Archived decisions

Appendix 1

British Journal of Religious Education 28(2)

Living Difference: the Agreed Syllabus for Hampshire, Portsmouth and

Southampton

Hampshire County Council/Portsmouth City Council/Southampton City Council,

2004

£30 (A4 Spiral Bound), 176 pp. and CD-ROM

ISBN 1-85975-614-X (Copies may be purchased from [email protected])

It is unusual for this journal to review an agreed syllabus. The reason this particular syllabus is being reviewed is because, in the words of the reviews editor, it `puts learning in RE to the fore'.

This is indeed true and the whole document makes fascinating reading and is a

testimony to the vision and energy of Clive Erricker, Judith Lowndes and their team, who have masterminded such a significant document in a remarkably short time. But to begin with, let us ask the question, `What is so remarkable about a syllabus placing emphasis on pedagogy and why does this appear to be novel?' My answer to these rhetorical questions is that it is not so much having a pedagogical approach to a syllabus that is new, but that the type of approach recommended in this syllabus is a break with the previous barren decade so well summed up by Michael Grimmitt when he accuses the educational climate of the 1990s of `deflecting teachers' attention away from the innovatory and creative pedagogies available to them and encouraging them to adopt narrow and limited styles of teaching which are politically safe but educationally regressive' (Grimmitt, 2000, p. 7).

In this syllabus there are two immediately apparent shifts away from recent syllabus orthodoxy. Firstly, instead of regurgitating the so-called `current' aims for religious education, or the more contemporary `importance of religious education' statement from the non-statutory national framework, this syllabus defines what it sees as the purpose of religious education. This is significant because stating what the purpose of a subject is, is different from stating what the perceived aims are. The identity of religious education as a curriculum subject is still a contested issue and this syllabus states clearly that the purpose of religious education is `to support students in developing their own coherent patterns of values and principles, and to support their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development'. Furthermore, `this entails encouragement of each student to interpret and respond to a variety of concepts, beliefs and practices within religions and to their own and others' cultural and life experiences' (p. 7).

The second break with the recent past, and this is even more radical, is to dispense with the two attainment targets of learning about religion and learning from religion. Instead there is one attainment target called `Interpreting religion in relation to human experience'. It is the unpacking of this attainment target that gives the syllabus its coherence. This is remarkably well achieved. `Interpretation' is understood and explained for teachers in a gradually more sophisticated way according to the age and ability of the students. It is closely linked to the development of skills applied to the understanding of concepts, which are classified as three types; type A concepts common to religious and non-religious experience, type B concepts that are common to many religions and that are used in the study of religion, and type C concepts that are particular to specific religions. These categories of concepts are presented as a hierarchy in the form of a triangle, with type C concepts at the highest point and type A concepts providing the foundational base. This conceptual development is to be

achieved through a methodology that requires the student to enquire, contextualise, evaluate, communicate their own response and apply it to their own and others' lives to test critically their own beliefs and values against issues encountered in life.

Elsewhere Erricker (2005, p. 30) has likened this process to cycling round a mountain (the triangle of conceptual development) on a mountain bike (the methodology as outlined above), with the point of the exercise encapsulated in the one attainment target.

This is a very helpful metaphor and I'm sure it will resonate with teachers. My one hesitation is that the message from this hierarchy of concepts seems to be the suggestion that concepts particular to specific religions are more complex and sophisticated than concepts in the other two categories. The diagrams in the syllabus also suggest that Key Stage 1 children enquire only amongst type A and type B concepts. I'm not sure about this. For example, I have seen early years children enjoy using the word ahimsa. Their understanding may be limited, that it means being kind to animals for example, but a more sophisticated understanding including Gandhi's use of the term can be developed later.

This method of enquiry and the skills required to achieve it are then expertly

integrated in to the presentation of knowledge and understanding, understood in

conceptual terms in the programme of study. Further guidance is given on constructing units of work in the six principal religious traditions. Again the methodology with its stages from enquiry to application is superbly related to examples of possible content that can be studied.

It is interesting to read of the possibility that in Key Stage 3 students might study

religion from a number of different perspectives (Erricker, 2005 p. 31). The point is made that such different perspectives as sociological/socio-anthropological, theological and philosophical are reflected in various ways in the work of leading religious educators such as Jackson, Cooling, Grimmitt and Erricker. A question then arises as to whether the pedagogical approaches of, say, Grimmitt, Jackson and the postmodern Erricker can be seen as tools in the RE kit bag, so to speak, or are their pedagogical principles, which must reflect certain assumptions about nature of religion and education, incompatible? And, of course there is the issue of time for religious education. Nevertheless a handbook is already being written and there are two advanced skills teachers producing two units of work, one based on sociological enquiry and one on Christian theological enquiry.

The Agreed Syllabus for Hampshire, Portsmouth and Southampton was developing contemporaneously with the QCA national framework. How much does this syllabus represent the framework or how far is it based upon it? Erricker claims (2005, p. 32) that it is complementary to the national framework because it provides a methodology for teaching and learning. That may be so but the attainment level and performance descriptions bear little resemblance to the national framework levels, being as they are extremely clearly linked to the conceptual structure outlined in the programme of study, and provide the clearest example yet of a developmental assessment scale.

What this syllabus most reminds me of is much of the material found in the

Westhill Project's How do I Teach RE? (Read et al., 1992). For example, the syllabus's purpose of RE statement is remarkably similar to that found on page 2 of the Westhill book, and the three categories of concepts mirror those found on pages 27-29 (see also Rudge, 1991, p. 25; Teece, 1996, pp. 15-18). When the Westhill Project was first published in 1986, Trevor Cooling noted in a complimentary review that his `main reservations that the new ground broken by the Project, in its emphasis on the importance of religious concepts as the key to understanding a belief system will be lost in the classroom' (Cooling, 1988, p. 182). Having being closely involved in the Westhill Project, I would say that Cooling's point here is extremely prescient. It is true that the pedagogical principles of the Project were seldom realised in the materials and hence the influence of the Project's principles was less than it deserved. This point could also be made about other significant religious education projects. Of course Cooling has attempted to address that concern with his `concept cracking' as

an approach to understanding the Christian tradition. What this syllabus does,

however, is to take a wider vision of religious education, essentially that of human development, and provide a detailed and comprehensive syllabus based on sound pedagogical principles. To my knowledge this is the first time that this has been achieved in a syllabus and it achieves this extremely well.

The excellence of this piece of work is also ample evidence, if evidence is needed, that there is no substitute for having people who know what they are doing involved in developing syllabuses and schemes for religious education. You can have as many official documents from the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority or the DfES as you like but there is no substitute for excellent personnel. Teachers in Hampshire, Portsmouth and Southampton are lucky. It appears that they have excellent personnel in abundance.

References

Cooling, T. (1988) Review: `The Westhill Project', British Journal of Religious Education, 10(3).

Erricker, C. (2005) Bike riding for beginners: living difference and a methodology for teaching and learning in RE, World Religions and Education (London, Shap).

Grimmitt, M. (Ed.) (2000) Pedagogies of Religious Education (Great Wakering, McCrimmons).

Read, G. et al. (1992) How do I Teach RE? (2nd edn) (Cheltenham, Stanley Thornes).

Rudge, J. (1991) Assessing Recording and Reporting RE: a Handbook for Teachers (Birmingham, Westhill College).

Teece, G. (1996) How to Write Your Scheme of Work for RE (Birmingham, Westhill College).

Geoff Teece, School of Education, University of Birmingham, UK.