TS-9.3

AndyLewis explains why devising a whole school approach to RE is important for faith schools, but can also deliver tangible benefits for many other settings… R eligious Education is a very diverse subject, and a relatively new one. Formed from a range of contributing (and potentially competing) disciplines – including theology, philosophy, history and social sciences – it occupies an unusual position within school curriculums. It’s compulsory, but locally determined. Excluded from the EBacc, but in many schools a key facilitator of SMSC and British Values, sometimes extending into citizenship and PSHE. In 1992, Saint Pope John Paul II called RE “The core of the core curriculum.” He went on to explain that for Catholic schools, RE is taught “Through the religious dimension of the school as a whole, and through the specific programme of religious studies which it provides.” Seen in this way, RE is a whole school enterprise, rather than being limited to timetabled lessons. In effect, everyone is teaching RE. The role of RE Approaching RE as a whole school enterprise requires it to fit with the mission and ethos of the school. For schools with a religious character, commonly called ‘faith schools’, this may seem quite straightforward – in Catholic schools, for example – yet this is not exclusively the case. It is possible to help drive the core values of any school through RE, and some adopt this approach with a key focus on their identity, values and sense of community. It’s worth noting that ‘faith schools’ currently make up around a third of the 20,000 schools in England. Within these approximately 7,000 ‘faith schools’, 68% are Church of England schools and 30% Catholic, as well as Jewish, Muslim, Sikh and Hindu schools – though it should be noted that there is a wide range of diverse practice within Church of England schools. Within the Catholic sector there have been significant calls for an authentically ‘Catholic Curriculum’ to ensure that it’s not just the responsibility of RE departments to teach religious content. For many faithful, their belief isn’t something to be compartmentalised into an hour or two per week, whether it be in the mosque, synagogue, church or RE lesson. Curricular context Pitched against this are the anti-Catholic points raised by some curriculum resources. In one high profile example, the BBC agreed to retract an erroneous detail from its Bitesize learning resources, describing how the church’s refusal to allow the autopsy of corpses was partly responsible for causing medical advances to stagnate (see bit. ly/2TKLKys). Elsewhere, science departments could do something to challenge the ‘conflict thesis’ of science versus religion. If, for example, students knew that it was a Catholic priest, Mgr. Georges Lemaître, who formulated the modern Big Bang theory, and that the founder of modern genetics, Gregor Mendel, was an Augustinian friar, they might come to realise that there doesn’t have to be a binary ‘choice’ between science and religion. Small details like these could save RE staff hours of teaching time. Teachers of English literature could in turn save themselves significant amounts of time with the aid of a carefully constructed RE curriculum 28 The case for WHOLE SCHOOL RE WHEN RE TAKES THE LEAD A head of RE will often lead a school’s charitable fundraising or volunteering programmes, and it’s not unheard of for a school’s priorities and mission to be intertwined with the RE department. It’s also likely that RE staff will be given at least some responsibility for a school’s daily ‘collective act of worship’ that is ‘wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character’ as required by law. The law in question was last revisited in 1998, however, and in practice isn’t upheld within many schools, leading to various calls for it to be repealed. “It is possible to help drive the core values of any school through RE” teachwire.net/secondary