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Ellen is both a teacher of 5-7 year old pupils and an associate lecturer in Primary RE at Sheffield Hallam University
RE is one of my favourite things to teach. It is a subject that some children will know lots about but for others it will be a window into an undiscovered world. However, recent years have seen changes in primary RE from it being covered, in some schools, only during focus days and, quite inappropriately, within assemblies, to when OFSTED introduced subject ‘deep dives’ in England which has led to clearer curriculum planning and higher expectations in primary schools that did not previously take the subject seriously.

I have been teaching for 20 years in primary and infant schools both with and without a religious character. Alongside this, for the last 8 years, I have also worked as an associate lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University preparing ITE students for the rich tapestry that is RE in the primary classroom. This has been an eye-opening journey.

I start the majority of my PGCE and undergraduate sessions with the question “what RE have you already seen in school?” Back in 2018 this was often met with a sea of blank faces – now the room is a little more alive. However, when I ask students about their own experiences of RE, the blank faces remain. The reality is in many schools without a religious character RE is not a high-profile subject, it’s not the one the inspectors want to look at and I’m regularly told “the Teaching Assistant teaches it in my non-contact time”. As a result, many of the trainees I teach know as little if not less than my current Year Twos! For many of our young trainees RE is (by their own admission) the subject they know the least about or worry the most about teaching, and when asked why the answer time and time again is “because I don’t want to get it wrong”.

However, all is not lost! Through our revised Initial Teacher Education (ITE) RE curriculum at Sheffield Hallam the mood is shifting. The students are now working through a clear programme of detailed and relevant subject knowledge, encountering creative, engaging resources and lesson ideas whist having the opportunities to ask questions and look at how stories both religious and secular can be the foundation for high quality RE teaching.

For example, sharing the story of the Good Samaritan with students and allowing them to unpick what they knew before we introduced the parable and what they know now and why they think Jesus thought his listeners need to hear the story helps them to see how they would talk to a key stage 2 class about the same story. Sharing with them images of classical artwork which depict the story and then looking at and planning how an image can be used is vital in enabling students to see what RE can be in their classroom

A big part of teaching the teachers has been not only improving their own subject knowledge but also their understanding of what good RE looks like and sharing with them key resources such as the SHAP audio glossary to help them overcome their fear of mispronouncing key vocabulary. We spend time signposting and discussing what makes a reliable resource – for example the BBC series My Life, My Religion can be key to engaging the children with previously unknown faiths. This also comes with the caveat that while film resources can be excellent, chose your resources carefully. The cartoon of the baptism of the white, blue-eyed Jesus is likely not the one you should be using. However, the clip that uses the words of scripture in a way children can access whilst portraying Jesus as a man who looks like a person from the Middle East is what you should be looking for.

RE is not a bit like circle time or drawing a picture of the story, it is a subject where expectations are high, vocabulary is key and introducing new learning is vital. This is a very long way from the days when the Vicar might come and deliver an assembly or children take part in an Easter Bonnet Parade or the focus day where every class takes part in a Diwali dance workshop. Our students are leaving us ready to challenge these tired and outdated methods of teaching if they find them and so begin shaping more well-rounded citizens of the world.

Governing boards find themselves at a critical crossroads as they seek to reflect the demands of the modern world through their ambition for the next generation of history makers and society shapers. One thing most boards agree on is that simply maintaining the status quo isn’t enough – the responsibility of supporting young people to step out on their own into a world exhausted by in the pace of change is immense. What school and trust decision makers decide to invest time and resources on, is not straightforward.

The late John Hull, an Emeritus Professor of Religious Education at the University of Birmingham, pointed to Religious Education (RE) as being something that could effectively address the universal need of “understanding the richness of human experience and the profound questions of meaning and purpose.” RE is often misunderstood as indoctrination, and some parents and stakeholders can be nervous about a ‘hidden agenda’. But in reality, RE provides a vital opening into wider societal understanding of what motivates billions of people across the globe. It isn’t just sociological or theological voices that promote the value of RE in a syllabus of learning, but also great scientific minds, perhaps most famously reflected in Albert Einstein’s stated belief that “science without religion is lame”.

Despite this, the quality of RE across the English education sector is inconsistent, bitty and hard to measure. While the upcoming curriculum review, described as a “once in a generation opportunity” may address some of these inconsistencies alongside foundational issues with the curriculum, and the introduction of the RE national standards, perhaps we need to address why governing boards should be thinking about where RE sits in their offering, asking themselves ‘are we advocates or opponents, or simply indifferent to this subject’s place in a child’s learning journey?’

Not another statutory obligation

When budgets tighten and timetables become crowded, it’s easy to allow the strategic parameters of governance to prevent board engagement in subject specific discussions. Perhaps slightly ironically, RE often faces marginalisation as a meaningful part of ‘mission-based’ conversations, despite its statutory status. Now more than ever, in a world where polarised views are becoming a disturbing norm, delivering on the ‘mission’ of equitable education opportunities through preparing pupils for the realities of society is 100% a strategic priority.

Recent research from University College London (UCL)* shows a correlation between “epistemic haves and have-nots” and broader social inequities. When schools fail to deliver robust RE, they inadvertently contribute to educational inequity, particularly affecting disadvantaged pupils in the development of a worldview that is so vital to mobility. So again, boards need to be seeing this not just about a conversation about a particular ‘subject’, but validity of the curriculum in equipping pupils with what is needed to live their lives.

A unique window on the world

Quality RE offers primary pupils something uniquely valuable: structured exploration of life’s biggest questions. For those governing primary schools, this means asking big questions:

1. Is RE approached as part of an ambitious learning journey or simply a compliance matter?
2. Do some pupils receive rich opportunities to develop critical thinking about diverse worldviews while others receive virtually none?

As strategic leaders, governing boards should:

1. Champion RE’s place in a broad and balanced curriculum by asking informed questions about curriculum time, teacher expertise, and resource allocation.
2. Monitor implementation, ensuring RE isn’t treated as an afterthought.
3. Challenge misunderstandings about the subject’s purpose – RE is not simply about “respecting other religions” but developing worldviews.
4. Connect RE to whole-school priorities like social cohesion and critical thinking.

As governors and trustees, we have the opportunity to advocate for a more coherent approach. When we champion RE, we stand for a future where all pupils have the ‘balanced’ window on the world they deserve.

“Miss it’s so cool that our school community is anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-everything really … I mean anti everything bad of course!! ”

I reflect on these words with profound appreciation, noting a recent conversation during a pupil voice feedback session in my school in the North-East. This dialogue exemplifies the significant progress our school community has made, particularly in how eloquently our pupils now articulate our shared values and institutional identity.

In today’s diverse society being an ally to those with differing religious and non-religious worldviews requires more than just passive acceptance. As research such as that of Trevor Cooling* shows, simply bringing people together without intentional engagement doesn’t automatically destroy stereotypes or develop friendly attitudes.

True allyship in the context of religious and worldview differences requires several key principles and RE is a platform that can be used to promote this. It is a respectful window into them becoming advocates.

A well designed and balanced RE curriculum can promote modelled respectfulness, diversity of opinion. and how to disagree respectfully.
This all leads into developing pupils’ ‘personal” knowledge’.

Key principles in promoting active ally-ship

• Create Equal Space
• Ensure everyone has equal value in conversations and interactions
• Foster an environment where all perspectives can be shared safely and respectfully
• Promote Meaningful Dialogue
• Move beyond superficial conversations to explore authentic experiences
• Listen to diverse voices and encourage honest discussions about differences

When the RE platform is used well, the children themselves can them become advocates for each other. One effective approach is to actively engage with different interpretations and perspectives within religious traditions. For example, inviting people from different branches of the same faith tradition to share their unique viewpoints can help break down stereotypical portrayals and reveal the rich complexity of religious experience.
Most importantly, as the religion and worldviews approach promotes, we need to remember that being an ally starts with people, not abstract concepts. Each person’s worldview is shaped by their time, place, language, and cultural context. By approaching allyship through this human-centred lens, we can better understand and support those whose beliefs and practices differ from our own.

Children can become a beacon of hope by being an authentic voice in representing their own personal worldviews as well as engaging with and understanding the diverse views of others. Our future will be shaped by the young people we teach today therefore developing a culture of respect and an open dialogue of curiosity rather than hostility is essential. By doing this we will continue as adults to be astounded by our young people’s allyship and respect of others, in a world that can feed on exploiting extremes.

* Trevor Cooling (2025) Knowledge in a religion and worldviews approach in English schools, British Journal of Religious Education, 47:2, 130-139, DOI: 10.1080/01416200.2024.2304693

https://doi.org/10.1080/01416200.2024.2304693

Becoming a parent of a primary school pupil has been an amazing learning experience for me so far! It has provided a scaffold for so many crucial parenting conversations. Things like personal safety, managing emotions and friendships and even online safety. I wouldn’t have known where to start. For all the issues there are in our current education system, there is much to be thankful for.

RE for example…

When I attended my son’s recent parent consultation, I was able to look at his books, he was particularly excited to show me his RE book as we have been having more and more conversations about faith at home. As a teacher of Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4 English, I was absolutely astounded by the standard of the work being set. I read two comparative essays that compared Christian figures from the bible; tasks that had clearly been set to test skills and knowledge after detailed study of the stories. Previously, I valued RE in Jacob’s curriculum in the same way as I valued other subjects that I am not an expert in.

I imagined that in RE he would learn about other faiths and festivals that I didn’t know much about but reading that work, I saw that RE offers far more than that! It was abundantly clear to me that the subject has amazing cross-curricular implications, connecting to History, English, Geography and Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE). In one essay, Jacob showed that through RE, he was also learning about the world, people, history, and at the same time, was practising pretty high-level reading and writing skills. The label ‘Religious Education’ doesn’t really do justice to the subject.

However, the value of RE extends beyond its academic worth. It also provides children like my son (and hopefully my daughter when she gets to school) with a toolkit for navigating the rich, multicultural society that we are blessed to live in. It celebrates diversity by teaching about the differences between religious festivals and practices, which is vital as Jacob is surrounded by peers and teachers of different religious and non-religious worldviews. He shared with me recently that he believed he saw a member of school staff praying on a mat during the school day; he was able to link this experience with his studies of Islam in his RE lessons. In the same way that learning about physics has helped him to understand cooking in greater depth, learning about religious and non-religious worldviews has helped him to understand the people around him better.

We all exist within a belief system, whether we are members of a recognised religion or not – my household is both Christian and Atheist and that can be a challenge but it is also an amazing opportunity to model how different beliefs can co-exist. Where difference has the potential to divide, RE shows how the most important values underpin every faith; there is far more that unites us than divides us.

The idea that children may leave primary school with no formal religious education is frankly scary. Even in the unlikely event that children don’t encounter people of a variety of religious and non-religious worldviews in their communities, the news and media is saturated with complex and challenging presentations of religions and their histories. We must equip our children with the social and academic skills and knowledge to be able to engage with, interrogate and learn from these encounters.

As a minimum, RE will provide invaluable context for and knowledge of, different faiths but at its best, RE could galvanise our children to make stronger, deeper connections with those around them; motivate them to explore their own spiritual potential and ultimately build a more tolerant, outward-looking and compassionate world.

I’m not sure RE has ever been more relevant to our children than it is now.

Three senior educationalists share their perspectives…

Helping children make sense of the world

When RE is given proper time, attention and is taught well, it really opens children’s eyes to the world around them. It’s not just about learning facts or ticking boxes — it’s about understanding real lives. Children start to talk about religious festivals like Diwali or Christmas in a way that feels personal, not distant. They connect it to the people they know, their classmates, their neighbours. It helps them realise that difference isn’t something to be scared of — it’s part of the richness of the world they live in. RE is full of amazing stories; amazing characters; and amazing ideas. It provides them with the context and content of powerful knowledge that underpins many idioms and references that they will come across in their futures. RE gives them that bigger view at exactly the age when they’re forming their first ideas about others and this will form secure foundations for their living life well.

RE can build respect and break down barriers

You can feel the difference in a school where RE is valued and delivered well. Children are that bit more open with each other, a bit more thoughtful before they speak. They learn not just to hear about differences but to really listen — to understand why people believe what they do, and why it matters to them. In my experience, schools where the approach to RE is strong, pupils are more likely to be the ones who stand up for someone being left out or ask questions in a way that shows real curiosity, not judgment. These pupils challenge prejudice, become aware of their unconscious bias and actively promote inclusion and equity. We know it’s so important to build a culture where every child feels seen and respected and RE is a strong vehicle for that. It is essential to build a society and community that not only tolerates difference, but explores, engages in and celebrates differing worldviews.

RE can build skills pupils can carry for life

The best RE lessons teach children to have proper conversations: to ask thoughtful questions, to listen carefully, to challenge kindly. It’s these lessons where you see quiet pupils finding their voice or a lively class learning how to debate respectfully. In one school, a few discussions about fairness turned into a project where pupils set up a food bank collection for local families. This is RE at its best, when it sparks real action, not just learning for learning’s sake.

RE gives children space to think and grow

Sometimes life throws big questions at children for instance about identity, belonging, loss, hope and not many places in the curriculum make space for that. RE gives children time to think about who they are, why they are and where they fit in, without rushing them or demanding easy answers. Especially now, with so much going on in the world, children need those spaces more than ever. It can also demonstrate that it’s okay to have questions that don’t always have simple answers. RE enables children to accept themselves and others authentically.

RE can prepare children for a future we can’t predict

Children today are growing up with technology that moves faster than any of us can keep up with. We know that AI is going to be a big part of their world, but it can’t teach them the things that really matter: empathy, wisdom, understanding. RE helps children think about what it means to be human: how to live well with others, how to make good choices, how to build a life that means something. The skills that our children build in RE might just be some of the most important ones they ever learn.

With contributions from: 

Sonia Innes, Director of VNET Education CIC

Dave Morel, Deputy Director of Education, Inspiration Trust

Geraldine Tidy, Director of Education, Mosaic Partnership Trust

As a primary teacher who has taught in schools for nearly twenty years, I have had many opportunities to get involved in the wider world of education and leadership. I remember that at the start of my teaching career, my headteacher asked me if I had a plan and I told her that I just wanted to teach. This is something that has remained with me throughout my career. I firmly believe that to support other teachers and train the teachers of the future, we must be firmly rooted in our own classroom practice.

At the end of my NQT year (yes I am that old), I remember being asked to lead RE. I was aware that this role was a ‘beginning of the teaching career’ leadership role, one that would be mine for a bit and that I would then pass on as I became more experienced (but this was not true for me!). Over the last few years, I have increasingly wondered why this is something that is expected by the teaching profession when our subject with its complicated legal position, intricate pedagogy and sensitive nature, which by definition need a careful, experienced and well-trained hand.

The constant changes in primary schools can often leave RE leaders feeling lost, seeking support from curriculum models. Since Ofsted’s inspection framework review, discussions about curriculum have increased, including in RE. We have all learnt to research deeply, take holiday trips to places linked to the themes that we are due to teach and have many areas of ‘geeky’ level knowledge. As subject leaders in primary schools, we have had to deepen our understanding and knowledge of subjects that may not have been the ones that we studied at degree level but in all of this primary teachers work hard and do an incredible job.

Recently, multi-academy trusts have been handing over curriculum design to secondary colleagues, frustrating many primary RE specialists. Comments like “I’m designing the primary curriculum so I know what I’ll get in Year 7” or ‘I have primary aged children at home so I know what they can do’ are common and infuriating. Like the rest of my primary colleagues, I trained for four years to do my job, I have taken part in RE CPD, I lead RE CPD and I aim to inspire primary RE leaders of the future so that curriculums can be designed with primary specific pedagogy in mind. Primary curriculums should be designed and led by those trained in primary pedagogy.

This trend is causing talented primary RE leaders to leave the field. I have been deeply saddened to see many talented primary RE leaders leave national RE communities and discussions to head towards other leadership areas because the doors are closed to them because they teach in primary rather than secondary. As the first primary National Association of Teachers of RE (NATRE) chair in 28 years, I sometimes worry about being taken seriously because I teach younger children. The assumption that secondary teachers can plan for primary but not vice versa is flawed.

I’m fortunate to work in a school that values RE and supports my leadership. This should be the norm. Primary RE leaders spend all week with their pupils, understanding their needs and are able to carefully consider the pedagogy and steps to learning that their children will need in order to tackle tricky concepts and ideas within the RE classroom.. We must consider the whole child’s educational journey in RE.

Dr. Richard Kueh’s tree analogy at Strictly RE highlights the importance of phase-specific care. He explained that a child’s journey through RE starts at the roots (Foundation stage), moves through the trunk (Key Stage One and Two) and branches out in secondary schools. This image has stuck with me, we need cross-phase discussions but must respect each other’s roles.
I call on schools, trusts and other organisations to remember the importance of valuing leadership that is firmly rooted in experience, training and pedagogy that is phase specific.

• Primary RE curriculum and leadership requires primary expertise
• Value and champion Primary RE leaders, providing them with opportunities and invest in primary specific CPD. The teaching community should champion primary RE leaders, acknowledging their hard work and dedication, and ensuring that primary leadership roles are valued and supported.
• Cross phase collaboration is essential it’s crucial to respect the roles and expertise of primary and secondary educators, ensuring that primary RE leaders have a voice in curriculum design.
  Primary RE teachers, you are amazing. Thank you for your dedication and hard work. Let’s champion primary RE leaders and ensure we don’t wait another 28 years for a primary NATRE chair.

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
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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.