Learning outside the classroom in RE / Religion and Worldviews

David Lundie, Waqaus Ali, Michael Ashton, Sue Billingsley, Hinnah Heydari, Karamat Iqbal, Kate McDowell & Matthew Thompson

Research Summary

A practitioner action research community of practice of teachers and mid-level policy enactors was formed, to engage with the question of how to enhance RE /R&W in primary schools serving socially disadvantaged children. The members’ professional values and assumptions were explored, and the needs of primary teachers in contexts of social disadvantage were assessed. The advantages of effective school-community partnerships were highlighted, leading to a recognition of the importance of learning outside the classroom in RE / R&W. A model was developed, centring on the importance of spaces for encountering the lived experience of religion, asking challenging questions, and sharing learning objectives.

Researchers

David Lundie, Waqaus Ali, Michael Ashton, Sue Billingsley, Hinnah Heydari, Karamat Iqbal, Kate McDowell & Matthew Thompson

Research Institution

School of Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Glasgow, Glasgow; Knowledge to Action, Blackburn; School of Education, Liverpool Hope University, Liverpool; Outwoods Primary School, Warwickshire; Liverpool Community Spirit; Forward Partnership; St Cleopas Primary School, Liverpool

What is this about?

This is about improving RE/R&W provision for primary age children in areas of social disadvantage. It is about the importance in this respect of learning outside the classroom, especially encounters with lived religion, pursuing challenging questions, and sharing learning objectives.

What was done?

There were three cycles of action research. In each cycle, problems were identified and success criteria envisioned. Data was collected to support deliberation in each cycle. For the first and second cycles, there was an online training needs analysis of 26 teachers. For the second and third cycles, interviews and surveys with primary age pupils were undertaken, as well as surveys of places of worship and discussions with NASACRE.

Main findings and outputs

1. Two-way authenticity: there is a need for authentic encounter between the voices of marginalised young people and authentic representation of lived faith. What gets in the way of this: turning field sites into museums or illustrations of textbook accounts of faith, or silencing ‘difficult’ questions from pupils.
2. Importance of sharing learning outcomes: schools and field sites should understand one another’s purpose in the relationship. A respectful and safe atmosphere is needed, with understanding the lived experience of faith; an openness to questions, as well as opportunities for reflection, resisting the tendency to treat places of worship as either a museum or an extension of the classroom.
3. Children ’emphasised the importance of hearing the visitor speak about their beliefs in their own words, how they live and worship, beliefs about God or gods, services they attend, how their religion is different to others, traditional stories, charity work and the relevance of religious buildings they are visiting’ (page 8).
4. ‘A majority of the children said they would welcome the opportunity to ask questions about another person’s religion and how they lived, and that they would feel comfortable expressing their own views, though they did not feel that it would be appropriate to challenge a person’s religious beliefs. 79% agreed that visiting places of worship and welcoming religious visitors was useful in helping them understand a particular faith’ (page 8).
5. Many places of worship said they welcomed when teachers shared their learning aims ahead of a visit to enable them to understand pupils’ levels of prior learning.
6. Making the most of the opportunities from learning outside the classroom requires careful partnerships, effective preparation, the sharing of learning objectives and a willingness from pupils and field visitors alike to encounter challenging perspectives. The authors recommend the setting-up of an online portal to allow teachers and places of worship to link to one another, access self-evaluations, exemplification materials, and share aims and lesson plans.

Relevance to RE

The research illustrates the potential benefits of learning outside the classroom in RE / R&W, but also the work and care needed to maximise these. Teachers and others should be guided by it to develop genuine partnerships, based on the needs of schools and partner faith communities; and to prepare visits thoroughly, with close attention to the purposes brought by all participants and the kinds of questions children might pose and the experiences they might have.

Generalisability and potential limitations

Whilst action research studies are not generalisable as such, relying on contextual validity, the mixed-methods approach and professional rigour of this study mean that it is more than worthy of the attention of those seeking to address related concerns. Moreover, the findings regarding best practice in RE/R&W through school-community relationships are (at the very least) useful starting points for colleagues wishing to develop such relationships; and a reminder of the importance of these.

Find out more

David Lundie, Waqaus Ali, Michael Ashton, Sue Billingsley, Hinnah Heydari, Karamat Iqbal, Kate McDowell & Matthew Thompson (2021): A practitioner action research approach to learning outside the classroom in religious education: developing a dialogical model through reflection by teachers and faith field visitors, British Journal of Religious Education, DOI:10.1080/01416200.2021.1969896
The article is available open-access.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01416200.2021.1969896