to. Do you know what that means? Your potential future university lecturers value RS; likewise your potential future employer cares about RS.

Who is going to frown upon someone choosing to study rigorous philosophical dilemmas, or ethical issues very much present in today’s society? It’s an informative subject that will prepare you for life in our society – let’s explore further.

I’m a student who’s just finished my GCSEs, one of which was in Religious Studies. The EBacc wasn’t around when I began studying my GCSEs, but I’d like to let you know why I’d still have chosen to study it even if it was. I’m sure you will know that GCSE RS isn’t only about studying holy books and certainly isn’t about indoctrination. Instead, you will see students who, yes, may study some of a holy book for a certain topic or module, but more often will study and reflect upon moral issues that people in our society – and even Government – will have to wrestle with every day, many in their working lives.

Consider this, should the nurse employed by the NHS have to perform euthanasia? Should it become legalised in the UK? What about the MPs voting in Parliament? Should they vote to legalise euthanasia in the UK at all? Should they need to make that decision? I’ll let you in on a personal confession – I didn’t know what euthanasia was until I was studying GCSE RS in year 9. I very much doubt I would have known much about it at all by now – aged 16 – if not for GCSE RS. None of my GCSEs, including the Sciences, prepared me to make a moral decision about euthanasia other than GCSE RS.

So what, that’s one issue, right? Well, I’ll further my list a little on what I wouldn’t know without GCSE RS. The UK laws on drugs and alcohol; the UK laws on abortion; the voting system in the UK; how we can conserve the environment; the Just War theory; the arguments for and against capital punishment. This information is vital to members of society. I’m an average GCSE student – why hasn’t any subject other than RS taught me these things?

My suggestion is, study RS. It doesn’t matter that it’s not in the English Baccalaureate. It’s always been valuable and still is! My advice to you is to still believe in RS – I do.

I’ll be studying RS in this academic year. Will you?

Clare Dempsey (16 year old student at Bishop Challoner Catholic College, Birmingham. She will shortly be beginning A Levels in Religious Studies (Philosophy & Ethics), English Literature, Psychology and Geography.)

Autumn 2011

The rise of the New Atheists has focussed attention on the pitiful misuse of the word ‘religion’.  Many in Britain have become so illiterate about religious issues, that the word is thrown around and defined into an ever smaller box, leaving its meaning desiccated and fatally weakened.  For many people ‘religion’ means ‘Christendom’ or ‘superstition’ and has been cast aside.  However, someone who is religiously literate knows that its richness, complexity and importance is much later than is often thought.

It matters a great deal that people learn about religion. Illiteracy about religion is an attack on the cohesiveness of society. To move forward in RE practice, we must develop a more impassioned approach and take up arms against this pernicious ignorance. It is not enough merely to ‘learn about’ and ‘learn from’ religion as QCA has told us to do and as every RE teacher in the land can parrot off about when it comes to inspection time.  Merely to do this is to go along with the notion that ‘religion’ can be packaged and treated as a museum piece.  The growing success of RE in the last 20 years has come about because people have recognised the real damage that witlessness about religion can bring. Our subject does not merely provide quaint interest but is very much concerned with life and death. Political extremists who ply wicked untruths about certain religious groups do terrible harm to our society and sense of community.

So I would claim that ours is a subject where truth, value and meaning really matter. I agree with Andrew Wright (Critical religious education, multiculturalism and the pursuit of truth, 2007) that RE stands for Truth as opposed to postmodernist relativism.  We are not just about developing a sense of respect for other people’s religion.  We must stand ready to say that some things are more truthful, more valuable and more meaningful.  Just because we do not endorse the truth claims of any one faith does not mean we reject the concept of truth. In saying that one thing is ‘better’ and another thing ‘worse’ we point in a particular direction.

For example, as Wright says, we should proclaim that ‘The unexamined life is not worth living’ (see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/8377412/Religious-education-has-direct-relevance-to-British-society.html#disqus_thread ). Like Kali, we need to swing the sword of judgment on the twin-headed beast of fundamentalism. The first face being the unthinking atheist who rejects all religion as a waste of time, and the second whose aspect is the religious believer with a closed mind to any different faith perspective.  We should feel no shame in saying that these two monsters are enemies of the subject.  The unthinking atheist needs to see through his artificial ‘packaging’ of religion and the closed believer needs to open himself to the rigours of doubt and justification in the face of challenge (make every believer do this game if they find themselves in detention : http://www.philosophersnet.com/games/god.php ). There is a way to fail in RE.  The student who glazes over when issues of truth, rationality and meaning are raised, may later become the one who votes for hate and prejudice.

Our definition of what constitutes religion must be wide enough to enable the unthinking atheist to feel he can engage. I mostly blame society. Self-interest has led clerics to provide narrow definitions as it suits a privileged position for a particular group and it is no wonder that the unthinking atheist rejects it. But we must open his eyes. We have come a long way in teaching him that what he thinks is defined by the word ‘religion’ is actually way short of the mark but have we further to go ?  How long, for example, before we have honest and objective accounts of the different forms of modern paganism ?

The RE classroom may well be a daunting place for people of faith. It’s not surprising that many young Christians keep very quiet about their beliefs. But it is constructive that some feel anxiety. We should be proud of this, because a faith that denies debate and reason, a faith that is blind to any counter-message is an enemy to true religion, a danger to society and should be declared to be so in the RE classroom.  Maturity in religious belief is gained through testing and the discipline of doubt. We should acknowledge that in religious belief there is ‘more true’ and ‘less true’ and we should seek to promote the former. In his debate with Christopher Hitchens (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddsz9XBhrYA ), Tony Blair says as much when he talks of the ‘true message of religion which is one of compassion and love’ (47mins in). I may not agree with his definition, but I utterly defend his right to make the pitch that there is such a thing as a true message. Hitchens himself misses the mark about most of religious practice, but he is brilliant in his scathing attacks on the fundamentalist and he is absolutely right to bring our attention to it. We must do so in the classroom too.

Of course, most of us in the classroom are neither pig-headed atheists nor closed-minded fideists, but there are fundamentalist tendencies in all of us.  Being truthful is hard work. But it has its rewards. Bit by bit, student by student, we build the reasonable and civilised society of the future.  Quality RE has been taught in the classroom for about 25 years now, so many of the under-35’s in this country will have the skills and insight to reject immoral bigotry, but these young people are by and large not yet in positions of power in society. Ours is a spiritual warfare that must continue, because the truth matters (Benson and Stangroom Why Truth matters, 2007).

Andrew Strachan (Head of RE at Torquay Girls’ Grammar School)

Autumn 2011

At first glance, Religious Education and Enterprise might be unlikely learning partners. However, the skills afforded by the enterprise curriculum can greatly enhance student engagement in religious education.  Below I have detailed a number of activities that have been successfully planned with an enterprise specialism in mind and have been actively engaged with by students.

Enterprising Projects

Two assessment projects that have incorporated a business theme have been for the topics of Relationships and Pilgrimage. Firstly, students have developed wedding planning companies in order to show the important features of marriages and wedding ceremonies. Secondly, students became travel agents encouraging pilgrims to take a special religious journey and engagingly covering the features of pilgrimage as well as the impact of religious journeys on believers. Issues of having concern for others, particularly in Islam, with the duty of Zakah, can lend itself to the creation of banks or financial advisors aimed at the better understanding of financial duties. Similarly, the concepts of law and justice can be explored through the medium of a courtroom or by taking on the roles of advocates in the legal process. In smaller ways, students could take on the skills of independent learners by become photographers, journalists or ‘Dragon’s Den’ judges in their local community to understand diversity.

Presentation skills

Individual and group presentations lie at the heart of enterprise skills. Whilst interrogating the concept of religious leaders, students might like to present about their role models, who have shown leadership skills (again embodying the spirit of enterprise). Students can peer assess their class members by making the National Curriculum Levels applicable to that particular assessment in ‘pupil speak’. An exciting way of making peer assessment engaging is to laminate the levels, which students can hold up. ‘Balloon Debates’, ‘hot-seating’ and playing the conscience of characters in a story can allow students to take risks whilst developing empathy skills.

Planning and risk taking

Engagement in RE can be highlighted through collaboration with students to develop their learning. Allowing students to design ethical scenarios for their peers to encounter will help greater awareness of the topics. Furthermore, presenting students with a concept (e.g. charity, sin or community), but removing all other elements of the lesson and enabling students to develop the learning for one another, or create questions or debates based on the issues, can allow greater engagement with key concepts.  Designing charity lessons with risk-taking in mind can help support the enterprise curriculum.  For example, presenting students with a simulated relief effort after a natural disaster or pitching for fundraising for the school charity, can allow students to more actively engage with the curriculum (especially where GCSE boards ask for knowledge of charities). This idea can even be extended to profiling celebrities according to certain RE themes e.g. concern for environmental issues or contribution to charity.

By prioritising Enterprise skills, engaging strategies can be created to explore challenging and relevant concepts within religions in realistic and cross-curricular ways.

Frances Lane

For some people VLEs or Virtual Learning Environments are the best thing since sliced bread as they give you the opportunity to interact with students in ways that were previously not possible. For others, they are a nightmare and a dumping ground for worksheets that students won’t access. The vast majority of schools now have a VLE, which should in theory enable students to access learning materials from home. In most cases, it is the responsibility of the Head of Department or subject teacher to put content onto the VLE and then encourage students to access it. But some teachers do not have the time (or technical know how) to make interactive resources which appeal to students.

However, there are some simple ways in which you can use the VLE and make your department the talking point of the school VLE community. Firstly, if the VLE has a message or forum board, ask the person in charge to set up an RE section within it. Some students (even at A Level) find it hard to take part in class discussions, especially if they get a little heated. A nice and easy to set up homework task (which works especially well at A Level) is to start a thread with a quotation (ones from Richard Dawkins tend to work well) or a link to a news article and ask students to respond to it. I ask my students to respond twice, with them having to give a response to the previous opinion (remembering to explain why!) before concluding with their own. I then start the lesson going through the posts, asking students to expand on points that they have made. This is a nice, safe and moderated way of getting all students involved within a discussion using a format that they are comfortable with.

For most students, crosswords are not that exciting. However, using Eclipse Crossword Maker (http://www.eclipsecrossword.com), which is available via a free download, you can easily make interactive crosswords for the VLE. Simply enter your answers and clues before setting the size of the grid. The programme will then automatically make the crossword for you. You can just print out the grid and clues, but the programme gives you the option to save the crossword as a webpage. If you do this, you can then upload the page onto your VLE. Students then click on a word to find out the clue and enter the answer onto the screen. The vast majority of students I teach seem to prefer this method of crossword completion!

However, you can also make more interactive and exciting games using Content Generator (http://www.contentgenerator.net).  This website offers a range of interactive games which are available to purchase either individually or as bundles. But, for the cash-strapped RE department, there are some which are available to download free of charge. This can be done very easily and you make the games by completing a template. I have found that both my low ability Year 10 GCSE and A2 groups both found space invaders to be very addictive, and by having a leaderboard of high scores, the revision sessions became very competitive. The best thing about these games (from a teacher point of view at least), is that to achieve high scores, students must answer questions – whether it being to correctly identify a key word from it’s definition or to select the correct answer from a multiple choice list. You can download Fling the Teacher; Space Invaders and Half a Minute free. If you want to see what the other games are like, then you can try out the other games such as Penalty Shoot Out, Grade or No Grade, and Hoop Shoot before buying courtesy of RS Revision (www.rsrevision.com) – an excellent site from Arnewood School. For those who are a bit more technical, the games can be made SCORM compliant, which means that they will link up to any markbook you have within the VLE and student scores will be automatically entered for you.

You can  use VLEs to direct students towards useful blogs and other on-line resources – Stephen Law’s blog (http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/) can be useful for A Level students whilst the REonline material for Post 16 (http://reonlineorg.wpengine.com/ks5/indexx.php) can also be a good starting point for them to complete any independent research. You can also use them to host any multimedia materials that you have purchased or got hold of, for example the Reflections DVD that has just been sent out to school from RE Quest, or the Worship DVD produced by REonline, with students being asked to watch a clip from it for homework. This could also work with any clips you have downloaded from sites such as Wingclips or Youtube or as part of a webquest.

This is not a comprehensive guide to what can be done with a VLE, but hopefully will give you an idea of what can be included and free resources are available to make your VLE presence more exciting!

Ian Hartley (Head of RS, Ridgeway School)