Religious education in the life of a Church school

This article is an extract from a lecture on religious education given by Canon John Hall on Monday 22 October, 2001.

Religious education in any faith-based school is not simply a subject making up a proportion of the taught curriculum. It pervades the whole life of the school. The religious character of the school and the belief on which it is founded will be discernible in the attitudes and values of the school, the priorities the school sets and what it prizes most highly, the quality of relationships throughout and beyond the school community, the place and nature of worship in the school, the whole taught curriculum and curriculum enrichment, the use of and attitude towards the school premises and what surrounds the school day.

Two examples can illustrate this theme: what the school prizes most highly; and what surrounds the school day.

What the school prizes most highly

Someone who has been privileged to attend a number of school awards or prize-giving events can readily discern various characteristics of the afternoon or evening. They all have much in common, with the chairman's remarks and the headteacher's report and votes of thanks from the head boy or head girl. What varies greatly is the award of prizes: for excellence and achievement, subject prizes, for sport, team prizes. Are the prizes books or book tokens? Are exam certificates awarded so that all receive prizes? Are there prizes for effort and progress? Are there awards for a contribution to the collective life of the school? to community service? for service in the local church? Is there an award for a contribution to the religious life of the school? Is there recognition of what we might call heroic virtue, for someone who has suffered, through illness or the death of a parent or some domestic tragedy, and been cherished by the school community? Are the sports trophies, where they exist, awarded for individual or team achievement? All these speak volumes of what the school prizes.

What surrounds the school day?

To move from one end of the spectrum to another, from the annual event to the daily round, the school day and the use of the building speak volumes of what is important for the school. A child or young person who arrives at the school and is kept outside until a particular moment and then herded from place to place and kept waiting for lessons in queues outside locked doors until the time to go outside again is hardly likely to become trustworthy or to take delight in the opportunities created by the school or responsibility for their own learning. And the young person who is only able to find refreshment during the school day through buying a packet of crisps or a can of coke from a machine and who has no recourse to the free water fountains now becoming so widespread is not being treated with the respect that each individual made and loved by God and with an eternal destiny deserves. It is often the apparently very trivial that is the most important.

Religious education as a curriculum subject

In turning to religious education as a curriculum subject, there is one important question about RE in schools with a religious character that cannot be ducked, namely whether the academic, the objective approach to RE, important in itself, is adequate and on its own acceptable in faith-based schools, or whether by contrast the aim of RE is not only to teach about religion so that the pupils can learn from religion but also to teach religion so that the pupils can become religious. The same question applies in a variant form to religious education in schools without a religious character (schools that we should nevertheless avoid calling or allowing to become secular schools).

In schools of all kinds, community schools and schools with a religious character, Muslim, Jewish, Catholic, Anglican, whatever that religious character may be, RE has a prime obligation to promote the understanding of religion and its fundamentally important place in human attitudes and contribution to human flourishing. That will necessarily involve, introduced at the right stage of development, the understanding of different religious traditions. From that understanding, can and should grow respect for those of different faith traditions. That is as important in rural Gloucestershire as it is in Gloucester itself, as important in Hereford and Lincolnshire as in Birmingham and Manchester.

But in teaching carefully and with respect about other religions, there are two dangerous pitfalls that need to be and are not always avoided. The pitfalls are that of creating a mishmash and that of promoting indifference. There is nothing to be gained in educational terms, still less in terms of promoting good community relations, from seeking to address the issues either superficially or all at once and leaving the pupils' minds in confusion. Secondly, it should not be the purpose of religious education that pupils should forge their own religion.

Here a comparison with other subjects in the curriculum might throw some light. The scientist and the historian seek not only to share facts and interpretations with their pupils, to enable them to know and recall a number of scientific or historical facts and to interpret them as other scientists and historians interpret them, they also seek to develop in them the skills and attitudes of a scientist or a historian. These skills and attitudes need careful inculcation - schooling - and do not develop overnight. No physicist would be satisfied with mere external knowledge if the pupil having acquired the knowledge, shall we say of the Doppler effect, were unable by experiment to demonstrate the origin and implications of the knowledge in question or were to deny its importance for the interpretation of life. The physicist would presumably be proud of the pupil able to distinguish whether the police car's siren indicated that he could stand his ground with confidence or should save himself by running like the blazes. The scientist and historian want for their pupils that they should have a genuine experience of what it is to be a scientist or a historian and that those who develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes most effectively should indeed become scientists or historians in their turn. The best teachers have that strong and focused ambition for their pupils. To deny it is to deny the whole nature and purpose of education. But to be a scientist or a historian is to build on the tradition, to stand on the shoulders of those who have come before you. To develop the tradition is perhaps possible for those best schooled in it. To turn the tradition aside is given to few geniuses in any generation.

There is no reason why religious education should be thought any different, other than the relegation of religion from objective and significant fact to private judgement or opinion, inoperative in the public sphere.

The importance of RE in Church schools

In a Church of England school religious education, the subject in the curriculum, carries powerful messages and is sacramental of the whole religious life of the school. That is, RE is a sign pointing to the religious life of the school and also itself an important contributor to that religious life. So, it cannot be neutral about the Christian revelation of God or of God's creative, redemptive and sanctifying action in the world. It cannot be neutral about the place and meaning of Jesus Christ in human history and in the history of salvation. It cannot be neutral about humanity in relation to God or about the divine purpose for humanity. It cannot be neutral about the Church in God's mission, as the means of grace offering the hope of salvation, or about the Church's life of worship or about the Church's loving service of Christ in those who suffer. These beliefs, part of the very foundation of the school itself, are offered by the school and encountered by the pupil. That living encounter in religious education, backed and supported by the school's life of worship and service, forms the basis on which the pupil is able, when the time is ripe - a time that will be different for everybody - to choose for themselves. This is not indoctrination. It provides the basis for choice.

Before briefly addressing some of the particular features of RE in Church of England schools, there are two ancillary points to make. First, RE in Church schools must be accorded a high status. This means that it will have at least 5% of curriculum time, have its own guaranteed place in the timetable and be offered to all throughout the school from the foundation stage to the sixth form. A Church of England secondary school should ensure that all pupils are able to and expected to take the full-course GCSE. The head of RE in a Church secondary school should have no less reward than the head of English or Maths. Second, there is currently no overall gathered or published evidence of the impact and quality of RE in Church of England schools. Denominational inspection reports are generally monitored by Diocesan Boards of Education but there is no up-to-date published evidence. Hitherto, although some attempts have been made, The National Society has not been able to allocate the necessary resources to the task. The Society might need to look to interested partners to ensure that evidence of the standards attained in RE in Church of England schools is collated and published and can be used as a basis for future development.

Teaching Christianity in RE in Church of England schools

Finally, repeating the point made earlier about the importance of teaching sensitively and well about other faith traditions, to promote understanding and respect, here are eight distinctive features of the teaching of Christianity in RE in Church of England schools. This is not a syllabus, still less a scheme of work. These features can be addressed and re-addressed in an appropriate way at every stage of education. They will be offered by all kinds of methods of teaching including necessary and appropriate familiarity with the Bible and experience of the local church.

• Pupils should know what it is to believe in God as a loving Creator and in the universe as created, purposeful and good. They should be able to see that this is not of itself in opposition to scientific insights into the universe.
• Pupils should know the story and significance of Jesus Christ and that God's love in Christ offers a way of salvation and hope, of forgiveness and reconciliation for individuals, for communities and for the world.
• Pupils should know of God's action in history and in the contemporary world through the sanctifying and renewing gifts of the Spirit.
• Pupils should know of the gift of faith by grace and of the sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist and should learn the nature and importance of marriage for family life and the bringing up of children.
• Pupils should know of the life of a Christian, of worship and prayer, of mission and service, of moral and personal integrity and of the example of the saints and the hope of sanctification.
• Pupils should know the place and importance of Christianity in English history and culture.
• Pupils should know something of the life and work of the contemporary Church in the parish and diocese and nationally, in particular being familiar with the parish church and knowing the cathedral and the role of the bishop.
• Pupils should know that Christianity is universal and multicultural and should have the opportunity to know and develop links with the Church as expressed in other denominations and in other parts of the Anglican Communion.

In all this and in the teaching about other faiths, teachers will be sensitive to the beliefs and attitudes of the pupils in their class, of Christian faith, of other faith or of no faith, and will draw on their experiences as well as on the experiences of other schools and communities with which they are linked.