Some questions to consider:

1. What educational philosophies or theories of education underlie your education approach? Do any of these conflict with each other?
2. Do you use children’s voice to inform your evaluation of how you teach? If not, is this something you could do?
3. How much do you know about the development of thinking in children and young people of the age group you teach? Are you aware of more recent research in this area and any new discoveries or understandings that have come from this?

My research is based on exploring the use of an age-appropriate disciplinary approach to teaching religious education to children in Reception (aged 4-5 years). My provisional research question is:

Does a disciplinary approach to religious education improve Reception age children’s knowledge and understanding of their learning? This is a doctoral research project under the supervision of Professor Julian Stern and Dr Amy Webster at Bishop Grosseteste University, Lincoln where I am studying part time.

My interest in this question came from two directions, firstly the increasing focus on a disciplinary approach to RE and my concern that if this is to take place in Reception it needs to be done in a way that fits in with good early years practice; and secondly the lack of information about whether such an approach is in fact possible and effective in Reception.

My research project is made both more interesting and more challenging by the fact that my research combines two strands, early years education and a disciplinary approach, which are based on very different philosophies and theories of education.

One finding of a small scale research project I completed in 2021 was that there is no consensus about what is meant by a disciplinary approach, or about what disciplines should be included. For the purposes of this study I am defining a disciplinary approach as using the ‘tools’ of the discipline, e.g. Philosophy being about developing and explaining your thinking.

I am still in the early stages of my study, and my focus has been on my literature review.

• What is RE? Why teach RE? How do theories and philosophies of education impact on understanding of this?
• The History and Geography of RE – focussing on the impact of key scholars (Hull, Smart, Cooling, Erricker, Jackson)
• How RE is currently taught, including what has already been published on disciplinary approaches
• Children’s voice – this will link to methodology as I want to gain children’s views on the impact of the approaches explored as part of my research
• History and philosophies of early years education – where might the links and tensions be with philosophies and approaches used in disciplinary RE, much of which has been developed with older children?
• Development of thinking in young children – what does this have to say about what young children may or may not be able to know/understand/do?

My focus for the next stage, from the autumn, will be my methodology. My reading on children’s voice has already identified some relevant literature, for example articles looking at methods to enable young children to effectively share their ideas.

A number of points have emerged so far from my reading. The roots of current approaches in RE, such as the emphasis on a worldviews approach and the use of a disciplinary approach, appear to be evident in the work of scholars from the 1970s onwards. Children’s voice appears to be most often used to gain information around matters not directly linked to the curriculum and the voice of the youngest children in schools is not always heard. There appear to be some links between the work of Hull and early years philosophers and practitioners.