#cofeeducation

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Understanding Christianity – a six months’ report

A major new resource from the Church of England to help teach Christianity has been a big hit with thousands of schools in its first six months. Derek Holloway explains why the combination of academic rigour and unlocking the big questions of life make this a key building block for pupils’ development.  

Over 2, 000 schools have been introduced to our major new teaching resource, Understanding Christianity, in its first six months. The response from teachers and pupils has been very positive from Church and community schools alike.

This is a genuine step forward following a 2014 report which recommended a more coherent and challenging approach to the teaching of Christianity.

The resource helps develop greater theological literacy and a deep understanding of the Christian narrative in pupils aged between 4 and 14. This in turn helps young people to make sense of the world and their experience within it as well as helping to give young people confidence to have informed conversations about belief and faith.

We have over 60 accredited trainers across England who have been busy training teachers to deliver this demanding resource in their own setting. This gives teachers access to up to 15 hours professional development support.

The Understanding Christianity teaching resources and training include a teacher's handbook, 29 units of work from Foundation Stage 2 to Year 9, the 'Big Frieze' illustration and guide book (artwork by Emma Yarlett). Available to all schools across the country via this training, the resource was written by a team of RE advisers from RE Today Services, in collaboration with more than 30 expert teachers and academics, and has been trialled in over 50 schools.

In Norwich Diocese, 100 teachers and educators have been trained. One head teacher from a primary school in Norwich said, ‘Yesterday was phenomenal. Understanding Christianity will have a huge impact on the teaching and learning and consequently on the children’s understanding’. In Exeter Diocese, over 90 teachers have been trained. The highly experienced and respected Diocesan RE adviser, Ed Pawson, says of the resources: ‘I can honestly say that Understanding Christianity is the best set of teaching and learning resources that I have come across in 25 years of teaching RE’.

Why is the take up of this resource so important? The answer is not just about theological literacy. Understanding Christianity also contributes to much wider educational purposes such as spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and promoting British Values and combating extremism, specifically through developing pupils’ skills in interpreting texts and handling controversy.

The Understanding Christainity resource has sparked considerable debate in the Religious Education community with other faith groups now calling for a return to a more systematic delivery of the core beliefs of each faith under study. It looks like being the game changing development in RE.

Derek Holloway, School Character and SIAMS Development Manager, Church of England. @HollowayDerek

For more information visit the Understanding Christianity website: www.understandingchristianity.org.uk

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Church schools for the whole community

The Revd Nigel Genders, Chief Education Officer for The Church of England, looks ahead to Education Sunday this weekend by celebrating Church schools and reflecting on recent government announcements on the future of education.

Education Sunday is a chance to celebrate, rejoice with and pray for all those involved in the vital work of education.

High quality education should be available to all and we continue to work to ensure that excellent provision is available everywhere for everyone. With many schools reporting that they feel under increasing pressure to make artificial choices between academic rigour and the wellbeing of their pupils, we are unequivocal in our message that there is no such distinction - a good education must promote life in all its fullness.

But the educational landscape is a finely balanced ecosystem and changing one aspect of it can lead to unintended consequences in another. Therefore, like everyone else in the education world, we will look carefully at the proposals about grammar schools announced by the Prime Minister today and respond fully to consultations as they are published. The proposal represents a major change in the landscape and we will ensure that our experience of providing schools in areas where there are selective schools is used to contribute to the debate, because we know the challenges and complexities of the system.

We are glad that the Prime Minister recognises the need to ensure that the whole system serves everyone and removes disadvantage. Our fundamental commitment in providing schools is that every pupil should be enabled to flourish, whatever their background. The priority for an improving school system should be to ensure that this is made possible for each person, no matter the circumstances into which they are born or the struggles they may face as learners.

Competition for places occurs where our schools are oversubscribed due to their popularity.  We are confidently planning to open new Church of England schools, particularly new secondary schools so that more of the 800,000 pupils who choose a Church of England primary school education can have access to a secondary education that shares our vision for education which promotes life in all its fullness. And we want to provide more primary schools too, because there is a constant demand for more school places of the quality that our schools rightly have a reputation for as they promote education for wisdom, hope, community and dignity.

The government proposals may lead to a lifting of the cap on faith-based places, but we remain committed to ensuring our schools serve their local community. Our schools are not faith schools for the faithful, they are Church schools for the community, and we don’t propose to change that. Very few select exclusively by Christian affiliation and many of our schools have large numbers of children of other faiths or no faith. Those that give priority to Christian children, do so in areas where competition for places is acute and providing places purely on distance from the school would mean that only the wealthiest, who can afford to move house nearby, can access the best schools.

So, this Education Sunday more than ever, we need to pray for all those working in education. For leaders and teachers, support staff, politicians and government officials, praying for wisdom to do the very best for every child we serve.

The Revd Nigel Genders

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Do you remember your first day at secondary school?

If you answered “yes”, you are not alone, however long ago that day might have been!  ‘Moving up’ from primary to secondary education is one of the most significant transitions we make in our lives.

As the summer holiday draws to a close, children who are moving to secondary school – and their families – encounter a wide range of emotions: excitement, anxiety, nostalgia, discomfort, hope.  The sense of pride at reaching this new stage of life is felt together with the bereavement of leaving old friends, schools and teachers behind.  There are many unknowns: will I make friends?  What will the older students be like?  Will I get bullied?  What if the teachers are strict and I don’t understand the work? The experience of feeling all this can be bewildering.

It’s true that secondary school brings many new challenges.  Children who were accompanied to school and collected by an adult are now making their own way on public transport.  Gone is the familiar classroom where every day was spent; here is a perplexing array of buildings with different rooms for each subject. Secondary students have to learn how to be responsible for themselves, their timetable and their belongings, and small mistakes can feel like they’ve turned into mountains.  Lost your pencil case?  It could be in seven different places.  Mixed up week 1 and week 2 on the timetable?  You’re now on the wrong side of the school, ten minutes late and the staircases that move around in Hogwarts feel like they’re suddenly real.

Before long, these worries will become a distant memory.  But all transitions take time, and it’s perfectly normal to take several months before the new school really feels like ‘home.’

One of the people who can help with this transition is the school chaplain.  Until recently, school chaplains were unusual outside independent schools.  But in recent years, chaplains have been on the increase across all kinds of schools: most Church of England secondary schools have a chaplain, and many non-church schools have chaplains too.  Chaplains come in all shapes and sizes: men and women, clergy and lay people, teachers and non-teachers, full time and part time. 

School chaplains will be involved in the transition process from primary to secondary school, and are one of the people that a child can turn to for help in those first weeks and beyond.

As an ordained chaplain I’m quite conspicuous around the school - I’m the one in the dog collar - and I’m one of the few adults who gets called by my first name (“Mother Ellen”). This means the students can easily recognise me and come and ask for help without feeling they are approaching another unknown, unfamiliar person. 

Chaplains are visible as the “God-person” in school, but we are there for all students, of any faith or none.  Chaplains have the time and space to be available for people, to listen when someone is worried, upset, or angry, offer reassurance or point them in the right direction (“the library’s this way”). Because we are there for everyone, parents and carers can also contact us when they need support – whether that’s for their child or for themselves.  

If you know a child starting secondary school this autumn, reassure them and remember: keep calm, you’re not on your own, and if in doubt seek out the chaplain!

The Reverend Ellen Eames is School Chaplain at Saint Gabriel’s College, a Church of England secondary school in Camberwell, South London.

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‘We thought about what a young refugee would need if they came to our school, and that we could set an example for how refugees should be treated’

Why 14 and 15 year olds at Saint Gabriel’s College, a Church of England secondary school in South London, have set up a network of Refugee Welcome Schools and are hosting this week the first summit of schools who want to do more for this vulnerable group.

Amanda:  Last autumn, the news was full of pictures of the Syrian refugees being forced to leave their homes and make terrifying journeys.  So many refugees are just young people like us, and if we were in that situation, we would hope that someone would be willing to help.  One of our school Christian values is Service to Others – Jesus teaches us to help our neighbour.  We decided that we wouldn’t just walk on past as people suffered but that we would do whatever we could.

Oliwia: Our school is a member of Citizens UK, a community organising movement that helps people to become leaders, work together and change things for the better.  We felt that the refugee crisis was very important to us so we wanted to take action that would make a difference.  We are an inclusive Christian school with students of different faiths, languages and cultures, so we are already quite good at welcoming students who arrive from other countries.  We thought about what a young refugee would need if they came to our school, and that we could set an example for how refugees should be treated.

Megan: We came up with the idea of becoming a “Refugees Welcome School”, so that we can play our part in responding to the crisis and be ready to give refugees who arrive here the support they need.  We worked with our Citizens UK organiser to design a “Refugees Welcome School” commitment. Schools that sign up to this promise to teach all their pupils about refugees, and provide a welcome to refugee students including English language support, a school “buddy” and welcome activities.  Schools all over the country have signed up to the initiative which is incredibly exciting.

Crystal: Being a Refugees Welcome School also means using our public voice and organising with our local community to support refugee resettlement.  We can’t just wait for the government to sort everything out - we would be waiting for ever! For example, despite the government’s promise to resettle 20,000 people, by October very few refugees had arrived. We took part in the “1000 Before Christmas” vigil outside the Houses of Parliament.  I had never spoken in public before, but that day I spoke to a crowd of 1000 people about Refugees Welcome Schools and the fact that we are ready to resettle refugees – so the government should be too. One week later the Prime Minister announced that Britain would resettle 1000 refugees by Christmas –  which we did! We also worked with local faith groups to convince our council, Lambeth, to agree to resettle 20 families. Working together with other people can really make things change for the better.

Danielle: In Refugee Week we are hosting a summit for Refugees Welcome Schools.  25 primary and secondary schools are attending from all over the country with 100 young people with their teachers.  They include Christians, Muslims, atheists – everyone!  We can’t believe that our idea has come so far.  The summit will be a chance to share ideas and good practice, think about further action we can take, and celebrate the work that schools and young people can do to support refugees.  We hope that many schools will become Refugees Welcome Schools so together we can really make a difference.

Listen here to Rev Ellen Eames, Chaplain of St Gabriel’s, talk about how she has supported her students who have developed Refugees Welcome Schools and the preparations for the summit.

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Schools blog: Non-selective Church secondary education in a grammar school county

In a rigidly selective county education system, Bennett Memorial School stands out for the high aspirations it has for students irrespective of their exam results at age 11.

Bennett Memorial is in the leafy town of Tunbridge Wells, in West Kent.  Most people would laugh at the notion that a town like this has pockets of deprivation, but it does have precisely that, and this is magnified by being situated in an area of secondary school selection.  The primary schools are themselves quite divided along the lines of strong 11+ schools and the rest, and that division reflects socio-economic realities of the sub-communities the schools serve. 

In a rigidly selective county like Kent, with 100 secondary schools of which a third are grammars, Bennett is far and away the highest performing non-selective secondary. Moreover, because it is semi-rural, and close to the East Sussex border, we have large numbers of small village primary schools in the mix too. 

We are part of The Tenax Schools Trust (tenax = Latin for ‘tenacious’, and reflects the original motto of the founder school, Bennett Memorial). The Trust is a partnership which aims are to nurture and develop our shared Church ethos and to promote ever improving educational opportunity and outcomes for children.

We are located in an area where the towns are growing fast.  Our first project was to develop a proposal for a brand new primary school with an Anglican Church ethos.  This free school bid was successful and the new school will be opening in 2017. We have subsequently made a second free school bid, very similar in style to the first but this time in cooperation with a local ecumenical partnership (LEP) so the school if approved will have a joint Anglican and Methodist designation and character.

The way in which we seek to move forward together as a Trust founded on Christian thinking about education, is to focus on the potential of every child and young person to learn and progress and the belief in the value of every child as created by God.  We also place great emphasis on the building of character qualities, not in a fuzzy way, but through challenge.

Examples of this include an expectation that all students in years 10 and 11 complete the Duke of Edinburgh Award, which makes us one of the largest D of E centres in the South East, and regularly recognised as such. Pushing barriers and doing things you thought you couldn't do or which you find very uncomfortable is part of discovering who you could become. This has led to young people with little history of achievement gaining in confidence and establishing strong friendship networks which have enabled them to achieve at unexpectedly high levels

We are also a musical school, with a full time non-teaching music director and our own music academy which replaced the LA music school. All our students are expected to be in a choir of some sort, whether they believe they can sing or not. Once again, this helps unlock potential not only in music but more widely, including those who, in our local context, had been told they were 'not bright' at age 11.

Ian Bauckham, Executive Head Teacher, Bennett Memorial School.

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Informed conversation and dialogue about belief and faith are key to a peaceful society

Nigel Genders, Chief Education Officer for the Church of England, gave oral evidence to the All Party Parliamentary Group for Religious Education on Religious Literacy on 3rd May 2016. 

When I last spoke to the APPG we were asking what RE in schools is for, and I suggested that it should primarily be about religious or theological literacy. So I am delighted that the APPG is dedicating such a serious amount of time to the question of religious literacy. The discussion concerns the role for religious literacy in society, but my starting point is the education system as a point of focus to make a significant difference.

This ability for people to have informed conversation and dialogue about belief and faith is key to a peaceful society and helps combat ignorance and extremism; We need to provide a language and understanding that enables people to disagree well and to navigate, with respect, the increasingly diverse world of religion and belief in modern Britain.

Developing Religious Literacy involves:-

Asking enquiring questions about religion and belief and making informed responses to them;

Investigating the nature of religion and belief itself;

Understanding the impact that religions and belief have on individuals and society;

Understanding the diversity of religion and belief in the contemporary world;

Employers increasingly recognise the importance of faith and belief in the workplace, both in terms of how to respect and celebrate the diversity it brings to the workplace, but also the way greater religious literacy leads to more effective engagement in global terms.

But it is more than an economic tool, it should be purposeful and formational. It is about more than having enough knowledge to hold an informed conversation – its purpose is to equip people to engage in a way which helps them to answer the big questions of life for themselves:

Who am I? Why am I here? How then should I live?

And there is greater purpose beyond simply individualistic answer to those questions – answering them should enrich the lives of individuals but should also positively affect their engagement with their local community, society and public life;

Religious literacy is a rich but broad term.  At the heart of religious literacy in a church school is theological literacy. We believe that theological literacy is an essential and distinctive element of religious literacy. Where religious literacy focuses on the human experience of religion and belief, theological literacy focuses on the big concepts upon which religions are founded, such as God.

And it’s vital that we take religious and theological literacy seriously because, in recent years RE has been used to meet broader school needs and political agendas, and has often been confused with citizenship, PSHE, Moral education and fundamental British values. These agendas are often good things in themselves, but too often RE has been seen as a way of ticking a box and this has lessened the effectiveness of the subject in informing real debate about issues. Sadly this has often diluted the central purpose of the subject. As a result too many in education and wider society now see RE as a quick fix way of combating extremism or promoting community cohesion or character.

Curriculum development now needs to return to and reflect the central importance of Religious Literacy in RE. Our soon to be published Understanding Christianity resource begins the rebalancing.  

The Understanding Christianity project models an approach that explores the core concepts of Christianity in a way which engages with biblical text through a structure of an enquiry model of ‘text: impact: connections’ thus developing both religious and theological literacy.

It will sit proudly alongside the philosophical and ethical elements of RE, but is fundamental to an approach which provides the sound subject knowledge that ‘Educational Excellence Everywhere’ calls for and the training package that we will offer to enable teachers to access the project will develop the theological literacy and provide the support which teachers.

We hope this will encourage others to produce resources that focus anew on developing pupil’s Religious Literacy in other faith traditions and world views.

This approach to Religious Literacy will focus on KS1-3 but provide a firmer base for GCSE and A level by strengthening further the academic rigour of the subject. We fear, however, that RE’s absence from the core Ebacc risks losing the gains made.

In a system full of accountability measures, it is no surprise that schools will focus attention on things they are held accountable for, so it is essential that we continue to argue the case for RE to be included in those measures. At the very time the government wants more from RE in terms of building the literacy needed to engage positively in the world, the consequences of not including RE in EBacc will have a detrimental impact.

I started by saying that education is the obvious place to focus energy if we are to improve religious literacy in society – but mustn’t see education as the sole focus.

In schools, communities and society as a whole, we need religious literacy to enable people to live well together. Not rationalising things down or pretending all religions are the same or basically agree – but to equip people to have genuine engagement about differences of faith and belief so that they can understand one another and live well together.

Nigel Genders, Chief Education Officer, Church of England. The APPG for RE is a cross-party group focusing on the provision of religious education in the UK.

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Schools Blog: How pupils flourish at a non-selective Sunderland primary school

A million children of all faiths and none pass through the doors of Church of England Schools each day. Our schools serve rural, urban and suburban communities. Each school grapples with challenges ranging from deprivation, living well together to how to nurture children in a digital and consumerist age. In this series head teachers show how the children in their care are equipped to flourish and greet the future with confidence.

Steve Williamson is Head Teacher of Northern Saints Church of England (VA) Primary School in Sunderland, recently shortlisted for a national award by the Department for Education.

Northern Saints is a fairly new, non-selective, Church of England Primary formed from two predecessor schools that, it’s fair to say, had a variable history of results. Using the Local Authority Admissions Code we do not select by faith or prior attainment and serve the immediate community which is in an area of social and economic deprivation.

We are delighted that we have been selected as a finalist in the National Pupil Premium Awards 2016. It’s wonderful that we have been recognized as excelling in the work we do to improve the life chances of all our children, particularly the disadvantaged.  We receive over £300,000 pupil premium currently, funding which reflects about half of our pupils.

Some of our children come from homes where parents find it difficult to teach their children some of the basics they need for educational success.  Over time we’ve developed a very strong partnership with Seven Stories, which is the National Centre for Children’s Books based in Newcastle. They showed us research that demonstrated successful adults have developed a love and enjoyment of reading which, if nurtured at an early age, could easily be replicated throughout a school setting.

So we set up the Reader in Residence scheme using Pupil Premium funding which pays for a ‘Reader’ for 2 days each week. The work is transforming our children's early reading experience.   They work with parents and pupils modelling how to read with their children and get the best results.  The impact is exceptional and ensures our pupils flourish in a broad and balanced educational setting.

One of my favourite uses of the premium is the pet therapy reptile room.  Yes I did say reptile room, that’s snakes, tree frogs, bearded dragons and I believe the children want tarantulas !! We work in partnership with one of our local reptile shops in the North East to train pupils and help them overcome their fears in handling and showing animals. They care for these animals, learn to focus their minds. And we see that attendance improves and they apply the lessons learned to their other subject studies.  

I often repeat to my staff something Sir Tim Brighouse once told me when he was School Commissioner for London. Church schools should not just care about children, they should care about what they might become. I’ve really tried to keep that in mind throughout my career and I believe that making partnerships with key organisations such as Schools North East, our wonderful Universities and The National Glass Centre here in Sunderland creates successful models of work that can be replicated elsewhere; it’s all bringing our North East community together to remove barriers to achievement showing that we can ensure our children are successful and ready to compete in a global marketplace.

In a recent letter from Nick Gibb MP the schools minister told me that our Church of England Primary, which doesn’t select and is open to all, is in the UK 100 Top Performing Schools for the progress that children make. Top 100 out of 16,766.  How inspiring is that for our pupils?  

So the Pupil Premium Awards tell just part of the success story of our Church schools and we are hoping to win the National prize, but, if we don’t, are content knowing that we are making successful futures for our children.

After the London award ceremony I’m going to take the children to the river where they will have a view of the City, London Bridge and St. Paul’s Cathedral.  There’s a real mix of faith, values and hope secured in the vibrant celebration of life that London contains. I know that my children will look up at the shard and say “Wow – that’s incredible”. You see, St. Paul’s and The Shard tell the story of pupil premium and the hope that Church schools can bring young people.  They seem to say “You may start low, perhaps feeling insignificant, but with the right emphasis, values and support – the sky really is the limit”.

Steve Williamson is Head Teacher of Northern Saints Church of England (VA) Primary School in Sunderland

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Safe places to talk about God

Rowan Ferguson is Head of Schools Policy at the Church of England Education Office.

Talking about God at school is crucial to ensuring children can know themselves and each other.

There are some who feel religion has no place in school. I think this is a dangerous idea. The answer to the great challenges of ignorance and intolerance is to bring the reality of belief, in all its forms, into the daily lives of children. Encountering belief is part of shaping identity and fostering understanding of wider society. We do not exist in a vacuum, but in community. Through encountering our own traditions and histories, and those of others, we find a greater depth of maturity and expression.

Church of England schools offer a safe space to talk about God in an atmosphere of respect. Pushing discussion of belief out of school is more likely to create feelings of disaffection than providing for safe reflection. Last year I spoke at a conference of the Association of Muslim schools. It was hugely encouraging to talk with Muslim educators who agree that tolerance, curiosity and mutual understanding comes from places where talk about God is given space.

The education landscape is changing rapidly. Last year and the early part of this, much work was done to shape the Education and Adoption Act 2016. The newly published MOU follows many months of talks with government to set out principles and working practices to ensure the diocesan family of church schools is maintained as a key feature of this new landscape. Parents, teachers, governors and the million pupils in our schools can be reassured that the distinct ethos of their communities are secure for the future.

The government have since published a white paper, Educational Excellence Everywhere, which sets out further significant changes. We await draft legislation and will continue talking with government to advocate for schools as safe places to talk about God.

Church of England schools offer pupils opportunities to encounter God and ask the big questions Jonathan Sacks identifies in his book, Not in God’s Name: who am I? Why am I here? And how then shall I live? By exploring these questions through creating real understanding of faith in its many forms pupils gain values such as tolerance, and acceptance of difference and diversity.

In many Church schools a good proportion of pupils are of another faith or none. To some it is counter-intuitive that the ritual and symbols of Christianity, present in our schools and deep in their ethos, do not put off Muslim or Jewish parents. Respect for and celebration of faith in our schools is widely welcomed by non-Christian parents and those without faith. In schools such as Bishop Bridgeman School in Bolton where 80% of the pupils are non-Christian, discussions about belief provide for an inclusive approach to faith, transparent but without indoctrination, and are reflected in relationships beyond the school gates.

In the talk of academisation, MATs, memoranda and white papers, we are keeping our eyes focused on service to the 1 million pupils in Church of England schools, and continuing to build safe spaces in which they learn to flourish and grow.