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I was going to write this piece about questions. Asking and answering them have become central to how I’m teaching this year, but as I started writing I realised that it is not just about the questions, there’s actually a lot more going on. So, whilst I was going to have a really witty title relating to questions, you’ve got a significantly less witty title, but a blog that sums up what my lessons look like and how this could benefit you.

If you have read my previous couple of blogs (Rethinking the curriculum and Lessons to be learned) then you’ll be able to see some of the changes that I’m making, the hope being that having some insight into my lesson format will show you that a few small changes are making an enormous difference.

Stage 1: The Read-Through
I’ve moved away from pupils having exercise books which they complete notes in, I now give them notes instead. That’s not to say I hand it out, let them put it in their folder and forget all about it. Once they have a sheet of notes, they go through highlighting what they feel is key information and writing questions about the material that they want to ask. This is something that I ensure I model for them at the beginning as (in my school at least) this is not something that they are familiar in doing.

We refer back to these in other lessons and these are the pupils’ first port of call when they ask a question, if they’re stuck for where to look; I find the admin side of this much easier to help navigate them to the correct piece of paper, and importantly the definitions and information that is given to the pupils is succinct and provides a concrete example/definition. When we go on to discuss we are all ‘singing from the same hymn sheet’.

Stage 2: Starting to Question
Once they have gone through it, it is time for us to go through it as a group. This means that it is already their second attempt at processing the material. This time as we go through I make sure that we take our time – something which at first feels a little uncomfortable as we’re really approaching it differently from how I’d ever taught before.

This gives me the opportunity to ask them lots of questions like, ‘What do certain keywords mean?’ ‘What would be a good religious teaching to go with this?’ It allows me to make suggestions for notes and annotations that I feel that they might need to add in. Importantly it gives them an opportunity to ask their questions, with other pupils having the first attempt to answer them. If I need to give them an answer, I will give them some prompts or maybe a connection to something we have already studied first, if I cannot elicit an answer from them, then I’ll tell them. They would then add this detail under the question they had written.

Stage 3: Application
This will have taken around twenty minutes, and I’m starting to get a good idea of how well they are coping with the material that we are studying. Then comes the application.

Having a rough gauge with how the pupils are grasping the material then allows me to target my intervention in class, who is going to need me to guide them through the application task and who is going to need a few quick check-ins. Now this is not an exact science (once I explain the following stage, then you’ll see how it can become more accurate as lessons progress) but it does mean that you can direct support where you think it is best needed. The general idea with the application tasks would be taking the material that we have learned, applying it along with a teaching and tying this to different interpretations. For example, if we were looking at the idea of equality, the application task would require them to select appropriate religious teachings, to align these with different Christian denominations and explain how and why that denomination may interpret the teaching in that way.

During this stage, whilst I’m supporting students and circulating through the room, I am in a position to ask more questions allowing me to check understanding as well as to stretch and challenge pupils. We will then discuss this as a group, with different pupils airing their ideas and at times others challenging these interpretations. Normally I will give some final comments to wrap this up and give my judgement, with time I’m hoping they’ll start to challenge my interpretations as well.

At other times, this application task takes the form of an exam-style question. We really take our time with this and I will model whole responses, or parts of a response for them. They will answer to exam timings and afterwards we will talk through and share some answers as a class. In a different coloured pen they are allowed to ‘magpie’ ideas, but it keeps a clear record of what they originally wrote and what they have added. Giving me an opportunity to see how well they are progressing and how much effort they are putting in to try and improve their work.

Stage 4: The Reckoning
Despite the subheading, this is nowhere near as ominous as it sounds. This is where I test their knowledge on what they have learned more formally through the use of low-stakes testing. I take this as an opportunity to test them not only on what we have just learned, but on historic material from previous lessons. As time passes they will be regularly tested on material that they have learned, they will be tested on material from weeks, months and eventually years ago.

This is normally a really fun part of the lesson and takes up very little time, I tend to use technology for this to remove the workload burden from me and to allow me to give immediate feedback. This can create some amazing dialogue around topics, and if topics are selected carefully you can help the pupils to forge links between the material studied and to illustrate where different teachings can work in different contexts. This helps develop their knowledge further.

Stage 5: No Rest for the Wicked
We move through material at a really good pace, but I do not want pupils to leave a lesson never to reflect upon what they have learned again. My school uses ‘Show My Homework’ (at a basic level an online homework diary, but that also has features where you can create spelling tests or quizzes). I love this because it allows me to set lots of regular (but small homeworks), meaning that I know pupils are having to look at the material often. It also marks for me and immediately notifies me whether or not pupils have completed the homework.

Pupils also love these, the homework does not feel so onerous and it gives them instant feedback on their progress and it has, on several occasions, led to some really involved questions in the following lesson.

Review: Is it actually working?
There’s no straightforward answer to this, I started to adopt this approach last year when pupils studied the Islam component of the GCSE course, it really helped them with the precision around terms (and a religion) that they really were not familiar with.

I’ve definitely refined what I am doing this year as my school has both a Y9 and Y10 cohort (it is an option subject now) starting the course. Pupils are adapting to the material well and crucially it seems to be having an enormous impact upon their retention of religious teachings. Reading through you might be thinking that the lessons are incredibly linear, and we do the same thing five periods a fortnight. The read through part is consistent, but the discussions that arise become more varied and nuanced as time progresses with pupils displaying an ever-widening knowledge and it is the application part where the lesson takes many different forms – application to questions, quizzes, game shows, creation of revision materials, etc.

Ultimately though, what we are working towards is the GCSE exam. I’m certainly not taking a gamble here, and I believe that this approach will prepare my students perfectly for it. But right now we are a long way from that point – so I can give you an update on it in two years’ time.

Last month I was fortunate to attend the 20:20 RE conference in Crewe. The conference title was Practice, Policy and Powerful Knowledge. Every single session I went to was excellent. The variety on offer was outstanding – including a discussion of Brexit and RE, Understanding the non-religious in the classroom, and two brilliant keynotes from Joyce Miller and Mary Myatt. But the one session that has stuck with me has been Richard Kueh’s on curriculum design. Entitled The Problem of Pedagogy: Substantive, Disciplinary and Knowledge in RE Richard really got to the heart of the most pressing question surely facing any RE teacher – what exactly am I meant to teach?

Richard’s thesis was that RE pedagogy has often been preoccupied with the instrumental nature of the subject, and therefore has treated the knowledge taught as being illustrational rather than substantive. A second string of his argument was that too often those designing RE curriculums and syllabuses have shown little awareness of the academic disciplinary approaches underpinning the subject. The photograph from the talk (see below) explains the four academic disciplines that Richard believes underpin RE. I will attempt to summarise some of what Richard said about these disciplines before giving an example from my own Year 9 SOW to see a similar approach in practice.

The ongoing arguments about what to call our subject (RE, RS, Religion and Ethics, Religion, Beliefs and Values, or the Commission on RE suggestion Religion and Worldviews) is a sign of the disciplinary confusion that exists. History teaches students be historians, Geography teaches students to be geographers, RE teaches students to be… what? Part of the answer Richard provided was that RE (sorry, Religion and Worldviews) should teach students how to study what it is they are studying. This will involve them knowing important stuff but also how to approach that stuff. Making this explicit to students is important. At this point a shout out was given to the primary RE-searchers model developed by Rob and Giles Freathy and others.

But what about at secondary? Our students choose their GCSE courses in year 8, but do not start the specified material until year 10. Year 9 is a pre-GCSE year where students are prepared with the knowledge and skills that will support them at KS4.

Year 9 RS therefore begins with a simple question. What is religion? Now I’m sure many year 7 SOW also include this question, but do we revisit it as students’ capacity to understand and deal with complexity grows? This video is an excellent way in and begins by introducing students into the complexity of studying religion from an academic perspective. It highlights American scholar Ben Marcus’s model of the 3 Bs of religion which are useful hooks for students to refer back to during the rest of the year and into their GCSEs.

After dipping our toes into the Human Sciences, the next unit looks at the early History of Christianity. Using Rob Orme’s Knowing Christianity textbook, students explore the historical origins of Christianity and are introduced to key figures such as St Paul and Constantine. Students enjoy the historical arguments as to who of these formative figures had a greater influence on what we understand as Christianity today. Looking at the Council of Nicea and the Nicene Creed provides an opportunity to look at the theological beliefs of Christianity. We take a similar historical approach with Buddhism, which is our second religion at GCSE, but whose history is not on the GCSE syllabus. The question of whether Buddhism is a religion, or whether Siddhartha was rejecting certain aspects of Dharmic religiosity, again leads to much debate and reference back to the 3Bs. Students end the year with a study of inter-faith dialogue and by taking part in a video conference on religion and identity with students in another country. The 3 Bs and the knowledge they have gained from studying the history of two major world religions in depth comes in very useful to help students reflect on what religion is and how it can be studied.

Now I’m not saying this model is unique or perfect. But it perhaps shows what is possible to achieve with KS3 students who will really rise to the challenge of being presented with powerful knowledge and a curriculum designed with a strong disciplinary understanding. If you’d like to find out more please get in touch or you are welcome to come and visit the department.

‘Twas the night before GCSE results day, when all through the flat
Mr McKavanagh sat nervous, fidgeting stroking his cat
The exams had been sat, the planning done with care;
In the hope that the results wouldn’t make him lose his hair.

I could go on but fears of plagiarism and my questionable poetry skills prevent me from doing so.

I had actually managed to switch off for most of the summer, but the day before GCSE results day the nerves kicked in. This was likely triggered by the tone of Edu-Twitter shifting towards exam worries as well (something deserving of a blog post itself), I tried distracting myself with a film – choosing Martin Scorsese’s’ Silence – a film about Jesuit Priests in Japan (a description which undersells the film, but shows that Religion must have been on my mind. Although I would welcome any direction on the historical accuracy of the film as it seems like a fascinating topic)

Well, the results are in and whilst it’ll take a bit of time to fully unpick the lessons learned, it was definitely a reassuring indication that what I’ve been working towards has been working, whilst highlighting areas in which things can be improved.

I’d decided to spend the end of my summer (or maybe I should call it the run in to the new school year – that might sound more positive) redesigning my GCSE scheme of work. If you’ve not read my previous blog Rethinking the Curriculum, then I recommend that you do, it explains the rationale behind what I’m doing.

Now, I’m sure that what I’m about to describe is nothing new, and it might be something that you’ve heard a thousand times before. This is not meant to be something revolutionary, but it builds upon some of the things that have worked well for me and my students so far.

The death of exercise books

Firstly, I’m scrapping exercise books.

I feel like that one needs a bit of space to process it. When I’ve mentioned it to other teachers it normally takes them a while to pick their jaws up and muster up some kind of response about how dreadful folders are, how they’ll end up in a big mess, things will get lost, pupils don’t know how to use them and that they’re actually the work of some evil magic.

Now, I should clarify, I’m not completely getting rid of exercise books, we’re going to have an ‘assessment book’. This is something which fits in with the wider school policy and I can see the benefit as it’ll make it clearer and easier to see the progression and development of a pupil’s work throughout the year, being able to really pick out their strengths and weakness, without having to leaf through pages of notes trying to get to the last assessed answer that they completed.

However, for notes and handouts, we’re going for folders. Now, I’m sure that it won’t be a completely smooth process and I’m sure some of my colleagues’ concerns will come true, but in the past I’ve also had pupils losing their exercise books and it was a lot more effort and work for them to copy that all out again than it will be for a missing sheet or two.

Yes, I could live to regret this choice, but I believe that with careful modelling of how to use a folder it will make the use of them far more effective. The material that pupils are collecting in their folder isn’t just to be an artefact of what happened on certain dates, it is an evolving and changing body of knowledge, folders will allow for information to be moved around, to be adapted and to be compared. I don’t want the information learnt to be static and isolationary, I want pupils to explore the knowledge, to play with it and to see how the whole body of knowledge fits together.

Take note

Now, part of my motivation for folders links to, probably, the most controversial change that I’ve made. In the new spec the Islam paper was the most difficult part for our students, they’d come through a KS3 which did not fully prepare them with the basic grounding in knowledge that they really needed.

So, I started giving them the notes. This is something I had started with the cohort that have just finished their exams and proved to be successful and popular. I can imagine the outrage that something like this would cause amongst teachers and I can appreciate some of those concerns, for example what am I teaching pupils about the skills of note-taking? Am I not just doing the work for the pupils? Am I just too concerned with exam results? These were not my motivations, I realised that note-taking was taking up much too much time and often pupils would miss some of the key points, now this could be remedied by more effective modelling of how to make notes or designing comprehension activities to focus their note taking.

Giving them notes I discovered several benefits; we saved an enormous amount of time in lessons, we were able to talk through the notes giving us time to unpick ideas, define terms and for pupils to ask questions; the time saved meant that we have been to get to terms with the knowledge and crucially I’ve been able to ask pupils lots of questions, use low-stakes testing and getting them to link and relate bodies of knowledge much more than I ever had been able to before. Given the time constraints that we have, I’ve found this approach to be a much more effective use of time than asking pupils to make notes.

Going deeper

This move towards notes fits into the wider vision of what I’m trying to do with knowledge. I want to embed a deep knowledge and understanding of the material in my pupils, moving away from a more superficial, exam focussed knowledge that the older exam specifications ‘encouraged’. I believe (and have seen) that pushing towards this deeper understanding leads to a greater enjoyment and engagement from the pupils.

This deeper understanding is coming from a greater focus on questioning and quizzing pupils, not only on the material that they are learning in that lesson, but from the previous lesson and from lessons even further in the past. I don’t pre-warn them that they’ll be quizzed, there is an expectation that they will be tested on any material that they have studied and at any point. I’m far from the only one making this kind of move, many teachers of Religious Education (or other subjects) are following the latest findings from neuroscience and there are some brilliant resources that can explain it far better than I ever could (www.learningscientists.org are one example, and have provided really clear and concise information on lots of research-informed ideas).

Sticking to the plan

If you’ve read my earlier blog, you’ll see that I posed a series of questions that I would be keeping in mind. These weren’t definitive and had no hierarchy, some you might want to disregard altogether, but I thought it important to return to these ideas to let you know how they informed what I’ve created.

What do I want pupils to know by the end of KS3, KS4 & KS5?

For this, I’ve worked backwards. I started with what pupils would be expected to know at the end of an A-Level exam in Religious Studies, I’ve then added on other skills that I want them to know, things like Critical Thinking, I then thought about how that reduces down to KS4, what would pupils need to succeed at GCSE, then what things do I need to add in, things like Biblical interpretations and the origins of Christianity and Islam and the reasons for the formation of different denominations.

How is this going to fit with the locally agreed syllabus?

I found this much harder than I thought I would, maybe it is because of the order that I tackled things in, this was the second or third thing that I tried to add in and it has certainly made things busier. I’ve currently only attempted an overhaul of KS4 where we will have GCSE Religious Studies running as an option subject as well as non-examined core Religious Studies, this has certainly helped in delivering the locally agreed syllabus, whilst complementing the examined Religious Studies. In KS3, which is a project for the future, then it the biggest frustration will be trying to fit everything in, whilst giving enough depth that pupils start to get a proper understanding of the material. Something that is not going to be easy at all.

How is it going to prepare pupils for what we will be looking at in GCSE?

The move to providing pupils with notes will really help with this, where I’ve done this before it really frees up time, that means that in a lesson we can comfortably cover the material, develop pupils recall of information on past topics, assess that they have an understanding of the new material and to apply it in an exam style question.

The extra time available in lesson means that we can do some deliberate practice of how to apply the material that we have learned. This is something that many teachers do, but some of the best application of this approach I’ve seen in sporting contexts, in a previous life I have had the opportunity to be coached and to coach alongside some really skilled rugby league coaches, and the way that they would deconstruct a piece of play or a skill to the basic parts and to create drills in which that deconstructed part of the skill was practiced in isolation before being built into the full skill and eventually game play, gives a great template for teachers. For example, in our subject, a pupil would be expected to answer questions which would require them to display several skills such as recognition of the views of different denominations, selection of appropriate religious teachings to support those views, amongst others. Instead of tackling the question as a whole, it would be appropriate to break this down into its constituent parts and therefore getting pupils to practice.

How will it prepare pupils for their GCSE exams, but avoid the subject being an exams-factory?

This is a tricky one, obviously there is an exam focus, they’re doing their GCSE, but it isn’t just about doing an exam, it’s about having students buying into what you’re doing. That’s not happening if the focus on exams is too heavy. Whilst none have happened yet and are currently only in the planning stage, I’m wanting to enrich the students as much as I can. Lots of you do this so brilliantly already, but I want to organise as many trips, talks and experiences as possible for the students, I want them to really care about this subject and for them to be lifelong learners and lovers of this subject.

How am I going to assess pupils?

Assessment is such a complex field, that it is deserving of several blogs of its own. The way I’ve structured things puts a huge emphasis on assessment, more so than I ever have before. Low-stakes testing plays an enormous role in what my classroom looks like. Almost every lesson involves a multiple-choice test of some sort, and topics will be interwoven throughout the GCSE course. To oversimplify it, that means testing pupils on the material that they have just learned, some material that they have recently learned and material that they have learned some time ago. I want to know that pupils know the material now (if not, it gives me ample opportunity to address it) and I want them to know it later on. If we can keep working on this then there won’t be the usual GCSE run-in panic or expectation of after-school intervention classes. Needs are addressed straight away and emphasis is placed on establishing a long-term knowledge and understanding of the material.

Alongside this, we will make use of assessment books. These are to keep their notes separate from their exam question practice. The idea is that the book is split into question types, that way it is easier for pupils (and myself) to quickly and easily see how they are progressing on different question types – meaning that more purposeful conversations can be had with pupils to help guide and direct them towards making improvements.

Do I try to cover more topics in the same time to give breadth, or do I cover less but give depth?

This came up in my planning but is more of a factor for my future plans for KS3, the way that I’m designing lessons has certainly meant that there is a clear move towards depth of material and not just breadth. However, the ‘breadth’ was in some ways constrained by the exam specification, but the desire to give them the fuller context behind aspects such as; why there are different denominations, or the life of Jesus has meant broadening their curriculum to ensure that depth can be provided.

How do I ensure that the lessons and teaching are research-informed, rather than just doing what we’ve always done?

This is never easy, I’ve been working towards this point for several years, one of the main obstacles is access to research and even if you do have it, it’s about having the time to understand it and then to implement it. We’re very fortunate that we now have access to websites like Research for RE (https://researchforre.reonline.org.uk/) which presents straight-forward and easy summaries of research that has been conducted.

I’ve based my practice heavily upon research relating to neuroscience, such as retrieval practice and spaced learning (coming largely from the Learning Scientists blog) and from research that I conducted during my Masters (https://www.reonline.org.uk/news/an-offer-you-cannot-refuse/) .

How do I make my life easier?

I’m certainly working less, well at the moment anyway. I’m also in a position where I’ve planned and have resources for what I’m teaching up until around Easter, including the quizzes that I intend to use with pupils. Now, I feel like this is a potentially high-risk strategy – if I decide that big changes are needed, I’ll have to redo work. I’m also finding that with this format lessons themselves are far more enjoyable to teach and the pupils seem to be getting much more out of it – due to the greater depth at which we are exploring the material and the focus on low-states multiple choice questions gives me real insight into what the pupils are getting to grips with (or not) and to provide effective feedback.

If I can find a suitable way of distributing these resources, then I’ll ensure that I distribute them (and hopefully make your lives easier as well).

How do I create something that is academically rigorous, but can still be taught by non-specialists?

Luckily at GCSE this is not an issue that we are facing, at KS3 it is and that is an obstacle that I’ve not yet been able to figure out in a satisfactory way. I’ll certainly come back to this when I tackle our KS3 curriculum fully.

So how is it working out so far?

The folders have gone down a treat, the pupils were really excited about receiving them (although some were disappointed in getting red rather than blue) and although it has only been a few lessons, the pupils are quite keen to ensure that things are in the right place. They also seem to feel a bit more grown up, a real goodbye to KS3.

It is still early days for the notes, it certainly seemed to work for those who just sat their exams, but we are starting from the beginning with our new cohorts, this approach is definitely freeing up lots of time in lessons for deeper discussion of the material and it is allowing us to build in a good grounding of the context that they need to really get to grips with the material, but isn’t on the exam specification itself.

I remember, from a young age, working on my times tables, whether it is was my mum going over them again and again with me, or those CDs that turned them into catchy songs. I definitely remember them being a key part of my early education. Quite quickly I became quite fluent and those numbers would roll off my tongue;

“3×3 is 9
4×3 is 12
4×4 is 16
4×5 is 20”

But every now and then someone would throw me a curve ball:

“Okay Sam, what’s 7×8?”
“Erm, 64, no wait! Erm, 42. No! No! 56!!”

I could sense their frustration that I had managed so well before and remembering this large body of knowledge in the correct order with correct answers, but then got completely thrown when just asked for one piece of knowledge. I knew the answers, but I didn’t really know them. Back then it just didn’t make sense to me. Since becoming a teacher I’ve often thought about this, but now I’m using my times tables knowledge to drive my reworking of our curriculum.

Now we have just seen our first cohort complete their exams after the new GCSE reforms (at the time of writing, we are a few days away from getting those results). Hopefully the way in which it was taught will bring plenty of success and showcase the brilliant young minds I had the pleasure of teaching over the past two years, but there are already things that I know I want to teach differently and the results of the exams will likely highlight other areas where changes can be made.

Now redesigning the curriculum is a pretty daunting task. On one hand we can stick with what we’ve got and know that it’ll get the job done. On the other, it’s an opportunity to be brave and to really think about what we want pupils to learn and to trial and test the best ways of achieving that. Whilst a complete overall of KS3 and KS4 is tempting, the burden on workload would be much too large (it is the summer holiday after all). However, in rethinking KS4, I’ll certainly be considering and giving some basic outline plans of how I would like KS3 to look in time.

To start with, I decided to ask myself a bunch of questions – from admin tasks, to my deepest fears:

• What do I want pupils to know by the end of KS3, KS4 & KS5?
• How is this going to fit with the locally agreed syllabus?
• How is it going to prepare pupils for what we will be looking at in GCSE?
• How will it prepare pupils for their GCSE exams, but avoid the subject being an exams-factory?
• How am I going to assess pupils?
• Do I try to cover more topics in the same time to give breadth, or do I cover less but give depth?
• How do I ensure that the lessons and teaching are research-informed, rather than just doing what we’ve always done?
• How do I make my life easier?
• How do I create something that is academically rigorous, but can still be taught by non-specialists?

Whilst there are a host of other things that I’ve been asking myself (and am continuing to do so…) these have been a good foundation. If I taught somewhere else, then my questions would likely vary, but if you need a new starting point, then I think these will help. It would have been helpful if I could have established some kind of hierarchy to these questions, but currently I see them as a mesh of interwoven ideas and objectives that cannot be easily untangled.

What do I want pupils to know by the end of KS3, KS4 & KS5?
But where to begin? Well I’m going to start by looking at where I want my students to end up. KS5. I would love it if every student I taught wanted to do it at A-Level, or even at university, or to have an education and interest that will last them for life. Therefore, I have to think about the knowledge and skills that I want pupils to have for the rest of their lives. Now, that’s a pretty big task. I feel that thinking about the skills and knowledge needed for KS5 will be a good starting point, given that the aims of RE is such a contested field that this will help to give some structure and guidance for my planning.

Whilst writing this it is the summer holidays, which means I’m also fairly time-poor when it comes to school work. This means I’m focusing only on KS4 (and in particular those students doing the GCSE exam) we are also in a position where from September we will have two-year groups starting the GCSE course, Year 9 as they start a 3-year GCSE and Year 10 on a traditional 2-year GCSE. So, whilst my focus is on them, I still want to create a bigger picture of how the whole of a ‘perfect’ Religious Education course would look for KS3, KS4 and KS5 and to map out the key knowledge and skills that I feel that pupils need to give them a robust curriculum that they deserve.

How is this going to fit with the locally agreed syllabus?
Rethinking the curriculum has allowed me to re-engage with the locally agreed syllabus, something which I’ve seen ignored many times in SoW that I’ve seen for other schools. There’s a lot of great stuff in there and means that (provided others have been following it) that there will be some real consistency going across all key stages and that will lead to some really powerful knowledge and will avoid the problem of the hands popping up saying that they’ve already learnt about it in primary (which reminds me, I need to write a blog about all the wonderful stuff that happens in primary RE that too often goes unnoticed by us in secondary who inherit pupils with good religious literacy but ignore the hard work that has gone in before).

How is it going to prepare pupils for what we will be looking at in GCSE?
Something that I really want to avoid is boiling down the GCSE specification into a GCSE-lite, sure it might boost some grades, but the process would be artificial and boring. Exam boards publish guidance on how many hours a GCSE should be studied on, I think it’s wrong to start prolonging that and doubling, or tripling, the amount of time that students spend studying the material. That’s what leads to a school becoming an exams factory.

I want students to be prepared, but I want that knowledge and skills acquisition to be a cumulative process as well as leading to them developing a strong religious literacy. At GCSE for example they have to have a knowledge of different denominations within a religion. I could start drilling it into them in Year 7 that there are different denominations, or I could start with understanding and recognising that there are different points of view, then that there are different denominations and then why there are different denominations. That would see me building on existing knowledge, but also giving pupils a much wider knowledge and understanding. It also allows them to apply that knowledge in different situations, allowing them to build links and overall a much greater understanding that stretches way beyond the syllabus of the subject.

How will it prepare pupils for their GCSE exams, but avoid the subject being an exams-factory?
One of my biggest fears is that an excessive focus on the exams and exam technique starts to take focus away from the amazing subject that I teach and reduces it to a grade on a piece of paper. Yes, I want my pupils to succeed and get the best grade that they can, but I also want them to get so much more from it, the ability to engage with and discuss new and different ideas, the ability to have a sense of wonder when thinking about the big ideas. How am I going to maintain that, whilst at the same time prepare them for exams?

How am I going to assess pupils?
This is one of the areas that I spent a long time scratching my head on. I want something that is specific and clear to pupils, with the clear steps of progression as they work through Key Stages, I also want something that allows for pupils to clearly see what they need to do to improve and therefore has consistency throughout the assessments. I also want something that reduces the work that I have to do (because if you’re anything like me, then you’ve got more work than hours in the day).

Now I’m a keen reader of Dawn Cox’s blog, luckily she has posted something recently (https://missdcoxblog.wordpress.com/2018/06/21/constructing-a-coherent-key-stage-3-assessment-system/) which coincided with this dilemma that I’m having. I’ve lent heavily upon this in what I’m creating. I think that what Dawn has presented is incredibly clear to both the pupil and teacher (or parent) as to how a pupil is performing. In distilling it down to a series of key skills there is clarity and consistency across assessments as well as an easy way of monitoring how well a pupil is progressing and therefore what support they may need. I believe that it is also straight-forward enough that pupils would become quite fluent in using it themselves, not only to assess themselves and each other, but to be able to set themselves targets on what they need to do to improve.

Do I try to cover more topics in the same time to give breadth, or do I cover less but give depth?
Traditionally we’ve broken the year up into the six half terms and structured the SoW around those. I am less and less convinced that this makes any sense as very few topics that I teach neatly fit into that pattern and it would lead to stretching topics out or under-doing others. The potential benefit of this pattern perhaps lies in the clarity for pupils around when topics start or end – but even then, we all have classes where you have to carry topics over for one reason another. I’m sure there could be other reasons for this termly pattern (which I would love to hear), but in redesigning the curriculum it seems like the perfect opportunity to move away from this pattern if it makes sense to.

How do I ensure that the lessons and teaching are research-informed, rather than just doing what we’ve always done?
This can be tough, but at the same time incredibly rewarding and motivating. Since my PGCE I have thought that research-informed teaching was fundamental, and I was fortunate enough to benefit from the 3forRE scheme which gave me funding towards study for a Masters, which I have blogged about (https://www.reonline.org.uk/news/an-offer-you-cannot-refuse/). However, it isn’t always easy, quite often you get caught up in the process of doing what has worked before or being suckered in by something slick and fancy looking. Rethinking the curriculum is really giving me the opportunity to reflect and implement some key findings from my own research. The difficulty sometime can be trying to distil what the research says into what it really means and what implications it has for the classroom. There are some great books out there, but something even easier is RE:Online’s ResearchforRE website (https://researchforre.reonline.org.uk/) it is easy to navigate, with a wealth of information and knowledge on there. At the very least, it’s the beginning of your research-informed curriculum.

How do I make my life easier?
A question that sometimes feels redundant when you’re teaching, especially when those pinch points in the year appear. I believe that a SoW is only going to be good if you, as a teacher, are in a situation where you aren’t exhausted and can teach to the best of your ability. So how am I going to structure it so that once it’s up and running that it pretty much takes care of itself? For this I’m probably going to want to frontload the work – having all the lessons planned and ready before I start teaching them (though within limit – as I might want to adapt a few things as I go along) is an obvious idea, but one thing I normally find myself forgetting about is the assessments.

If I move the burden of marking those assessments from myself onto some technology (I’m a big fan of Plickers and QuickKey, but there are other great tools out there) then I can drastically reduce my workload and maximise the impact of the feedback that I’ll then be able to give to pupils. The great thing about these tools (and in particular something like Plickers is that you can receive real-time feedback on pupil performance and respond to their needs immediately. It then allows you to easily keep track of which material/questions you might want to refer to again in the future). This was an area that I focussed on during my Masters, and it has transformed my teaching and my work-life balance.

How do I create something that is academically rigorous, but can still be taught by non-specialists?
This is a really tricky one, I have a lot of trust in the non-specialists that teach what we currently do, but I know from my own experience that when I teach another subject I don’t have quite the same fluency with the material that I would with my own subject.

At the same time, I don’t want to reduce the rigour of the material being studied. I want a curriculum that means that it can do the best that it possibly can do whatever the circumstances, regardless of who is teaching. Now this is probably an unrealistic expectation. We know we can’t just produce scripts and then anyone can teach it. But I want something which means that whoever teaches it, can do to the best of their ability and at the same time with a clarity of information that pupils still get the best out of their learning.

So, what now?
At this point in the summer holidays, this can be a really tricky question. I’m seeing this is as the beginning of the journey (and it is likely to be a long one). There’s little chance I’ll get it right first time around and it’ll need adapting as I go along, but it is a process that has really lit a fire within me. I’m really excited about the potential to start again. There is something liberating (as well as terrifying) in starting afresh. It’s not to say that I’m not going to use material and topics that we’ve used before, but it’s about restructuring, adapting and making something that works, from top to bottom.

Right now, I don’t know how this will turn out and what the final ‘product’ will look like. What I do know though, is that it will be an exciting journey and an evolving process. I’ll keep you informed of my progress. To all teachers well done for the incredible work you’ve done this year, I hope your students performed brilliantly in their GCSE and A-Level exams and enjoy the rest of your summer holidays, you deserve them!

I haven’t been teaching for long, but during my PGCE I remember it being a time full of reflection, questioning and often self-doubt around what I was doing and whether I was actually making the impact that I thought that I was. During my NQT, as the pressure kicked in and I focused on the things that worked. Well, at least I think they worked. At the very least they worked well enough. But actually, I wasn’t interested in what worked ‘well enough’, I wanted to know what was working the best and I started yearning again for the academic vigour that had been a requisite of my PGCE course.

I knew of a few people who had completed a Masters in Education, but when I thought of myself in the same situation I had those imposter syndrome feelings, those people who could do a Masters at the same time as working full-time were superstars in my eyes and on top of that the cost of the courses seemed out of reach for someone new to the teaching profession. I resigned myself to the fact that it was a nice idea, but probably not for me.

Then one morning whilst checking my emails, something I always do just before checking the football transfer gossip (a habit I’m not entirely sure how I got into) and sat there in my inbox was an email (probably the last email I can distinctly remember receiving that didn’t have ‘GDPR’ in the subject line), it was from Culham St Gabriel’s Trust and it was advertising their 3forRE scheme. I had already benefited from their funding during my PGCE, without which I may never have been able to afford teacher training in the first place, and this time it seemed like an even more remarkable offer.

The scheme works with an agreement between Culham St Gabriel’s Trust, your school and yourself. The agreement means Culham St Gabriel’s and your school agree to part of the funding and you fund the remaining amount. Whilst there is an obvious financial benefit to this agreement, it also means that the school is invested and will directly benefit from the research that you are completing throughout your masters course. The process and procedure is incredibly straightforward. There is a selection of Universities that are associated and aware of the funding arrangement, so you still need to ensure that you have secured yourself a place on one of these courses to actually benefit from the funding.

I’d already completed my PGCE at the University of Oxford, knew the Masters course director from then and still lived ‘locally’ so it was the natural choice for me to apply for the MSc Learning and Teaching. The course is well structured around the professional commitments of a full-time working teacher. That’s not to say that other courses are not, I’ve just no personal experience of them and others that I have known who have completed Masters at other establishments have absolutely loved their course.

Now, the obvious question is why would I need a Masters just to reflect more on my teaching practice, couldn’t I just take the time myself and to critically reflect and engage with research in my own time? Well, yes. However, the reality is that sometimes we need a nudge or additional incentive to do so when our teaching loads are so high and the additional workload at times feeling insurmountable. Most importantly for me, however, was the ability to learn from and interact with experts on a range of educational issues and to receive high-quality supervision to ensure that I could engage with the research as effectively as possible. On top of that, the course gives you the ideal opportunities to share and reflect on the teaching practice and research of professionals in the same situation as you.

This isn’t to say that opportunities like this aren’t available to you outside of a course such as this, we’ve all worked with teachers who are well versed in the latest research and are keen to reflect upon and develop their own practice, but we also know teachers who will scoff at the idea that research bears any relevance to the realities of the classroom and therefore they won’t be taking part.

The course ran for two years part-time, the first year my research was focused on the perspectives of Hindu pupils in the teaching of Religious Studies, it fitted my school context well and allowed for real developments in the teaching of the subject, addressing concerns about misrepresentations within religions. My second-year piece represents the piece of work, to date, that I am most proud of ever completing. I tackled the under-researched role of EdTech in Religious Education (for those who are interested, my exact title being ‘The role of technology in the assessment of RE’ Find it on the ResearchforRE website at http://researchforre.reonline.org.uk/research_report/the-role-of-technology-in-the-assessment-of-re/).

The research was fun, rewarding and informative, the write-up was one of the most labour intensive things I have ever done and there are many people who I am thankful to during times at which I may have neglected them to focus on the work. My teaching practice and the implications for the school have been enormously beneficial, I have led CPD sessions, I’ve been asked to blog and speak at a range of events and asked to work on different research projects. Throughout I’ve met a range of fantastic people, from fellow course-mates, to academics and importantly the supervisors that I was given.

After all the hard work that went into this, the saddest part was submitting my dissertation, psychologically that felt like the end and I hadn’t been prepared for the change of intensive study to an email of recognition that my assignment had been received. The wait for the result was nerve-wracking, initially I was convinced that I’d have failed (the imposter syndrome sneaking back in), then I managed to acknowledge that this was a much better piece than my first assignment, so it must be a pass, surely…

On what I’m now certain was the first day that I’d not woken up with the MLT on my mind, I started my day like normal, breakfast, football gossip while I let the coffee brew, then the short cycle to work. At lunchtime I checked my phone, the battery was low, so I’d had to manually refresh the emails, I dragged down the screen and in my inbox appeared a few emails, one from a major high street sports retailer informing me of their latest sales, one from a major online retailer suggesting products that I might be interested in, the last from the Education department at the University, my result was ready.

A tense few moments as my phone struggled to download the attachment and I had to log back in to my computer, this time the attachment loads, I read it through once but cannot take it all in, so I have to go through a second and then a third time. This time it sinks in, I hadn’t failed, nor had I only just passed, I’d managed to get a distinction for my dissertation and I was speechless.

A few months later and I was getting ready for my graduation. When I’d graduated from my Undergraduate degree it had rained, really hard, the only pictures are taken in an overcrowded marquee. This time I managed to graduate in the snow (the man in the shop where I hired the gown claimed that it had been the first graduation in the snow in all the time that he had worked there in 30 years – I’m not sure if that’s true, but it is certainly the account that I’m going with). Graduating at Oxford is unlike anything I’ve done before in my life, it really is a special place (not one that I thought I’d ever be graduating from). It topped off an experience in my life that was brilliant in so many ways.

The point is that the Masters course was, professionally and intellectually speaking, the most rewarding thing I have ever done in my life and personally one of the most rewarding things (I have to play it safe there, some of my family and friends read these blogs). I cannot recommend doing a Masters enough, it will challenge and excite you in so many ways and the support from Culham St Gabriel’s (and the two schools I worked in during the course) through the 3forRE scheme was invaluable in helping me to achieve so much. It is a kind and supportive offer that I fully encourage you to take advantage of.

Sam McKavanagh teaches RE and Philosophy at a secondary school in Oxfordshire and regularly blogs on his website My Teaching Life (http://www.myteachinglife.co.uk). He’s passionate about teaching and keen to try out tech and new teaching ideas.

For more information on the 3forRE Master’s Funding see http://www.cstg.org.uk/how-we-help/3forre/

As an undergraduate of Study of Religions at Bath Spa University I engaged in dialogue with people and experienced ‘participant observation’ across a wide range of traditions. These experiences offered a level of insight into the lived reality of religions that reading articles and books could not. The children I teach also enjoy and benefit from meeting and engaging with faith visitors and going on trips to places of worship, but I was to discover that such practice was exceptional.

National RE experts and SIAMS inspectors I spoke to suggested that maybe only 5% of schools had a programme for trips and visitors beyond visiting the local church. This was supported by surveys of teachers and responses from subject leaders at training events and on social media -and these teachers were probably more dedicated to RE than most. Issues cited with running trips included: costs; excessive workload; dull, didactic presentations; a lack of response from places of worship and, for others, a paucity of diverse religious communities in their locale. Of those who did make the effort to broaden the experiences of their pupils, visits to synagogues were the most common and those that were used tended to be very busy. Visits to mosques followed closely but these could be marred by a few pupils being withdrawn by their parents.

What are the experiences of people who host encounters with schools?

I surveyed twenty-nine local faith reps via online questionnaire, in person or by telephone. Over 75% of all of those surveyed reported that they would like to do more work with schools, none felt over-subscribed. However, only 17% of the respondents were aware of the locally agreed syllabus and those who were very familiar were usually members of SACREs. About 30% liaised in detail with teachers about content before the visit and 70% would have liked to have more support with their outreach work. Discussions with faith reps in other areas of the country showed a similar pattern. More experienced faith reps often insisted on the children having studied the basics of their faith before an encounter in order to make the most of the experience. Sometimes the local syllabus could affect visits, especially if the faith was only covered in Key Stage 1.

What is happening during encounters with people of faith?

I observed eighteen encounters between pupils and faith reps, about half in places of worship with other schools and the rest with classes from my own school. In observations I was looking for interest levels and involvement of pupils; relevance in terms of their academic needs as well as their ability to engage with others to aid the development of a functional religious literacy ‘preparing students for the practical task of engagement with the rich variety of religion and belief encounters in everyday, ordinary life’ (Dinham and Shaw, 2017).

Where there were activities to engage children (even if just demonstrations) the visits were more successful. Didactic presentations failed to engage the children and, on occasions, had far too much coverage. Too frequently opportunities to share the realities of living the faith were missed. There were notable differences when pupils had been primed with the basics of the faith in preparation for the visit. Children were able to build on their learning in class and often able to ask high quality questions. Discussions featured in the most productive encounters, both in terms of engagement and impact. This allowed opportunities to develop a greater sense of empathy for the way their faith affected their lives. This was notable when, during a mosque visit, the host sat on the floor with the children and discussed his experiences, not just of practicing his faith, but also the impact of Islamophobia and accounts of how his faith moved him and affected his life. A similarly high quality experience was enjoyed by pupils at a Buddhist centre when the host was able to discuss their personal experiences of becoming a Buddhist and how their family reacted. The experience of stilling was one which some pupils reported had a significant positive effect on them.

Clearly there is a need for greater liaison between teachers and faith reps prior to the visit as well as honest, constructive feedback from teachers to help develop practice. -But how else could the use of trips and visitors be made more engaging and experiential?

Case study 1: ‘Participant observation’ as a research methodology for pupils?

Few of the pupils in our rural CEVC primary school have meaningful contact with people of faith outside of their RE lessons. Very few attend a church or other place of worship, even infrequently, and the majority are agnostic or atheist. This makes it difficult for them to gain an understanding of the nature of worship or the profound effect that faith can have on a devout person. Despite that many of them still join in with Collective Worship and prayers.

A special church visit was arranged for two classes, Year 4 studying Easter and Year 5 learning about the importance of the Bible to Christians. The vicar and ten parishioners kindly agreed to hold a ‘mini service’ for them in place of their regular Collective Worship. The children were prepared by watching and discussing a video clip of an Anglican service, they recorded questions for the congregation.

Case study 2: Diversity in Christianity

The following term Year 4 were conducting a local study. Guests were invited from four different denominations in our community. In preparation I visited them and observed worship and discussed their faith and practice(s) with them. I was clear about the aspects of their faith that I wanted them to focus on. I also took pictures of their places of worship. The faith reps they encountered were four ‘Quakers’, a Jehovah’s Witness, a Salvationist and three Charismatic Christians. Pupils had a worksheet for notes with sections about the place of worship; style of worship; core beliefs, and faith in action as well as room for any other issues of interest.

The essentials of four denominations, their practices and lived experiences had been conveyed effectively to the children. In assessments they showed understanding of the similarities and differences between the denominations and even the relationships between them. Issues such as pacifism, Biblical literalism, faith in action and even glossolalia were within the understanding of the children (a demonstration was a highlight of that particular encounter).

The children completed questionnaires after the last visit to give feedback on which visitors had expressed the lived experience of their faith the most effectively and why, it also asked them about whether and how their understanding of Christianity had changed because of the experiences.

The children’s experience of meeting with the four ‘Quakers’ was notable in that it was very conversational. Children preferred this way of meeting and getting to know people; it was also very clear that four people from the same denomination had different answers to the same questions. The experiential nature of worship was put across very well by the Charismatics. For the children this understanding that faith was diverse within denominations as well as between them was a revelation. Their understanding of the lived reality of religious people had increased dramatically.

The experience raised important questions such as ‘who are the real Christians?’ and ‘what does being a Christian actually mean?’ Clearly these are issues that could be deliberated upon by somebody at any age, not just 9 year olds.

Sharing practice:

Apart from seminars and conferences I was invited to discuss my research on Beyond Belief. I have supported visitors and hosts to help them develop their practice; they help support teacher training sessions that I run as part of LTLRE. South Gloucestershire SACRE offers a ‘WIRE Award’ (Widening Inclusion in Religious Education) offering grants to support schools with the cost of trips to places of worship. I maintain a sizeable database of trips and visitors for teachers in the Bristol / South Glos area to support this.

The full report is available by request from The Farmington Institute

Why should RE teachers read research? That’s what my blog’s going to be about. As well as answering the question, I’ll be illustrating the answer. In fact, most of the blog will be spent illustrating the answer, because we’re fortunate in having a great many examples to use.

I visited a secondary school last week, a successful academy, and spent the afternoon talking with the RE staff. I had some questions for them, including: what’s been the impact of the British Values agenda on your work, in comparison to, say, the pressures from data and exams? What was interesting was less their answer (data and exams continue to press hardest) than the fact that they had to think and talk it through as they gave it, explaining that they don’t really get time to consider such questions. One colleague then reflected that on a part-time MA course a few years previously, she had had to get above the daily routines and think outside their boxes. She said that it had made her approach her teaching differently.

That’s how I relate to research. Teachers are so busy that time to pose questions about and reflect on what we’re doing is scarce, but we’re energised when we find some. And if we need some stimulus material to help us to pose the questions and prompt our reflections, there’s no shortage of research to use. Some research literature is based on field data, presenting the results of e.g. interviews or questionnaires with pupils, teachers or others; some is based on scholarly discussion of different ideas and perspectives, and some mixes the two broad approaches. To me, what counts is whether it helps us to understand what we’re doing and how to do it. You can find numerous examples in the Research section of RE:ONLINE, reported for you in a concise and practical way.

Let’s consider one of them, a research essay in which Karen Walshe and Geoff Teece identify a difficult and necessary question about RE teaching. What is understanding religion, or religions? We often talk about it, but what does it really mean? Does it mean understanding as a believer, based on faith? Or does it mean understanding as an outsider, perhaps through appreciating parts of the history of a religion, or its influence on society? Or, might a religion be understood ‘religiously’, that is, in its own terms, whether by a believer or by an outsider?

Karen Walshe and Geoff Teece go further than posing this question. They consider what RE teachers might do in response to it. They suggest that soteriology (beliefs and practices concerned with salvation, or with the ultimate meaning and purpose of human life) is essential to religions. Religions are essentially concerned with how people can fulfil the ultimate purposes of human life. In order to help pupils to understand religions in their own terms, therefore, RE teachers should focus teaching on the soteriologies of the religions.

And then the writers go still further, concluding with some concrete teaching and learning suggestions. They give the example of Sikhism, where there are key soteriological beliefs and practices to understand. Haumai (self-centredness) is the root of earthly life’s frustrations, but a life of sewa (selfless service) leads to gurmukh (God-centredness) and a state of mukhti (spiritual liberation). Serving in the gurdwara expresses these beliefs. During a visit to the gurdwara, pupils could ask Sikhs about how it does so.

Does this piece of research help us to understand what we’re doing, and how to do it? Different people will have their own views, but it seems clear that it raises a vital question: when we teach about a religion, how can we get to what’s essential? Karen Walshe and Geoff Teece suggest an answer and offer some practical strategies. I think that what’s needed next is for teachers to try these out with their classes, evaluate the results and share the findings with as many others as possible, so that we get more and more evidence and a richer and richer discussion. This applies not just to the present piece of research, but research in general. Teachers are well placed to offer what we might call research on research.

We would love you to add your voices. Here’s what you can do. If you haven’t already done so, register on the Research for RE website. You can find more about Karen Walshe and Geoff Teece’s research there (see our research report Religious understanding. What is it? How do you help pupils to get it?). You’ll be able to leave feedback and, at a later stage, if you’ve decided to develop some teaching around the research, you could come back again and post an account of what you did. Perhaps the research report could provide a good focus for your department meeting, or for INSET. You could try adapting its ideas to plan teaching about a different religion to Sikhism. The report is one of many on Research for RE, all there with the aim of using research to help us to further the conversation about what we’re doing and how to do it.

Note: In April 2021 the Research for RE website was retired and the reports moved into RE:ONLINE

In November 2017 the University of Exeter published ‘Big Ideas for Religious Education’. The report is the outcome of a year’s work by twelve leading academics and advisers working with teachers in the South West. It proposes a radical but simplified approach to planning the RE curriculum and to assessment without levels.

In this article Barbara Wintersgill offers a general introduction to Big Ideas for teachers and others interested in curriculum and assessment.

The debate around what we should teach in RE is as lively as ever. In recent years, it has added impetus because of the enthusiasm shown for the ‘knowledge rich’ curriculum and the mantra around teaching ‘fewer things in greater depth’. It all points towards that key question:

How do we decide what knowledge to include in RE?

How do we decide what to include given the vast body of possible stuff to teach? The era of ‘levels of attainment’ (how long ago it now seems) put skills at the heart of the decision about how we define progress. Pupils got better at explaining, describing or evaluating etc. But we gave insufficient attention to the question of how to select and sequence knowledge to make sure the understanding of the subject improved.

The danger now is that the ‘knowledge content’ debate becomes a battle for territory with different interest groups fighting to include the stuff they want teaching. That is no way to run a subject!

Tim Oates in his review of the National Curriculum in 2013 is credited with the mantra of doing fewer things in greater depth. But in RE does that mean fewer religions and beliefs or fewer aspects of religion and belief? The Big Ideas in RE Project highlights an overlooked quote from Oates that students need to secure ‘deep learning in the big ideas in the subject’.

Why are Big Ideas important in RE?

The new and exciting ‘Big Ideas in RE’ Project proposes a set of principles as a way of determining that content.

November 2017 saw the publication of the University of Exeter’s report, ‘Big Ideas for Religious Education’. It is the outcome of a year’s work by twelve leading academics and advisers working with teachers in the South West. It proposes a radical but simplified approach to planning the RE curriculum and to assessment without levels. http://tinyurl.com/bigideasforre

It has its origins in work undertaken in science education and takes it starting point from four fundamental questions:

• What criteria should we use to decide what content is included in RE?
• What criteria should we use to decide how to sequence the content?
• How might the RE curriculum be presented in a more coherent way?
• How might we make RE more engaging for young people growing up in the 21st century?

The Project posits the notion that if we can agree those Big Ideas they will unlock answers to those four questions.

Big Ideas are powerful and can:

• help us make sense of what might otherwise be confusing information and isolated facts
• act as lenses to illuminate what is relevant to RE and hide what is not
• taken together, express the core or central concerns of the subject
• act as criteria to select and prioritise knowledge in the curriculum
• are transferable to events outside the classroom helping students recognise them as important elements of 21st century life
• provide memorable headlines to help us focus on what is important.

So what are these Big Ideas in RE?

The Big Ideas in RE Project proposes 6 Big Ideas which lie at the heart of the subject…….

1. There is an amazing variety of religions, non-religious worldviews and ways of life in the world, each being characterised by continuity and change, and internal consistency and diversity;

2. People use both verbal and non-verbal forms of communication, literal and figurative, to express beliefs, values, experiences and identities;

3. There are many ways in which religious and non-religious worldviews provide guidance on how to be a good person and live a good life;

4. Religions and worldviews are about experience as much as belief, and they can help individuals interpret their experiences;

5. Religious and non-religious worldviews interact with the wider communities and cultures, affecting and affected by politics, artistic and cultural life, social values and traditional rituals, sometimes having considerable power and influence beyond their own adherents;

6. Religious and non-religious worldviews provide coherent overall accounts, ‘grand narratives’, of the nature of reality – life, the universe and everything.

These summarise the heart of what students are studying in RE throughout their schooling. They look deceptively simple but their power lies in their flexibility and coherence. They can be used to plan a coherent curriculum in a wide range of different contexts.

For a more detailed account of the Big Ideas in RE Project and how it can be used to plan the curriculum go to https://www.reonline.org.uk/news/big-ideas-for-religious-education/

There is no doubt that RE in the past was in danger of neglecting the core foundational beliefs of any religion or worldview – I think most people in the world of RE agree on that. Focus on the so-called externals of religion and the rush to explore social and ethical issues to provide ‘relevance’ are well documented. Ofsted remarked on this on more than one occasion. It was one of the consequences of the poor application of phenomenology to the study of worldviews.

So, we needed to pay more attention to core beliefs.

In the case of theistic religions, this inevitably means looking at their theology as part of the content of those faiths. It means examining those core foundational theological concepts; it means examining the way they were constructed and interpreted; it means looking at the way they have changed and evolved in response to wider historical, cultural and social changes; and it means examining the impact that beliefs have on the lives of the believers and in wider culture. It means all these things.

There are some obvious but important checks and balances needed in any discussion of the place of theology in RE:

1.In the words of an RE colleague: ‘it is .. important that students learn that theology is a rather rarefied activity within a religion. In other words, it is not usually the concern of ordinary believers. So teaching theological concepts can give a misleading reflection of how the majority of believers practice their religion.’ For many, possibly most, being religious has little to do with what they believe – it is much more to do with their practice, values, and sense of identity and belonging. These are shaped to some extent by the formal beliefs but many will have little sense of what that might mean.

2. It is important that students learn that religions and worldviews involve a tension between the orthodoxy of the establishment and the heterodoxy and syncretism of the people. Many people’s ‘theology’ is very heterodox: “at variance with an official or orthodox position” and syncretistic: “a union or attempted fusion of different religions, cultures, or philosophies”.

3.It is important that students learn that the term theology only really applies to theistic Abrahamic religions. To assume it has universal application to non-theistic, dharmic and non-religious worldviews is unhelpful. Humanists may have a view about theism as part of their ‘core foundational beliefs’ but they do not have a theology.

4.And, much more problematically, we need to remember that there are those who question the validity of theology as an academic process. As the American science fiction writer Robert A Heinlein said in his 1984 book Job: A Comedy of Justice, “Theology … is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn’t there.” This position is divisive and uncomfortable for RE and probably best parked for the duration!

So – with these important caveats – I think there is widespread agreement that understanding the nature, content, function, history, impact of theology within theistic religions is one important part of any RE provision. It is also clear that a range of disciplines is necessary to study that theology – history, social science, phenomenology, philosophy, textual study etc.

The challenge is to answer the question: Should and can RE incorporate theology as one of its core disciplines as well as part of the core content of its curriculum? When in RE you study the theology of Christianity, are you ‘doing’ theology or are you ‘doing’ something else such as phenomenology or philosophy?

Given the diversity of our teaching force and pupil population our starting point has to be that religions (and beliefs generally) are natural phenomena that deserve to be studied with the same seriousness as all other natural phenomena. Whether they are more than natural phenomena is something we have to leave to one side in terms of our methodology. We study religion and belief as one fascinating aspect of being human. In order to be truly inclusive and reflect the plural nature of our society, RE has to be epistemologically agnostic.

Is it the case that ‘theology’ as an activity only really takes place inside a theistic faith community? Outsiders can examine that activity as an object of study – and should do so respectfully and seriously – but they cannot really participate in that activity itself.

My conclusion, and others may want to offer other ideas, is that theology is best seen as part of the important content of any study of a theistic religion. Whether you define study of that theology as ‘theology’ may in the end be a matter of semantics. But in reality I think the disciplines in play will not be theology as such but a rich combination of history, social science, phenomenology, philosophy, textual study etc.

Alan Brine

Alan is a member of the Commission on Religious Education but is writing here in a personal capacity.