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Like many in RE, I was inspired by the Commission on RE’s report (CoRE, 2018) and the Ofsted research review (Ofsted, 2021) to introduce more challenge or ‘ambition for all’ into my curriculum, to use Ofsted’s phrase. I applauded the encouragement for RE teachers to teach substantive knowledge in more depth – which I understood as ‘less is more’ – as well as highlighting the need to represent diversity within faiths accurately. I was also excited by the ‘how to know’ element of the Ofsted review, referring to the difference between substantive and disciplinary knowledge, and the development of personal knowledge. However, the team and I weren’t sure what this would look like in the classroom with our younger students. We felt confident that for our GCSE students a more detailed exploration of texts, data and philosophical ideas would really bring their learning to life, but were unsure as to how to do this well with KS3.

Thankfully, many like Dawn Cox, Nikki Mcgee and Joseph Kinnaird, were actively tackling the practical implications of a multi-disciplinary approach at KS3, so we had lots to explore. Encouraged by their success, my team and I began to trial the explicit use of multi-disciplinary language and analysis of sacred texts in the KS3 classroom. Initially we were anxious that students would find the more detailed textual analysis too hard, and instead of feeling challenged, would be overwhelmed. We were proved wrong.

In preparation for a new unit on Genesis 1, I read the inspirational The Bible With and Without Jesus (Brettler and Levine, 2020). We realised we had always considered Genesis 1 and 2 from a Christian viewpoint, and this book showed us that also analysing from a Jewish perspective would add richness and depth. This opened up a fantastic example of diverse worldviews, difficulties with translation and varied interpretations of sacred text for students to dive into. A helpful tip from Lat Blaylock regarding exploring Genesis from a Jewish perspective gave me additional confidence (Marsten, 2000).

I used an approach for making sense of text from a theological perspective called LAaSMo, which is recommended by Canterbury Christchurch in a toolkit for teachers (Bowie, 2020). This approach showed me how to support students in studying the literary form, author, audience, setting, meaning and order of the text, before they evaluated the impact that diverse beliefs have had, and may still have on the lived experience of believers. Again, this was rich and stimulating and opened up a world of understanding that our students managed well.

By the end of the unit students could see how textual and hermeneutical analyses had allowed them to interpret a text from Christian and Jewish perspectives. We found that as well as the new learning, students had also come to understand that there is never one way to make sense of a sacred text, and in fact, there can be quite a range of diverse viewpoints within religious traditions.

Students’ theological understanding, substantiative knowledge and evaluation skills were assessed. We found that they were able to interpret the theological themes and present their own conclusions. We were very interested to see how many made links to beliefs about the environment and subsequent behaviour.

Despite our initial anxiety we were delighted with the results and felt the work was well worth it. Our curriculum has been hugely enriched because of this, as we are excited for the next challenge.

References

Brettler, Marc Zvi and Levine, Amy- Jill (2020) The Bible With and Without Jesus, Harper Collins Australia
Bowie, Robert, E. (editor) (2020) The Practice Guide, Classroom Tools for Sacred Text Scholarship, Canterbury Christ Church University, 2020
Commission on Religious Education (CoRE) (September 2018) ‘Religion and Worldviews: the Way Forward: a National Plan for RE’
Marsten, Justin (2000) ‘Jewish understandings of Genesis 1 to 3’, in Science & Christian Belief, Vol 12, 2000
Ofsted, Research Review for Religious Education (May 2021)

Hello! My name is Taylor Hatch, and I am delighted to have recently joined the team at Culham St Gabriel’s where I will be working as the new Communications Officer. Having worked in the public sector for the last few years I am very well versed in the world of communications – I am passionate about connecting with others and building relationships that create meaningful impact. I also graduated from The University of Manchester with an undergraduate degree in Religions and Theology, and I am always eager to integrate this knowledge and understanding when interacting with others.

I was always conscious that a degree in theology and career in comms may never perfectly align – no doubt the skills I gained in both fields have been of utmost use to me – however, I realised that the chances of finding a role which directly linked the two together would be scarce. This soon changed when an opportunity to work for Culham St Gabriel’s arose, I couldn’t have been more wrong! It seemed as though the stars had aligned and created this job especially for me.

I am so excited to be taking up this role and to be a part of an organisation who is just as passionate about the Religion and Worldviews curriculum as I am. From first-hand experience I can confidently say that an education in Religion and Worldviews sparks imagination, curiosity, and exploration… and I want everyone to know about it! Not only within the immediate world of RE professionals but I am also eager to spread this message to the public, policy makers, and other influencers.

Working in comms provides me with a sense of purpose and motivates me to connect with other like-minded people. Ultimately, no one day is the same and we must dig deep to understand our audiences and to effectively make change. I accept this challenge with open arms.

I am particularly looking forward to creating a new comms strategy, as I can fully immerse myself in the needs, mission, and priorities of the Trust. Relationship building is also an integral part of my role, and I am eager to network with our trustees and stakeholders to help shape the impact of the Trust.

I hope this brief introduction has perfectly encapsulated my enthusiasm! If you would like to get to know me a little better or throw some ideas around, please do not hesitate to contact me: taylor@cstg.org.uk

Our Resource of the Month is a FREE textbook about Shia Islam for GCSE. This is tailored to the GCSE specification, but would be useful for all teachers to gain useful information about Shia Islam.

In this blog, co- author Zameer Hussain talks about the inspiration for writing the book, along with scholar Dr Ahab Bdaiwi.

With the GCSE reforms in 2016 that required diversity to be explored, we felt it was an opportunity to equip and educate teachers about the Shia perspective before teaching about it. For the first time, an in-depth understanding of Shia Islam was required on the GCSE specification, along with Sunni Islam. We had found that Shia Islam wasn’t always accurately portrayed in resources nor was it given much space in textbooks. Therefore we felt such a book was necessary.

The book was authored by myself and Dr Ahab Bdaiwi. Dr Bdaiwi is a well-respected academic in Islamic scholarship and I am a teacher and member of the RE community, with experience in training teachers about Shia Islam. We felt that between us we had the knowledge and credibility, as well as the right balance between academic rigour and understanding of the classroom, to offer a book to teachers.

We consulted with well-respected Shia scholars, such as Ayatollah Fadhil Milani, as well as academics with a specialism in Islam, such as Dr Chris Hewer. We wanted to ensure our writing is accurate and represents Shia Islam in an authentic way. Their feedback was invaluable for our work.

We had a very clear aim that the book should be accessible to teachers and students. Throughout the writing process we constantly asked ourselves the question; can someone pick this book up and feel confident in teaching about key beliefs and practices of Shia Muslims? As well as covering the requirements on the GCSE specification, we wanted to give some background detail to ensure a rich, complex understanding.

As Shia Muslims we are only too happy to help and support teachers in this way. All over the UK teachers will find Shia mosques which welcome school groups and individual teachers as visitors. Tours can be arranged and questions can be asked to scholars. I myself have supported teachers in understanding Shia Islam more for many years and am always interested to hear about teachers’ questions or ideas. Feel free to contact me if you ever want to ask questions about Shia Islam!

Over the years, in training teachers, I have come to a couple of points of understanding for non-Muslim (and non- Shia) teachers. It is important not to pitch Shia Islam as an off-shoot or breakaway from ‘mainstream Islam.’ Shia Islam has its own traditions and history that shouldn’t be framed through a Sunni lens. Of course, it shares much with Sunni Islam but the Shia worldview should be given the same credibility as other traditions. For example, there may be only a Sunni narrative taught around the life of Prophet Muhammad that overlooks a Shia perspective. Shia historians reject the idea that Muhammad didn’t know he was a prophet until the Angel Jibril visited him, for example. I also advise that knowledge about Shia teachings come from credible sources such as literature or websites written by Shia scholars or experts. A good website is https://www.al-islam.org/ which contains lots of Shia literature translated into English and reflects the diversity of opinion within the Shia tradition.

Unfortunately, whether intentional or not, there is a lot of false information online about Shia Muslims. This includes inaccurate claims that Shia see Ali as a prophet, that they worship the Imams and believe the Quran is incomplete and has been tampered with. There are also generalisations that depict the whole Shia community as performing blood-letting during Ashura, when this is not the case.

Some aspects of Shia Islam are not on the GCSE specification that would be great for students to learn about. For example the Ziyarah pilgrimages to the mausoleums of the Imams are very important to Shia Muslims. The spirituality that can be found in Shia Islam is also profound. This can be seen when studying the psalms and supplications that have been passed down from the Imams. Through the study of this prayer literature, there would be an excellent exposition of the way Shia Muslims are taught to conversate with God which gives an insight into Shia theology.

When it comes to learning about Shia Islam, there are some key figures, events and ideas. For example, Imam Hussain, the grandson of Prophet Muhammad, is one of the most inspirational figures due to his stand against injustice. His life and death are very important to learn about to gain an authentic understanding of what is important in Shia Islam. Additionally, a grasp of the historical events before and after the death of Prophet Muhammad that led to Muslims going in different directions is essential to understand why there are Sunni and Shia Muslims. In modern Shia Islam an exploration of the altruism and servitude displayed on the pilgrimage to Karbala, Iraq, during Arbaeen would offer an excellent understanding; it reflects Islamic ethics and social justice in a profound way. It would also be worthwhile exploring the tradition of Shia poetry that teaches us so much about Shia history.

In part 1 of this blog, I described my initial motivations of choosing relevant research linked to my classroom teaching and how these articles helped my thought processes. In part 2 I will continue this story by delving more into the classroom practice of others and how these examples have helped shape what I now do in the classroom.

This leads to the work of Kevin O’Grady and Robert Jackson (2020) with their piece on Year 7 views on RE. They focus on how setting clear ground rules for discussion on religious and ethical issues can improve the learning journey for the learners. This is very closely linked to the enquiry base of P4C and also gives an ownership of the learning process to the learners. Add to this contact with faith representatives and non-religious groups helps the learners construct better modes of motivation and relevancy of RE in their studies. This can hopefully lead to better evaluation and understanding of the worldviews held by believers, and this then leads to the better development of hermeneutical awareness.

If O’Grady and Jackson stress pupil self-awareness, Ruth Flanagan (2021) has shown that the same need applies to teachers. Her article on how teachers need to become conscious of their own worldview has really highlighted to me how we should be wary of just taking our worldview and imposing it in the classroom – even just by the selection of what we teach.

As Flanagan points out, we need to become worldview- conscious, providing scaffolding and support with which to read and evaluate the worldviews of others. Rob Freathy and Helen John echo this in their “Worldviews and Big Ideas” work (2019): the clearest link to make here would be between Flanagan’s worldview consciousness and Freathy and John’s view that the set of Big Ideas needs expansion, to become aware of our own position and to be able to reflect on how our own life has ben shaped by our experiences which culminates in our personal worldviews.

Where is the place of objective criticality in all of this? Jawonyi (2014) expounds the value of critical thinking and evaluation and how it is necessary in our teaching. Certainly in the AQA Religious Studies Specification of 2017, the value of evaluation is 50% of the marks available. It is also a key skill within most syllabuses, where evaluation is asking the learners of how an idea, belief or practice fits into their lived experience and worldview and also into the worldviews of others.

Let me begin to summarise by turning to Martha Shaw and Adam Dinham’s work (2020) about how RE is being reimagined in the classroom. Using examples from five diverse school settings they show that great quality RE is being delivered through a range of different approaches. In these examples, religion and worldviews are interpreted by the learners to show both how they overlap and differ. A common agreement is that we should be worldview conscious and able to challenge our own assumptions, beginning by looking at religion and worldviews from a local perspective and expanding our horizons outwards.

For the past six months or more I have been on a research journey. This blog has not covered everything that I have read but has touched upon those sources that have come out with key ideas and views that I have reflected upon. Each of these articles has helped me look at how I teach and what I teach in the classroom. The ways in which learners are asked to evaluate and interpret texts, beliefs and ideas needs more structure; teachers and learners need better self-awareness of their own positionality and worldviews; that good RE can be taught in different ways, harnessing a range of resources and styles, to produce an effective and enjoyable learning experience. These are important points to consider in what we plan, teach, and develop.

Before I taught what was in front of me, using my own interests as a guide to what I wanted in the grand scheme of things. Now I ask myself “Why? Why do I want to teach that? What is the process that we are going through? How will we build or use that understanding or knowledge?” In my mind this has made me a better practitioner and teacher of RE as I have had to think about the process that I go through, almost to the point that it is now second nature.

References

Flanagan, R (2021) Implementing a Ricoeurian lens to examine the impact of individuals’ worldviews on subject content knowledge in RE in England: a theoretical proposition: British Journal of Religious Education, 43:4, 472-486 Online article can be found here

Freathy, R & John, H.C. (2019) Worldviews and Big Ideas: A way forward for Religious Education? Nordidactica, Journal of Humanities and Social Science Education, 2019:4 Online article can be found here

Jawoniyi, O (2015) Religious Education, Critical Thinking, Rational Autonomy, and the Child’s Right to an Open Future: Religion & Education: Vol 42: 1, 34-53 Online material can be found here

O’Grady, K & Jackson, R (2020) ‘A touchy subject’: teaching and learning about difference in the religious education classroom: Journal of Beliefs & Values: Vol 41:1, 88-1-1 online article can be found here

Shaw, M & Dinham, A (2021) Innovative teaching and learning of religion and worldviews in schools, Innovative RE: Case studies, Goldsmiths, University of London Online material can be found here

We continue with our ‘summer series’ of recommendations for you. We asked Geoff Teece, Linda Whitworth and Kate Christopher to tell us about something that changed their thinking. In this edition: rewilding, religious pluralism, migration and belonging.

An Interpretation of Religion: Human Responses to the Transcendent by John Hick, 2004

John Hick’s An Interpretation of Religion was published in 1989. The book won the Grawemeyer Award in 1991 for new thinking in religion.

Hick involved himself in a variety of organisations committed to good relations between people of different faiths, spending time in mosques, synagogues, gurdwaras and mandirs. Indeed, it was in one of the gurdwaras that I first met him. He was wearing a Jewish yarmulke. Such experiences led Hick to develop his pluralist hypothesis, proposing that religious communities are expressions of how each community understands what is most valuable, most important, and most holy in life.

Hick starts with the proposition that the universe is hard to make clear sense of, and is subject to interpretation. This is extremely significant for Hick’s argument. Based on this premise, Hick presents religious experience as rationally defensible as any other, such as scientific knowledge. For Hick an unspoken scientific bias means religious knowledge has come to appear illegitimate. However Hick reminds us that all human knowledge involves interpretation and subjectivity.

Hick proposes that the religious traditions we see today are cultural systems that provide spiritual paths to the transformation of the self, directed towards the transcendent. This proposal has not developed out of a purely intellectual process, but out of personal encounter.
It is the book that has had the greatest influence on my own thinking about the nature of religion and possibilities for teaching about religion.

Geoff Teece

Geoff graduated in Theology and Education from the university of Birmingham from where he also received his MEd and PhD. He has taught RE across the phases from primary pupils to undergraduate students. He was Director of the Midlands RE Centre at Westhill College and worked with Michael Grimmitt training secondary RE teachers at the university of Birmingham. He was secretary of NASACRE for ten years and won the SHAP award for ‘an outstanding contribution to the teaching of World Religions’ in 2005. Latterly he has worked at the University of Exeter. More recently he was editor of Professional Reflection in RE Today

Refugee Boy by Benjamin Zephaniah, 2017
The Arrival Shaun Tan, 2006

Reading and then discussing Benjamin Zephaniah’s Refugee Boy with Initial Teacher Education students helped change my worldview. It raises a lot of issues, both as a story and a teaching text, such as refugee experience, change and belonging. It resonated deeply with many of us and challenged assumptions. Some spoke about the challenges of moving to other cultural environments or the experiences of their parents and grandparents. It altered my view of my role in the classroom as an enabler, becoming more conscious of the conversations about diversity, equity and inclusion I could facilitate with my students.

I followed up by reading Shaun Tan’s The Arrival, a graphic novel with no words. This extraordinary book raises questions about belonging in even starker terms. Its sepia appearance provides both historical and mysterious dimensions, navigating the alien yet always returning to shared human experience. It helped me recognise how important it is to acknowledge different worldviews and discuss cultural and religious navigation so that real experience is considered and human connections are made.

Linda Whitworth

Linda is a retired ITE lecturer who specialises in Primary ITE in Religion and Worldviews. She is Chair of Trustees for Culham St Gabriel’s Trust and a visiting lecturer and consultant on primary education.

Wilding: the Return to Nature of a British Farm by Isabella Tree, 2018

Like many people I experience despair and fear when I think about human impact on the planet, the tipping points we have already reached and the injustice we seem indifferent to. I feel a profound grief about what we have lost and disbelief when I see government or corporate complacency and inaction in the face of catastrophe. I bought Wilding by Isabella Tree (2018) for my brother in law’s birthday, not knowing anything about rewilding. He is a literary critic, and it seemed to be creating a buzz. I glanced into it before I wrapped it, and eventually handed it to him well-over half read. I have since bought myself a copy and read it several times.

Wilding tells of Isabella and her husband Charlie Burrows’s West Sussex farm, Knepp. After decades of running at a loss, they finally realised the denuded, impoverished land was spent, so gave it over to nature. What follows is an astonishing account of just how ready myriad species are to spring into life, if they are only given the chance. With a few measures, such as introducing free-roaming herbivores to keep the natural woodland under control, the life that had not gone away, but was merely dormant, came flooding back. Layer upon layer of fungi, insects, wildflowers, bats, lizards, songbirds slipped into their niche in the burgeoning ecosystems, allowing other species to thrive. As Professor Sir John Lawton, chair of the 2010 ‘Making Space for Nature’ states: “Knepp Estate is one of the most exciting wildlife conservation projects in the UK, and indeed in Europe. If we can bring back nature at this scale and pace just 16 miles from Gatwick airport we can do it anywhere. I’ve seen it. It’s truly wonderful, and it fills me with hope.”

I have read this process described elsewhere as like a ‘pulse’, where nature only needs human interference to pause for a short time, for life to erupt in a landscape, any landscape. All over the world, in environments and climates nothing like Southern England, rewilding projects are emerging. For example, a huge ‘rewilding Arabia’ project has restored an Arabian leopard which acts as a keystone species, playing a similar role to the cows, ponies and pigs of Knepp. I have since read much more about rewilding, such as George Monbiot’s Feral¸ and it seems to be a story of hope. Nature knows what she is doing, we just have to let her. Ultimately humans have to rewild ourselves.

Kate Christopher

Kate teaches Secondary RE and is an independent RE consultant, focusing on curriculum

Welcome to our ‘summer series’, where those in the world of RE recommend something that changed their way of seeing the world. In this first edition we bring you recommendations from Janet Orchard, Claire Clinton and Jen Jenkins on innocence and experience, liberation theology and a so-called ‘Slave Bible’

Songs of Innocence and of Experience by William Blake, 1794
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake, 1790

I studied the Songs of Innocence and of Experience, by the English poet and printmaker William Blake, during my A Level English course. The book is a collection of illustrated texts, with a radical twist, that are printed beautifully from etched plates, coloured by Blake and his wife Catherine. If the power of the poems on their own weren’t enough, my teacher took us on a trip to see original copies at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. My fascination with this work was thus cemented for a lifetime.

Blake’s work appealed to my teenage self, being unconventional, egalitarian, conscious to disrupt and depolarize, and yet bring together diverse opinion. This view can be summed in a well-known phrase from another work by Blake, ‘The Marriage of Heaven and Hell’, in which he claims, “Without contraries, no progression”.

He cites contraries like attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate, good and evil, seeing both together as necessary to existence. Each needs the other.

As someone who resists over-simplification at every turn, I often draw on this, to me, memorable phrase. Then there is the matter of looking for the value in someone else’s view when I disagree with them, as least in the first instance. I don’t think all views are valid; but being open to possible new ideas, composed when opposing instincts are disrupted together is an insight worth having.

Janet Orchard

Janet Orchard is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religion in Teacher Education in the School of Education, University of Bristol and a former teacher. She takes a comparative interest in relationships between philosophy, religion, and teacher education specialising in England, Hong Kong and the Western Cape (South Africa). She edits Professional Reflection.

A Theology of Liberation: History, power and salvation by Gustavo Gutierrez, 1988
For my people: Black Theology and the Black Church by James H Cone, 1984

Both these books changed my way of thinking about the world. At the time I was a newly qualified RE teacher delivering units on Liberation Theology and Black Theology for a new A- Level RS course. There were no materials for students to learn about these theologies, just a book list as a teacher I needed to get through and create a unit of study for my students.

I was a white, British woman who had just finished a tradition theology degree and RE PGCE at Durham and Cambridge Universities – both very traditional places where these topics hadn’t come up, so everything was new learning for me.

I had no conception of what life had been like for the people of Latin America and how white western worldviews had interpreted the Bible in certain ways that Gustavo wrote about and challenged. Then I knew a little of the Civil Rights movement in America in the 1960’s to 70’s, but again reading the book by James completely immersed me in a different world. A different way of seeing the world through other people’s experiences that involved oppression and poverty.

I had learnt a little about hermeneutics at university, but now I was absorbed in what this meant in the 20th Century for theologians living in a very different world from my own. These theologians wanted to give a voice to the people they lived with and worked alongside. Before reading these books I would not really have consciously thought about my own worldview, nor my own privilege. Therefore these were transformative reads for me to see the complexity of belief and practice, power, privilege and injustice. They were foundational for me to understand the importance of listening and hearing diverse voices and how a sacred text can be interpreted in different ways without any recognition of this taking place. These books were uncomfortable reads for me in places as they challenged me to see religion in more actively political terms. I was also challenged to see myself as part of the silent majority that allows oppression to take place.

Claire Clinton

Claire is RE Advisor for Newham, Barking and Dagenham and Director of the national RE Hubs.

Museum of the Bible: ‘Slave Bible’

Through engaging with the Diocese of Coventry’s anti-racist learning community, Amazing Grace, I discovered this very troubling form of biblical interpretation. This is the so-called ‘slave bible’. You can find out about it through videos and information video on the Museum of the Bible link below.

The ‘Slave Bible’ (as it came to be known) was originally published in London in 1807 on behalf of the Society for the Conversion of Negro Slaves, an organisation with the expressed intention of improving the lives of enslaved Africans put to work in Britain’s colonies in the Caribbean. This version of the bible was edited with significant parts of the Bible missing, such as the story of the Exodus where the Israelites were released from slavery in Egypt and passages in Paul’s letters that suggest an equality between slaves and masters. Certain passages were deliberately left in, such as the curse of Ham by Noah in the Genesis narrative which even the church at the time of the transatlantic slave trade felt comfortable to use as a justification for the enslavement of races considered to be ‘inferior’ to Europeans. Likewise, the guidance in the Pauline letters regarding slaves obeying their masters was retained as part of a deliberate hermeneutic intended to convince Black Africans they were justifiably enslaved.

The intention in using this missionary book was to indoctrinate slaves into the Christian faith. It was also used to teach African slaves to read (which I am assuming was meant to be a ‘noble’ intention at the time). This use of the Bible to perpetuate one of history’s most deplorable grand narratives is deeply shocking.

If this is your initial discovery of the existence of this text, I am sure you are deeply troubled by it. It is important to also consider the reactions of your pupils and to approach this with absolute sensitivity if you plan to share its existence with pupils.

for more information: https://www.museumofthebible.org/exhibits/slave-bible

Jen Jenkins

Jen is RE & Spirituality Officer for Coventry Diocesan Board of Education and RE Facilitator for Coventry and Warwickshire.

I have been teaching RE for 25 years and one of the challenges in teaching at the moment is how to keep our subject moving forward and keep our motivation going. This year I have been a participant on Stage One of the Culham St Gabriel’s Leadership programme that is supported and guided by the main national organisations that have a say on the future of RE. The subject has seen many changes over the decades in terms of approach, name, content, purpose, and value within schools. Do teachers have a say in any of this and how can they implement change? This was a motivating factor in applying for the Culham St Gabriel’s Leadership Programme; to have a voice and be heard in the debate. I decided to engage with a set of research outputs, as part of an attempt to clarify where I stand in terms of the issues in RE. I chose a range of articles reported in the RE:ONLINE archive to read, digest, think about and if possible, implement on my own teaching.

One of the first articles that I read was Nastasya van der Straten Waillet, Isabelle Roskam and Cécile Possoz’s work on the advantages of using Philosophy for Children in RE (2014). I am a long-term advocate of this approach but my use of it is hampered due to lack of time within the classroom and that P4C needs to be used in a certain way that sometimes gets lost.

Although the research takes place in Belgium, it has very clear links with my syllabus: Hampshire Agreed Syllabus, ‘Living Difference’. The interpretative nature of the process, along with an enquiry-based approach helps the learner unwrap and unbox the key ideas of the focus of enquiry. It needs careful prodding and needling (and a skilled facilitator) in order to get to the evaluation process.

This point about interpretation connects with Julia Ipgrave’s work on what secondary teachers can learn from our primary colleagues (2013). “From storybooks to bullet points” leads us to understand that primary RE is full of colour, rich in text and story and that the child is allowed to imagine and think through those stories that come to life from the holy books. This piece was written before the new GCSE specifications came into being, and these have a renewed focus on textual references but often they are just that. The context has been stripped away, they are words to back up an argument, as an example to show a believers’ faith and not as the story with meaning that they should be. Take for example the AQA GCSE spec that looks at the Incarnation and then jumps straight to the Crucifixion. Where is the narrative? Where is the story that sets the scene for the final act of Jesus’ life? Is this meant to be left for previous knowledge or learning? One thing I have taken from Ipgrave’s work is that the story is just as important as the teaching as it is the context that matters.

Bob Bowie, Farid Panjwani and Katie Clemmey (2020) may agree. Their work, “Opening the door to hermeneutical RE” has really helped me to open up the texts in ways that our English subject colleagues have been doing for decades. The pupils are familiar with taking a text, breaking it down, looking at its context and meaning, the purpose of the writer and the symbolic nature of the words. We should make more of these insights in RE, enabling pupils to learn in more focused, nuanced ways.

In part 1 of this blog, I have shown my initial motivations of choosing relevant research linked to my classroom teaching and how these articles have helped my thinking. In part 2 I will develop this by delving into more classroom practice of others and how these examples have helped shape what I now do in the classroom.

References

Bowie, R, Panjwani, F, Clemmey, K (2020) Teachers and texts: Improving Religious education through hermeneutics (canterbury.ac.uk) Online material can be found here

Ipgrave, J (2013) From storybooks to bullet points: books and the Bible in primary and secondary religious education, British Journal of Religious Education 35.3 pages 264-281 online article available here

Van der Straten Waillet, N, Roskam, I & Possoz, C (2015) On the epistemological features promoted by ‘Philosophy for Children’ and their psychological advantages when incorporated into RE: British Journal of Religious Education, 37:3, 273-292 Online article can be found here

I always feel sympathy for non-religious children sullenly slumped in RE lessons, declaring ‘I’m not religious, I don’t need to know this’. In this blog, I will articulate three reasons why many non-religious pupils struggle to engage with RE following a World Religions paradigm, and how these problems are overcome by following a Worldviews paradigm. While my experience is as a Primary teacher, I am hopeful that this reasoning applies just as much to those in Secondary schools.

Pupils feel invalidated

The World Religions paradigm asks teachers to choose religions for study, meaning non-religious worldviews might be overlooked in an already overcrowded curriculum. For non-religious pupils who know that their teacher has deliberately excluded their worldview, they must question whether the lesson is worth their attention.

How a worldviews paradigm can help

A Worldviews paradigm begins and ends with people: all people. In a Worldviews classroom religious and non-religious pupils are equally worthy of study. No pupil needs to get the impression that their view on a subject is not welcome or important, simply because it is not drawn from a traditionally religious perspective. When pupils engage with Religion and Worldviews, they may discover that their own worldview shares ways of seeing with other established worldviews. This way of thinking gives children the freedom to interact on a completely different level. It is no longer a case of either believing or not believing; pupils can engage in a much more nuanced way, sharing and adapting their beliefs and values as they travel through the curriculum.

Pupils feel disadvantaged

Following the World Religions paradigm means some pupils are automatically disadvantaged. A pupil may find themselves next to someone in a lesson on Christianity who already has considerable knowledge derived from their parents and out of school activities. However, it is unlikely that the same pupil will find themselves in a History lesson sitting next to, for example, a Roman. With natural disadvantages like this, it is no wonder that some pupils feel that RE is not worth the effort of giving their all.

How a worldviews paradigm can help

While there will undoubtedly remain a need for children to gain substantive knowledge regarding major world religions and other worldviews, the focus of a Religion and Worldviews approach shifts from gaining knowledge to interacting with knowledge. Non-religious pupils will no longer be disadvantaged through a lack of experience of religion, as their own, unique worldview created by their own experiences and beliefs is now the driving force for their understanding in RE.
With a curriculum that is not restricted by the need to focus exclusively on world religions, one approach teachers may take would be to introduce Big Questions at the start of a topic: for example, ‘Is there an afterlife?’. This topic could then begin and end with the children articulating their own understanding and belief, with several different religious and non-religious interpretations explored. While some children may have prior knowledge of a particular taught worldview, this will not be a significant advantage over time as all pupils will engage with rich and complex information in order to address the big questions.

Pupils feel alienated

Many non-religious pupils come from non-religious families, they may even have exclusively non-religious friends. In these cases, religion is not only irrelevant to them, but it may seem irrelevant to everyone that they know. Pupils who find themselves in this situation will inevitably struggle to find purpose and meaning in RE lessons, and therefore are unlikely to commit fully to their studies.

How a worldviews paradigm can help

As stated, a worldviews paradigm begins and ends with people. A worldviews curriculum would, among other things, highlight the diversity within and across religions, and to do this pupils have to interact with individuals. We are no longer asking our non-religious pupils to engage with the huge, alien concept of ‘religion’. We are introducing them to individuals; individuals who may subscribe to a particular worldview, but real individuals with unique thoughts and feelings that our pupils will be able to relate to. When pupils find a topic relatable they are much more likely to engage with it positively, and therefore by having a people-focused curriculum rather than a religion-focused curriculum, non-religious pupils are much more likely to connect with the teaching.

I taught RE for a number of years, and am now the RE PGCE course leader and senior lecturer at Edge Hill University. This role allows me to be active in school education, but also to take a strategic approach to research around Religion and Worldviews. The best part of my job is working with beginner RE teachers, who are not only learning a to navigate the complex technical, emotional and intellectual terrain of the classroom, they are finding themselves as teachers in relation to their school contexts and wider society. In this blog I will present my work on ethical veganism in the curriculum, and suggest that the Religion and Worldviews paradigm has much to offer teachers as they explore the urgent questions of our world today with their pupils.

As an ethical vegan myself, my doctoral research concerns the experiences of vegan children in schools and how far the ‘omnivore norm’ can be challenged through the Religion and Worldviews curriculum. As you can imagine, this takes me to the heart of all sorts of fascinating, and sometimes challenging, ideas. The experience of vegan children in schools is an example of a school’s ‘hidden framework’ (Giroux 2001), the dominant school culture which reflects the dominant culture and power relations of wider society.

There is much rich content that can be brought into the curriculum to make sense of values around the food we eat. Vegetarianism in the Dharmic traditions is encouraged in scripture and modelled by centuries of religious leaders. We can explore the environmental impacts of meat production and the compelling ethical questions raised by our globalised intensive meat industries. Moreover, ethical veganism is a topic which speaks to the future of the planet; sustainability, the climate emergency and human exploitation. These types of questions can be found in religious and non-religious worldviews, which further allows pupils to explore the overlapping, complex and interconnected nature of worldviews in our less Christian but more religiously diverse contemporary society. Western perspectives often draw a clear distinction between humans and non-human animals, while many Eastern religions traditions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, view all life as interconnected and believe in the principle of ahimsa, which requires avoiding harm to all creatures. An environmental worldview can be inspired by religious or non-religious values, or an eclectic mixture of ancient, contemporary, spiritual and practical concerns.

As Religious Education shifts towards a Religion and Worldviews paradigm, such an examination of ethical veganism is an example of how the curriculum can explore the relationship between religion and worldviews in the contemporary world. Ethical veganism is a rapidly growing philosophical belief rooted in practice and protected under the Equality Act (2010) and European law. It can be perceived as a secular worldview yet for many it is closely intertwined with religious belief and practice. From vegan food served in shops and restaurants to discussions about animal treatment, environmental responsibility, human health, social justice, and of course, religion and beliefs, this topic opens up a wealth of pertinent questions. Just like other religions and worldviews taught in RE, veganism is a dynamic and multi-layered subject of study, fostering lively debates and discussions, critical thinking, and thought-provoking questions. My research shows me children’s strong interest in the animal kingdom and their eager engagement in conversations about animal welfare, ethics, and their treatment. The potential to explore such an urgent and engaging set of topics is an example of how the shift towards a Religion and Worldviews approach could be of great benefit to RE.

For any teachers interested in pursuing these questions with their pupils, the following websites are a good places to start:

Veganism in Education
Animal Interfaith Alliance – Faiths Working Together for Animals
Interfaith Vegan Coalition
NATRE- Veganism as a worldview in RE

Reference:

Giroux, H. (2001). Theory and resistance in education. Westport, Conn: Bergin & Garvey.

I have been connected to the REQM since its inception. One of the co-founders, Jane Brooke, was our local RE adviser, so I had a lucky local connection. My school applied for our first REQM while it was still in its infancy and we were lucky enough to receive the Gold Award. As an SLE in RE I trained as an REQM assessor and have been involved ever since.

We were initially interested as a school because we wanted to explore our next steps for developing our RE. We were inspired to develop learning through drama, and other innovations. Over time I have enjoyed supporting clusters of schools working towards the REQM, sharing good practice and working productively with our local SACRE.

When you look back over 11 years of the REQM, I reflect on the importance of being open to different ideas. We don’t all have the same assessment methods, pedagogy or even subject content when it comes to RE but the REQM has evolved so that different voices count and criteria can be met in different ways. I also reflect on the impact which it has had on my career. Speaking at a conference is normal for me these days, but I doubt without the support of the REQM I would have taken this step. The nurture of the subject lead is also important to the REQM process, it supports, questions, evaluates and develops.

I am convinced the REQM continues to have value in the RE world, and more widely. RE needs to stand alongside the quality marks of other subject areas and to be celebrated. The Evidence Form itself as a tool to help them to design an action plan for their subject areas. Being a teacher assessor also opens up opportunities for subject development and leadership.

As well as meeting other teachers, interviewing children about their learning and experiences of RE is always a delight. They are always so keen to show you what they know. Their experiences are wide, varied as is their passion for the value of the subject in their lives within the wider world.

As a teacher myself I know how worrying an assessor visit can be so I always chat to subject leads and get to know them before the visit. It is also fabulous to be able to give a teacher a well- deserved pat on the back and reassure them that they are doing a fantastic job, and to be able to feedback to SLT. This recognition is so important as being an RE lead is often quite a lonely job and the subject doesn’t always have the status it deserves.

It would be great to see the organisation grow and offer networking events. I love the ‘REQM map’ and would like to see opportunities for schools to be working together locally, for example, REQM Gold schools supporting new subject leads and hosting events. Let us make our communities more aware of RE and its relevance to today’s society.

I would say to those thinking of applying to think of the REQM as a journey. Work towards achieving the very best you can for your school, even if this takes time. Involve your SLT and governing body and keep them informed. I have found REQM to be an exceptionally supportive organisation who are driving standards. Get involved with it to develop your own departments, celebrate your achievements, share ideas with others and open doorways to other career opportunities.