ENGLISH BACCALAUREATE


The RE debate


Deborah Weston, from the National Association of


Teachers of RE, argues why excluding RE from the EBacc is just the tip of the iceberg


P 12


EOPLE WORRY that matters of religion and belief have become over politicised and some dream of days past when children were schooled never to discuss religion and politics over the dinner table. The facts are that the modern


generation enjoy discussing religion and politics. You only have to look at some of the discussions young people have on social networking sites and the causes they sign up to, to know that they relish asking questions, the more challenging and complex the better – and they do not get much more challenging than those found in the field of religion, philosophy and ethics. As any parent knows, the questions start young –


how many have been flummoxed by the three-year-old who finds the most awkward moment to ask: “What happens when we die?” Ask the school teacher, who in a very well planned lesson during an Ofsted visit was asked: “Who precisely and exactly is God?” As the children get older the questions may become


more personal and vital. After the July 7 bombings in central London, a religious education (RE) teacher was sought out by her Muslim students: “Miss,” they asked earnestly, “we don’t believe in suicide do we?” In this context it is unsurprising that religious studies


(RS) as a GCSE and an A level subject is one of the great success stories of the last decade with the number of entries for GCSE full course in the UK rising from around 116,000 in 2000 to 189,000 in 2010 and A level from around 9,000 to 21,000 in the same period. Don’t let anyone tell you that this rise is because


the subject is compulsory; required to be taught to all children on the school roll unless they are withdrawn by their parents. While the popularity of the short course can in part be accounted for in this way, as its introduction was welcomed by pupils, schools and their teachers as an opportunity to gain accreditation for their


core RE lessons, the same is generally not true for the full course and certainly not at A level. In most schools in the country, GCSE full course RS takes its chances alongside other humanities subjects in the options choices made by 13 and 14-year-olds. Teenagers and their parents take these decisions


very seriously. Year 9 is the first time for most students that they have had any choice in which courses they will study. The choices they make may surprise some people but the current split in the humanities subjects is fairly even with around the same numbers opting for each of the three main players – history, geography and religious studies. The EBacc has changed all that in the vast majority


of schools. The first retrospective table measuring what the media labelled a “gold standard” of five academic GCSEs, excludes RS entirely. An Early Day Motion calling for RS to be included in the EBacc has now attracted 106 signatures from MPs (from all the major parties). Sensibly, none of the defenders of the current EBacc


appear to be claiming that RS is somehow a “soft subject”, less academically rigorous than other humanities subjects. Serious academic research would soon defeat that claim. We have however, been told that RS does not need to be included in the EBacc since it is compulsory and by implication all students study it already. The latest release of Department for Education


data however, appears to disprove that claim since this exposes the fact that around 862 schools offer no GCSE in RS at all. Since the vast majority of statutory local agreed syllabuses and other guidelines for RE follow the Non-Statutory National Framework recommendation that at key stage 4 all students should follow the short course as a minimum entitlement, it is likely that most of those 862 schools will be choosing to ignore the law. Ministers and government officials often appear


shocked that some headteachers and governing bodies may consider breaking the law on RE to improve their students’ chances of achieving the EBacc. They should not really be shocked; teachers care deeply about their students and of course senior leaders will take action to protect the reputation of their schools because that too affects students’ life chances. The reality is that breaking the law on RE is almost


certainly going to have far less serious consequences for a school than appearing in the lower end of a performance table. The systematic inspection of subjects as part of the general Ofsted inspection ended long ago and issues of legal compliance are now relegated to a tick-sheet deep inside the school self- evaluation form and comments about this failing, if made at all, will be equally deeply buried in the report, having no real impact on the overall judgement. However, we should not be too hard on the


headteachers or governing bodies. When the media have described the EBacc as a “gold standard” and government ministers repeatedly state that it is an “academic core”, it really is not surprising to see schools make immediate changes to their curriculum offer to accommodate it. A performance table which could easily be


interpreted as showing that students in many schools failed to achieve academic success was certainly going to get schools’ attention even if they did not agree with the definition. I was surprised by the speed at which these changes happened however, some as early as the month of the announcement with students already more than two months into courses. So much for the technicalities, why should we care?


Some would say RE has been protected by its special status for too long. My answer would be, ask a teenager, watch the news, consider the sort of ignorance about religion and belief that existed not so long ago and still does exist in some quarters. Isn’t it important for school-leavers to be religiously


literate? Do we not want them to be able to understand the religions and beliefs of the people they communicate, live or work with? The short course may provide the basics, but we need the experts, scholars and thinkers of the future who will take their place on the world’s stage and tackle small and large problems with a deep understanding of the great religions of world, the philosophers and ethical theorists and the impact these both have on people’s lives today. These roles would have been taken by the


next generation of GCSE full course candidates, a proportion of whom will go on to study A level, take degrees in RS, philosophy and ethics and some may


A timetabling headache


With the so-called “small core of academic subjects” of the EBacc plus the standard key stage 4 curriculum core offer of a second English GCSE, often a third science plus statutory PE and PSHE taking up around 80 per cent of the timetable, there are some hard decisions to be made, especially for schools with resources, staffing and ethos dedicated to a specialism such as the arts or technology. How does RS fit? Just 10 days after the announcement of the shape of the EBacc, the


answer to this question became painfully clear – it does not, or at least not easily. Around 30 per cent of the 800 teachers who responded to a National Association of


Teachers of RE (NATRE) survey reported cuts in timetable time, staffing or both in their schools. Core RE was more likely to survive, but excluded from the humanities options box, full course RS was left competing with the other outsiders; the arts, technology including IT and any vocational courses that survived. In many cases, it has just been cut and in some, the core RE has gone too, the local


agreed syllabus ignored with dubious claims being made that RE is being covered in tutorial time or off-timetable days.


even become the world leaders of tomorrow – versed not only in their own religious traditions or ethical world views but with a compassion and sensitivity to other perspectives too. But it is not only for these public roles that we


need experts in religion and belief. Journalists too need to know and understand this subject. Some of the misreporting about the beliefs and practices of Islam in the last few years has left me shuddering with the knowledge that it will have played its part in increasing Islamophobia and other forms of religious intolerance. Doctors, nurses, lawyers, soldiers, travel agents, supermarket workers, in fact any career or profession that involves contact or communication with human beings, needs expertise in religion and belief. So Mr Gove, over to you. You stated publicly that


you would listen to arguments for the inclusion of subjects in the EBacc in the 2011 table. Don’t take my word for it; listen to a five minute film about opting for RS where young people speak for themselves (see further information). For all our sakes, I hope you listen or you risk going down in history as the minister who accidentally dismantled one of the treasures of our educational system.


SecEd


• Deborah Weston teaches RE as part of the humanities team at a London state community secondary school. She is also directs the school’s community cohesion work, is executive support to the chair of the National Association of RE Teachers and is honorary secretary of the Religious Education Council of England and Wales.


Further information NATRE film: www.natre.org.uk/explore/video.php


SecEd • June 16 2011


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