‘Growing, Together?’

Liz Mills

Research Title

‘Growing, Together?’

Research Summary

‘Growing, Together?’ (2018) looks into how schools might unlock potential for powerful two way support by involving their local inter-generational community in creative projects to help them with RE and SMSCD. What sort of development are we aiming for when it comes to spirituality and RE, if it is to be of long term value?

Researchers

Liz Mills

Research Institution

Farmington Institute

What is this about?

‘Growing, Together?’ (2018) looks into how schools might unlock potential for powerful two way support by involving their local inter-generational community in creative projects to help them with RE and SMSCD, especially in terms of their provision for spiritual development. What sort of development are we aiming for when it comes to spirituality and RE, if it is to be of long term value?

What was done?

This was a piece of Action Research practically trialling a series of creative projects over the course of 2 years, linking a school with its local inter-generational community to see what potential might be unlocked for a better understanding of spiritual development and ways to encourage it in the longer term.

This was coupled with extensive reading into spiritual development, especially in later life, and ongoing work as a teacher; as well as practical involvement in groups for older people, locally and nationally, and networking with others involved in inter-generational community projects involving schools.

Main findings and outputs

That spirituality is not necessarily something which develops in a conventional ‘progress’ model, but more something that develops like a photo being ‘developed’ or realised, at any stage in life. There is much potential to be gained by involving older people in schools’ work in this area, though there are barriers to overcome. The next stage will be to investigate further ways to overcome the barriers, in order to harness the potential.

Relevance to RE

Teachers might develop their own ways to involve the local inter-generational community in RE. They might be helped by reading about the barriers that appeared and how these were overcome.

Generalisability and potential limitations

This is small scale research, which others may be interested in following up and developing.

Find out more

http://www.farmington.ac.uk/?s=growing%2C+together%3F