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We were pleased to receive this rather beautiful reflection from Jan McGuire, co-Chair of AREIAC, on RE in the Curriculum and Assessment review after our focus week on the topic. Jan wrote this before the publication of the interim report. How do you respond to the questions she asks?

Enter the Cast Court rooms at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and your senses are catapulted into an ancient world; you are filled with awe and wonder. As a lover of beautiful artefacts linked to culture and Religious Education the V&A is an inspiring safe place. The spectacular Weston Cast Court features more than 60 of the V&A’s finest 19th century reproductions of Italian Renaissance monuments including the seven-and-a-half metre tall set of electrotype doors. They are a copy of the shimmering gilded bronze gates (1425-52) designed by the sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti for the north entrance of the Baptistery of San Giovanni in Florence. The original gates were so beautiful that Michelangelo is said to have referred to these doors as fit to be the “Gates of Paradise” (It. Porte del Paradiso).

Being surrounded by stunning casts it’s easy to forget the painting that sits high on the wall. It’s a copy of Raphael’s School of Athens. Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Minerva the goddess of wisdom and justice, Pythagoras and Archimedes are all featured whose collective intellect would be a useful addition to the thinking required at this present time in Religious Education.

At the centre of the composition stand Plato and Aristotle whose two different schools of thought, the physical world vs. the spiritual world, would dominate the Western thought from antiquity up to the late 17th century. The philosophical divisions that existed, even then, continue today in our subject community. Our dialogue and writing remains refreshingly diverse and nuanced, and in our associations, such as the Association of Religious Education Inspectors Advisers and Consultants (AREIAC) that is certainly the case.

The School of Athens is one of four wall frescoes in the Stanza Della Segnatura. Each wall represents one of the four branches of knowledge during the Renaissance—theology, literature, justice, and philosophy. Today we may wish to add other disciplines such as social science, ethics, hermeneutics, as being key to a rich Religious Educational curriculum.

So, imagine, I am standing before the ‘Gates of Paradise’ with Raphael’s School of Athens in view, reflecting on the present, times past and looking to the future. I am mindful of the great philosophers, intellectually ambitious academics, scholars of Religion and Theology, influential faith and community leaders and Religious Education giants that have shaped our current world.

I see the ‘Gates of Paradise’ and Raphael’s School of Athens as great metaphors. The gate keepers responding to the Curriculum and Assessment Review will have a heavy burden as they open the enormous gates to our subject community. We may desire the beautiful gates to reveal a ‘finished picture’ of beauty, tranquillity and stability. What stands behind the gates is unlikely to be paradise. At best we may hope to find a ‘bold’ and ‘reimagined’ educational landscape that has taken the ‘golden elements’ of a long tradition and merged it with the most up to date research, policies, pedagogies and practice. It will be an education fit for the modern multi-religious and multi-secular world. It will have reimagined learning spaces and will be more inclusive, equitable and accessible. It will have ‘evolved’ and will continually ‘evolve’ as global challenges and opportunities are encountered. It will enrich and motivate learners and foster a lifelong love of learning in all pupils.

It will embrace the positives of a lived-religion and worldviews approach and the wealth that at best is experienced through collaboration with our faith communities through our Standing Advisory committees on Religious Education (SACRE).

It will build upon the best Religious Education Agreed Syllabi around the country based on research, academic rigour, academic and community collaboration, considered policy and literature reviews such as those commissioned by the Religious Education Council (REC), and considered pedagogy, rich and sequential learning and knowledge; celebrating an iterative approach that is ongoing.

Personally, I am hoping that the gate keepers will only open these immensely heavy gates when they have thoroughly explored and applied the collective wisdom of Plato, Socrates, Aristotle and Minerva the goddess of wisdom and justice.

It is a huge ask and an enormous task;

“The curriculum and assessment system must ensure that young people leave education prepared for life and work, equipped with the knowledge, skills and attributes they need to thrive and become well-rounded citizens, who appreciate the diversity and pluralism of our society.” Curriculum and Assessment Review: Call for evidence

Before we push these gates open, we still have unanswered questions.

• What does the Curriculum and Assessment Review have in store for us in the RE community?
• Where will RE find itself within the big education shake-up?
• Will RE be identified as a subject that can evolve alongside other subjects in the national curriculum?
• Will it retain an element of regional or local input?
• Will RE be a candidate for ‘revolution’ – a complete ‘reimagining’. Does our community have the will for this?

We certainly wouldn’t want to destabilise a fragile ecosystem by creating something impossible to implement in schools hard pressed to find teachers of Religious Education.

Neither do we want to find RE ‘shelved’ as ‘too hot to handle’, too difficult, too broken. I am worried that comments such as ‘Let’s leave RE until last – let’s deal with the quick fixes first’ may creep in.

It is important to keep vocalising the best things that are already here and that can be built upon. It is important to celebrate our wonderful, skilled, passionate and inspiring RE teachers, Leadership Programme candidates, RE Leads and Advisers. It is important to shout loudly about our RE community and collaborative working with academics, religious and worldviews communities.

Our community needs to be present in the ‘Gate Keepers Lodge’. We need to be included in the process of opening those heavy doors to a new world. My hope is that the Curriculum and Assessment Review will set out a bold agenda for transforming Religious Education, in collaboration with those that have nurtured and protected it fiercely.

I believe that the Gates of Paradise will open to reveal a new, changed, evolved Religious Education landscape. It has already taken time to get this far on our journey. It will continue to take time. Changes do not have to be made instantly but can be carefully planned and implemented over a rolling period of five years.

The Gates of Paradise are heavy and burdensome, but beautiful, inspiring and so full of hope for a gilded future.

It’s Time For Bold Change In The Curriculum – TeachingTimes https://www.teachingtimes.com/its-time-for-bold-change-in-the-curriculum/#:~:text=Transforming%20curriculum,rather%20than%20application%20and%20utility.

The Story Behind Raphael’s Masterpiece ‘The School of Athens’
By Jessica Stewart on March 21, 2022 https://mymodernmet.com/school-of-athens-raphael/

As part of our week focussing on Oracy in RE/RVE/RME Kuljinder, who is part of of our leadership scholarship programme, shares her thoughts on oracy in our subject.

Oracy describes the ability to articulate thoughts, ideas and emotions through spoken language, responding to different audiences or contexts. Oracy in the classroom is developed when pupils have the chance to engage in structured and purposeful dialogue, explore ideas, reason and collaborate with others.

Communication and dialogue are crucial skills which enable pupils to thrive in society and the workplace. Oracy equips pupils to communicate confidently and effectively and engage in dialogue with others who may not share their worldview. As Gaunt and Stott note,

‘Without the focus on oracy. schools risk not adequately equipping young people with the communication, presentation and interpersonal skills needed to thrive in the twenty-first- century workplace’. [2019, pg 7] Gaunt and Stott, 2019

RE can assist oracy development by incorporating dialogic teaching strategies that encourage students to articulate their views and listening to others, as well as develop critical questioning and the exploration of multiple perspectives.

A great strategy for developing oracy is a ‘concept cartoon’, where around four characters share differing views on an issue. This models both articulating a view and listening to others. Another strategy is to allocate roles in discussion. Gaunt and Stott describe these as: builder, challenger, clarifier, prober, summariser (page 32.). These strategies benefit students in ‘exercising high-order thinking skills and in turn raising the quality of talk’ (pg 32.).

In my experience of applying these techniques, I have seen my students developing their critical thinking and reasoning skills as they articulate their thoughts and listen to diverse viewpoints. They also gain confidence in using subject-specific language and develop a deeper understanding of complex issues. Collaborative activities refine their ability to analyse, synthesise and evaluate information. I have seen this yield richer discussions and more thoughtful written reflections, as students learn to structure their arguments verbally before committing them to paper. As Peter Hyman notes,

‘Oracy enables students to find a voice both metaphorically and literally’ (Gaunt and Stott, 2019, pg 5.)

Oracy development is well-supported in RE/RVE/RME, as it offers opportunities for students to explore personal and philosophical questions in a dialogic space. The learning content often explores meaning, morality and belief systems, requiring students to navigate sensitive and emotionally- charged topics with respect and clarity. Our subject can also support oracy development in providing a safe space for students to articulate, reflect on and refine their personal beliefs and values. By listening to and questioning others, they often gain new insights that clarify or challenge their own worldview.

Moreover, activities which support students’ oracy can also challenge teachers to think critically about their own perspectives and assumptions. Teachers must navigate diverse views while remaining open-minded and reflective, prompting them to examine their beliefs more deeply. Engaging in discussions with students about sensitive or profound topics can reveal new insights and encourage teachers to question and refine their understanding of different worldviews, as well as their own.

Focusing on my students’ oracy development has improved their confidence, empathy, and academic performance. I have seen a transformation in the clarity with which they articulate their thoughts, listen and engage with different viewpoints. With the scaffolding that oracy- focused activities provide, I have seen students grow in confidence. Oracy- focused activities have also deepened students’ understanding of complex concepts by encouraging them to explore and verbalize their thinking, which, in turn, leads to more thoughtful and insightful written work. As Gaunt and Stott suggest:

‘If everybody was able to discuss difficulty issues in such a thoughtful and measured way, then the world would be a richer, more tolerant, less divided place’. (2019, pg 1)
(Gaunt and Stott, 2019)

References

Amy Gaunt and Alice Stott, 2019, Transform teaching and learning through talk; The Oracy Imperative’ Rowman and Littlefield, Maryland,USA

The NEU’s Daniel Kebede’s call for philosophy to be embedded in the school curriculum to help pupils engage with difficult topics such as the war in Gaza advocates a dialogic approach. Literature on how to teach challenging material posits discursive pedagogy (Hand & Levinson, 2012; Rudduck, 1986; Solomon, 1990) in which the teacher is a true collaborator and co-convenor, not a status symbol with privileged knowledge. Certainly, RE is conducive to the dialogic approach (Vrikki et al., 2019) that is much addressed at the University of Cambridge; for example, the ‘exploratory talk’ of Mercer and Littleton (2007) and the co-construction of the essential ‘dialogic gap’ (Wegerif, 2011).

In RE, we ignore the socio-emotional dimension of dialogic pedagogy at the peril of our ‘dialogically safe’ (Ucan et al., 2023) classrooms. I suggest a cardinal feature of the pedagogical complexity in addressing conflicting views is the teacher’s navigation of the moral emotion aroused in the room. This requires of its teachers a willingness – and perhaps a professional courage – to receive, acknowledge and make sense of the inevitable emotional biproducts of dialogue on difficult and sometimes controversial topics. The function of the RE teacher here is reflective of Bion’s concept of ‘container-contained’ (1961/1989), that may be understood as a metaphor for the receiving, thinking about and returning in a ‘desaturated’ (Vermote, 2019) or digested state the emotional information we are handed. We see this being applied to the teacher-pupil relationship (Bibby, 2011; Garrett, 2020; Price, 2002; Salzberger-Wittenburg, 1983/2018; Youell, 2006/2018) and it has particular potency for socio-emotional development in a dialogic RE classroom.

The ‘safe spaces’ of RE classrooms will never be devoid of emotion, nor should they be. With our RS PGCE Students, we explore this containing function that allows for thoughts to be turned into thinking (Bion, 1961/1989) and for the group to learn to mirror this function for its members. This is contributive to the learners’ development, allowing exploration of the deeper questions of identity (Waddell, 2018) which are part of the day-to-day of RE teaching and learning. The teacher acts as a container for the moral emotion and hands it back to the pupil in a thought-about state, the process often needing repeating several times. This might be, for example, an emotionally laden statement in an ethics lesson, or perhaps a visceral silence or reluctance to dialogue due to fearfulness, anxiety or even moral certitude.

RE teachers are in a prime position to address the lack of confidence Kebede refers to among teachers addressing difficult topics. Our pedagogy can provide a containing space, attentive to the emotional biproducts of dialogic work: sometimes fearfulness or anger at social injustice that need making sense of, and sometimes compassion, hope and desire for action that need harnessing. This is fertile ground for the deeper learning the subject must require of our pupils.

References

Bion, W. (1989). Experiences in Groups. East Sussex: Routledge. (Original work published 1961)
Hand, M. & Levinson, R. (2012). Discussing Controversial issues in the Classroom. Education Philosophy and Theory, Vol. 44, No. 6, pp.614-629
Mercer, N. & Littleton, K. (2007). Dialogue and the Development of Children’s Thinking: A Sociocultural approach. Routledge.
Solomon, J. (1990). Discussion of Social issues in the Science Classroom. Studies in Science Education, Vol. 18 (1), p.105-126
Ucan, S., Kılıç Özme.n Z., & Taşkın Serbest, M. (2023). Understanding the cognitive and socio-emotional dimensions of dialogic teaching and learning approach. International Journal of Curriculum and Instructional Studies, 13(1), 158-175. https://doi.org/10.31704/ijocis.2023.007
Vermote, R. (2019) Reading Bion. Routledge
Vrikki et al. (2019). Exploring dialogic space: a case study of a religious education classroom. Language and education, 2019-09, Vol. 33 (5), p.469-485
Waddell, M. (2018). On Adolescence. Routledge
Weale, S. (2024). Philosophy could help pupils discuss hard topics such as Gaza war, says NEU. The Guardian.
Wegerif, R. (2011). Towards a dialogic theory of how children learn to think. Thinking skills and creativity, 2011-2012 Vol 6 (3), p.179-190

A practical and thought-provoking blog from Kelly Keatley with strategies to use with children from 7 upwards. More about the work of Beth Eades can be found in our research spotlight.

Young people need to be:

‘equipped to ask questions, to articulate ideas, to formulate powerful arguments, to deepen their sense of identity and belonging, to listen actively and critically, and to be well-steeped in a fundamental principle of a liberal democracy – that is, being able to disagree agreeably.’

So said Geoff Barton the chair of the Oracy Education Commission (OEC) which in October 2024 produced ‘We need to talk.’, a report into why oracy is so important in education. I was immediately struck by how much the Chair, Geoff Barton, referred to aspects of oracy firmly rooted, although not exclusively, in RE/RVE/RME pedagogy. I remember reading this and thinking what a huge opportunity it was for our subject to be vocalising that this is the very nature of what we do.

My RE lessons have always included opportunities for pupils to express their ideas in a variety of different ways but also to talk. I want to hear from the young people I am teaching, and I am excited to know about what they want, what they think and what inspires and enthuses them. In my experience, that is very often true of RE teachers, and it can be one of the biggest reasons why we choose RE to be the subject that we teach.

Shortly after the OEC report, the Culham St Gabriel’s RExChange conference took place and one of the speakers was Beth Eades. Beth, an RE Subject Lead and Debate Coach, led a brilliant session on using debating to teach argument and evaluation at GCSE. Beth’s session was inspiring, largely because it put my mind at rest that I was already doing a lot of the groundwork needed to promote oracy within my classroom setting. Although I was not at the stage of using formal debate with my classes, I was utilising strategies that meant that formal debate was not as far away as I was originally thinking it might be.

Beth had used the charity, Voice 21 and Debbie Newman’s ‘The Noisy Classroom’ to support her already extensive experience as a debate coach. The Oracy Framework produced by Voice 21 is a great place to start when considering the different skills required to communicate our points effectively. Physical, linguistic, cognitive and social and emotional aspects to the way we discuss, speak and communicate are highlighted and allow us as facilitators to work on these different areas, building towards developing confidence, presentation and delivery.

Debbie Newman outlines why oracy is important and separates ‘performance oracy’ from ‘critical oracy’ with the former being reading aloud, reciting a poem or performing lines from a play but the latter working alongside critical thinking. Performance oracy is obviously of importance and teaches crucial skills but critical oracy, within the education setting, provides opportunity for learners to think and speak simultaneously. It is this, Beth had in mind, when focusing on improving argument and evaluation at GCSE. As Newman says, within critical oracy there is ‘discussion, debate, advocacy, enquiry and role play’.

So, what am I already doing in my classroom?

Coloured cards to indicate opinions/responses – use different colour cards to agree/disagree/indicate uncertainty. This can be easily built on in different ways to start vocalising these opinions and the reasons behind them.

Silent debate – big bits of paper or on the tables, marker pens or whiteboard pens. Start with a stimulus e.g. a statement, image, picture, painting, news article, clip. Pupils can respond to the stimulus and can agree and disagree with each other. Pupils could then report back – developing confidence and not necessarily sharing their view at this stage. Line game/beliefs continuum – agree/disagree and develop further by banning the middle or asking pupils to defend the opposing viewpoint.

Hot seating – a pupil/the teacher assumes a particular viewpoint or be a particular person or character. All pupils have chance to research/prepare questions, including the pupil in the hot seat.

Rotating circles – divide pupils into two groups and have one inner circle facing towards an outer circle with pupils facing each other. This can be used for discussion, debate or revision activities.

Opinion snowflakes – write 8-10 statements on a topic in boxes with lines from them meeting in the centre. Pupils then need to decide how far they agree with those statements, putting an ‘x’ on the line, nearer to the statement if they agree, nearer to the centre if they disagree. Pupils then join their ‘x’s together to create their unique snowflake shape. They then find people in the class who disagree with them on each issue, and they must discuss their views, reporting back where their disagreements lay. (thanks to Stephen Pett from REToday for this strategy!)

Important take -aways

• There is no need to start immediately with a whole class debate – in fact, this might well be a disaster! This raises the stakes, instead start small and build up. For some pupils, even expressing their own view is huge. Think about how you can get pupils to talk and share possible ideas first.
• There are ways to include evidence of debate and discussion tasks so consider the research, planning and delivery that could show how individual pupils have been involved in the task and ways that ensure pupils are all engaged with a part to play.
• Not all pupils will love taking part but that does not mean that it should not be done. Debbie Newman uses a PE analogy here – some pupils will love oracy; some will just get through it but it is good for all.
• Oracy focused lessons can be inclusive and giving SEND and disadvantaged pupils space to talk is really important. Consider using sentence starters for oracy, just as you might for scaffolding written tasks. This is something that may well help all pupils to feel more confident to take part. Debbie Newman has some suggestions in the appendices of ‘The Noisy Classroom’

1) Oracy Education Commission (2024) We need to talk. The report of the Commission on the Future of Oracy Education in England. London: Oracy Education Commission. Available at: https://oracyeducationcommission.co.uk/oec-report/.
2) Newman, D (2020) The Noisy Classroom, Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

Until the summer Julie Childs was working in a primary school in Lincolnshire, and previously was a member of the CSTG Leadership programme. I can still remember seeing a clip of pupils aged 4-7 in her school doing triple coding. Read on to find out about that and much more…

There has been a lot of buzz around oracy recently. Is it a new thing? Is it something we need to be finding time for? Should we do it in every lesson?

The Oracy Commission agreed that oracy can be best defined as:

“Articulating ideas, developing understanding and engaging with others through speaking, listening and communication”.

It also describes it as learning to, through, and about talk, listening, and communication. But what might that look like in the primary RE/RVE/RME classroom? Well, the big secret is….we have been doing oracy in RE for years, and we are really rather good at it. We just don’t always know – or share it. It is time to shout (or talk) about it! Here are some of the ways in which I have used oracy in my primary RE practice.

Vocabulary

It is important that pupils know, remember and understand tier 3 vocabulary (low frequency, domain specific words) and understand core concepts in RE/RVE/RME. One of the most successful strategies I have used is what I call ‘triple coding’.

It builds on the concept of ‘dual coding’, where a simple image is paired with a spoken word to facilitate understanding and recall. I adapted this by adding in a physical mime or hand action as a mnemonic for each of the tier 3 words I taught, alongside a simple image. I focused on selected vocabulary linked to core concepts within the unit of work.

Once the word, image and mime had been introduced, a simple phrase to go alongside it to explain the concept was introduced. E.g. salvation-saving. Sharia-straight path. This strategy can be used across all year groups. It works best when vocabulary, images and hand-mimes are codified across the school, so pupils can continue using the triple codes consistently as they build on prior learning in other year groups.

Stem sentences

I have found that giving pupils scaffolded sentence stems has enabled them to explain their thinking and knowledge in greater depth. This has then had a positive impact on their verbal reasoning and in their written responses. As with all strategies, it needs modelling and the opportunity to practice. By making stems progressively more challenging, verbal reasoning in RE can be developed. Examples are:

‘I liked it because…” in EYFS for stating preferences
“This song / story / poem makes me wonder… because…” for reflection in KS1,
“Due to the fact that…I think that…will happen” for explaining something based on known facts in Lower Key Stage 2

Dialogue/debate

“Dialogue can make a significant contribution to RE; but for dialogue to be possible, pupils need to hear and respond to the first-person voice of the other (person), and to attend to their response.” Castelli (2019)

RE is the ideal place for high quality and rich dialogue where pupils are encouraged to explore ‘big questions’. They will need support not just to put their point across articulately but to listen to that of others and respond. I have had great success using NATRE’s Anti-racist RE resources, which have generated rich dialogue and discussion.

As RE is often discussion based, it can be the ideal opportunity to develop and embed oracy. Especially now that oracy is being viewed as being as important as literacy, maybe RE is one of oracy’s best kept secrets!

References:

Castelli, M “Principles and procedures for classroom dialogue” (2018 We need to talk about Religious Education Edited by Castelli, M and Chater, M p143-154

Anti-racist RE: https://www.natre.org.uk/about-natre/projects/anti-racist-re/

Oracy Education Commission, We Need To Talk. The report of the Commission on the Future of Oracy Education in England October 2024

We need to talk, 2024

Background

It’s hard to believe that Chat-GPT3 only arrived only four years ago in November 2020. This introduction to the general public of Generative Artificial Intelligence (G-AI) has been called the most important technological development since electricity. The use of Large Language Models (LLMs) to produce materials has exploded across all domains, including education, raising important technological, ethical, workload and curriculum questions.

Potential

The potential for G-AI is exciting, offering a reduction in workload, the removal of tedious or receptive tasks, the development of materials and exciting tools for research. When thinking about using G-AI the first question to ask is, “what can the technology do?”. The DfE (2025) suggests several possible uses: creating equational resources, lessons and curriculum planning, feedback and revision activities, administrative tasks, supporting personalised learning.
As you consider your own workload in this area the next question should be, “what would I like the technology do to?”. It might be time-consuming administrative tasks; it might be the construction of multiple-choice questions for formative assessment; it might be summarising documents or research papers for easier assess or one of the many other possibilities. These will only increase over the next few years.

Pitfalls

However, whilst there may be considerable benefits in education, and the wider world, in the use of AI, G-AI and even AGI (Artificial General Intelligence)* there are pitfalls. If the technology replaces even a percentage of existing jobs, then this will cause problems unless this is addressed in other ways. The use of G-AI does challenge the role of the teacher. Also, there are a growing number of lawsuits over the scraping of data to build LLMs and the issues this raises over copyright and intellectual property rights (IPR). Added to this is the question of truth and veracity that ‘deepfake’ AI is already causing and is likely to be hijacked for nefarious purposes. In education there is significant concern in the use of G-AI by pupils to cheat or sidestep the process of assignment production whilst current plagiarism tools are struggling to identify work produced in this way.

Is there a special place for RE?

The technology is moving very quickly, in only the first two months of 2025 we have DeepSeek (China) and le Chat (France). However, there are ‘big questions’ that need to be considered. Larry Page, founder of Google, has called for stronger regulation of AI even potentially building in a kill switch.

Religious Education has always been the subject in school that welcomes engagement with controversial issues and ‘big questions’ and the ethical and human questions thrown up by G-AI are ones where RE might have a unique place in the school curriculum to explore. In a survey in 2024 (Green et al.) 24% of teens and young adults were concerned about cheating or stealing and 22% about privacy – important ethical and human areas to explore.

Conclusion

We are only at the beginning of this process, but the technology is not going away – there is great potential and some serious concerns and questions but I do believe that the technology can be used to make teacher lives better and reduce working and also that RE is places to ‘reach the parts others disciples cannot’

For more on this area and some exemplars and application ideas, an implantation model and model policies see here.  Also on this page is a link to a survey for RE teachers – it would be great if you could complete this.

*Note: AGI is idea of a machine that can learn and understand any intellectual task a human can.

References

Green, A; Trench A and Weinstein (2024) Teens and young adult perspectives on generative-AI: Patterns of use, excitements and concerns. Common Sense Media. Bellwether.

DfE (2025) Generative-AI in education. HMSO. London.

Below you can hear from several of the teacher fellows who have been involved in the University of Birmingham RE:Connect project which aims to deepen RE teachers’ understanding and confidence for exploring the environmental crisis through the lens of religions and worldviews in RE. The work is supported by St Peter Saltley trust and Culham St Gabriel’s trust.

See our research spotlight for more information and look at their resources.

What attracted you to this project?

‘Teaching Environmental Ethics at A-Level was fascinating – exploring the ideas of Arne Naess, Peter Singer and Andrew Linzey particularly. Now, having made the jump to teaching Primary, I find there is more freedom to stretch beyond the boundaries of the usual Religious Education (RE) curriculum. ‘ Rebecca

‘I have found a real lack of both resources and information, but what there is tends to emphasise the ‘doom and gloom’ of our current crisis and nothing celebrating the beauty and joy of creation. I strongly feel that this needs to change. Yes, we are we are in an extremely serious situation, but we can take so much joy in our world. I also suspect joy will inspire both teachers and children to think creatively and with courage rather than doom and gloom. ‘ John

‘The Climate Crisis is the biggest issue that we face, but I was fed up with the feeling of despair. Environmental groups I belong to, whether about teaching or otherwise, were starting to feel really downbeat and almost like everyone was starting to give up hope. I began to rekindle my own passion for the cause through exploring the beauty and celebration of nature that was emerging in ‘popular’ culture, such as through Merlin Sheldrake’s Entangled Life, contemporary British folk music, or alternative outlets like Emergence Magazine. I found these sources focussed on the beauty of our connection with nature, rather than the doom and gloom of the Climate Crisis. The joy I felt showed me that this could be the way to solving humanity’s biggest problem.’ Sam

I think RE simply has to accommodate climate and ecology education. There are so many topics we cover in RE that link to the world around us and how we experience it. We have to find the opportunities to make links between them so our students can see the relevance of studying RE to their life choices and their future.

This is why I suggest we need to use RE to go beyond the basics of what religions teach about creation and the natural world. We need to empower students to see their own worldview, be able to compare with diverse others, and reflect on urgent issues facing their generation. It seems to me that in RE we have a capacity to explore the world through people, who are after all the cause of our current emergency. While climate change and ecology will be studied in subjects like Geography and Science, in RE we have the ability to delve deeply into the human element; the way human worldviews have brought us to this crisis, and what the solutions might be. Karen

What pedagogies have you used?

‘I have recently completed Masters in Creative Writing where I specialised in Eco-Poetry. I see the creative arts as a way of exploring our place in the world and connecting with our natural surroundings. For me pursuing this connection between ecology, environmentalism and creativity is an opportunity to learn and take positive action, as well as to find my “tribe”!… I am developing the idea of poetry and art as a means of activism. Ultimately, I will take this beyond my school. It is all about connections! We have to think creatively and think big!’ Rebecca

‘In my lessons I have been experimenting with a range of techniques – primarily with nature connection. I have been taking my secondary students on nature walks and giving us time to stop, think and reflect. From these experiences I have simply allowed conversations to develop and flow. This has yielded much deeper and richer reflections from the students about why we need to preserve nature around us.

I have also been making use of children’s picture books to explore ecological issues or the value of nature in Philosophy for Children (P4C) style. The use of children’s books is often disarming and they in themselves evoke a joy in the students – I’ve never seen Y9 or Y13 students so rapt when reading and discussing the Lorax. This has helped to recapture that child-like imagination and optimism, and opens the students up to discuss big topics.

RE is a subject unlike any other – too often we get pulled too far into the ‘knowledge rich’ direction, or focus too much on exams and lose perspective of what it is that makes RE so special. RE should accommodate climate and ecology education because it is in education that we will solve our problems.’ Sam

Tell us about the resources you have created.

‘Inspired by Peter Singer’s idea of speciesism as well as my own keenly felt connection to other life-forms and the joy this brings me, I have created a scheme of learning called ‘What can we learn by listening to other species?’ We need to find the ability to sit with difficult questions and feelings and find resilience in the face of the unknown, the known unknowns and unknown unknowns!’ Rebecca

‘The teaching resources I have designed explore the idea of the prophetic voice in the modern world. In my lessons, children come to see nature as a subject and not as an object. We ask, how does the prophetic voice relate to the climate emergency? The ancient prophets spoke to truth to power. They weren’t always popular and their message was not always welcomed. In my lessons children explore the idea of speaking truth to power in terms of action and making a real difference.

I see RE as a vital component of climate and environmental education, especially in Wales where we have Religion Values and Ethics (RVE). The climate is rightly a major theological and ethical debate of our time. Inaction is not an option and by being prophetic we can change and do something practically to share the joy of creation and our environment. In my view climate and environment should be central to the teaching in RE and RVE. …RE and RVE allows us to become ethically informed citizens of Wales. UK and the world.’ John

‘I have designed a Y9 unit of work based on religious teachings around the environment. My working question is Can religion save the planet? I am weaving together the issues we face in our world today with scripture, allowing my students to explore modern belief and practices.’ Chrissie

‘I have designed a short scheme of work to look at the environment from three perspectives, entitled, “Whose world is it? Who cares?” We start the unit with issues facing the environment and dig deeper to explore why these things are happening. Students consider who actually cares for our local environment and will find out about Eco Churches. We are fortunate that local Eco Churches are already part of some of our students’ work in other subjects.

From the local we move to the national. Students explore some of the religious groups within Extinction Rebellion (XR) and their work to highlight climate change. This brings us to the final stage of the unit: the international. Here we consider the development work of Christian Aid as well as environmental activism within Buddhism. We study Buddhism at GCSE so this links well. Matt

Thank you to Rebecca Oster (former secondary now primary RE Teacher, John Meredith (Diocesan Director of Education in Swansea and Brecon), Sam McKavanagh (Secondary Teacher), Karen Johnson (Secondary Teacher), Chrissie Byrne( Secondary Teacher) and Matt Pitcher (Secondary Teacher) for sharing their thoughts.

Read these resolution thoughts from Neil Duncalf. Are you one of the 20%? Or perhaps now is the ideal time to make a resolution.

I recently observed a school assembly, delivered by our head, which focused on New Year Resolutions. Following the assembly I began to think about my own intentions for 2025. I came across a statistic which stated that in the UK 80% of New Year resolutions fail and most of the failures happen during the first month. So, with that low success rate, do New Year Resolutions serve a purpose or are they an old fashioned and out-of-date tradition?

The Ancient Babylonians around 2,000 BC began to hold a twelve-day festival which marked the start of a new year. For them, it was the start of the farming year when crops could be planted, and they promised to return borrowed farm equipment and pay any debts they had. The Roman Empire adopted the Babylonian festival and eventually moved it to the beginning of January. The Roman month of January was dedicated to the god Janus. Janus was said to have two faces and could look backwards as well as forwards. The Romans began to make promises to the god Janus throughout January.

I suspect that one of the reasons people break their resolutions is because they have been made as part of a yearly tradition. If we have good intents for religion and worldviews education in our schools and beyond then why make those intentions and resolutions at the start of the school year or term? Why not resolve to make the changes whenever they are relevant?

Too many subject development plans get written and then filed away unseen and unreviewed until someone from the school leadership team reminds us that a deadline is fast approaching or even worse told that your plan is out of date. A much better approach is the idea that a religion and worldviews subject development plan becomes a working document, which is reviewed and amended regularly. An uncomplicated way to review it could be to rag rate each outcome red, amber, or green. I am not suggesting that it needs to be done weekly but reading the development plan and updating it half termly will surely help to ensure that our intentions for the development of our subject come to fruition.

If you are still wondering what intent to adopt, how about an intention to freshen up your pedagogy. There are lots of opportunities to develop your religion and worldviews education skills and teaching practice. Some of the best CPD I have recently done has been through Culham St Gabriels Trust. There are lots of opportunities available through their websites from short elearning courses to 2-year programmes. Why not commit to applying for a place on the Leadership Scholarship Programme and take on board the opportunities for development and outstanding support the programme offers.

Reflections on religious education, the Francis review and the national curriculum in England, with a little help from W.B. Yeats’ ‘Second Coming’ (1919).

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world…
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand…
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Yeats’ poetic thought-world is thrilling. His poetry imagines chapters of history turning: one epoch making way for another.

Might we be on the verge of an educational chapter in England wherein religious education (RE) occupies a strengthened position in the school curriculum? If so, might the fortunes of the subject be much improved?

Surely some revelation is at hand.

Before we think about the next educational epoch or chapter, let’s look back. Let’s contrast our current educational epoch – one in which the Francis Curriculum and Assessment review is being conducted – with one that came before: the era of the legislation which underpins RE’s current status.

It’s clear that the kind of educational assumptions sitting behind the 1988 legislation, and reflected within it, do not reflect the realities of schools today:

• school structures have evolved: not all state-funded schools are maintained by local authorities (40:1(1)a,b,c);
• assessment has moved on: practices are not shaped by end of key stage attainment targets (40:2(2)a);
• historical duties are not enacted: it is simply not that case that “all pupils in attendance at a maintained school… on each school day take part in an act of collective worship.” (40:6(1))

In this legislation, RE sits as part of the “basic curriculum”. The basic curriculum for state-funded schools was imagined to include the national curriculum and RE. Yet, today, leaders and governors appear to have collective memory loss of this fact. But even the language of the “basic curriculum” has largely been lost in the annals of time.

The kind of educational epoch which placed RE within a “basic curriculum” is quite different from the current one. Indeed, today, if any “curriculum” is perceived to be “basic” at all, it’s the national curriculum. What once obtained, no longer suffices.

Clearly, the status of RE has not benefitted from this historical distinction, however worthy or defensible the reasons for it were at the time. It would be very hard indeed to argue that the subject is thriving, with pupils across the country equitably enjoying high-quality religious education in schools. In my final RE subject report at Ofsted, I reflected on a sad state of affairs for RE in many schools within the research sample. I (and my colleague Hazel Henson, HMI) found:

• RE that didn’t help pupils prepare for living in a complex world
• RE that gave pupils at best a superficial grasp of religious and non-religious traditions
• RE that didn’t help pupils interrogate claims and statements about religion and non-religion
• Worryingly unreliable assessment practices in RE
• An absence of professional development in RE for teachers, mirrored by pupils being left with profound misconceptions

It would be hard to argue that the status of RE outside the national curriculum has served pupils in England’s schools well.

The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity

Yeats uses the line “the best lack all conviction” from Shakespeare’s Hamlet to refer to the aristocracy. But these words also helpfully illuminate the current dilemma of RE: it is those with the greatest potential who may struggle with doubt and uncertainty about change the most.

When it comes to RE being included within the national curriculum, rather than sitting awkwardly adjacent to it, there is much enthusiasm from RE stakeholders (by which I mean RE leaders, teachers, practitioners, advisers and professionals). There are also some who have expressed displeasure with the idea.

Why might they object? Some religious communities who run state-funded VA schools (and ex-VA academies) can determine ‘denominational RE’. This kind of RE is outside the remit of Ofsted to inspect. Others like existing arrangements that RE content in maintained schools can be decided at local authority level. Though they positively advance and prioritise RE, these individuals and institutions prefer the current arrangements. Question: is it worth giving up control?

Yet I can see policy positions that can offer resolution. Mitigations could still be built into any post-Francis-review national curriculum. The current national curriculum for history, for instance, already includes flexibilities on studying local history.

In the case of schools with a religious character, it is more likely the case that these schools offer more RE curriculum time than their non-religious character counterparts. There should be nothing to prevent them from teaching beyond a minimum entitlement (a position that reflects the current Secretary of State’s approach to teacher pay, which might have a ‘floor’, but no ‘ceiling’).

Slouching towards Bethlehem, ready to be born

On the 8th January 2025, the second reading of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill in the House of Commons included a discussion of the Francis review. In it, the former Secretary of State Damian Hinds discussed his perception of the dangers of an over-specified, overly-prescribed National Curriculum:

“…in sensitive subjects like history, like English literature, like RE, we’ve always in this country, since the start of the National Curriculum, taken an approach of not specifying what kids will learn… it’s not a list of things you will learn in schools… it’s a broad framework that helps guard against the… over-politicisation of education.”

Whether or not you agree with Hinds, his wording suggests that RE is already part of the National Curriculum! Misconceptions are rife.

RE – and those responsible for leading and teaching it – deserve some clarity at the very least. RE’s journey to the present hasn’t been the smoothest of paths. The inclusion of RE in the next chapter of the National Curriculum is evidently one way to obtain clarity and more-secure footing. Slouching towards Bethlehem is certainly apt, if it is indeed to happen at all.