Education | Call for post-9/11 RE teaching
RE teachers must provide children with a more sophisticated understanding of the subject in a post-11 September world, Ofsted says.
After a five-year inspection of RE classes which began in the year of the attacks on the US, Ofsted says rote learning of RE is no longer adequate.
It says teachers should include ways in which religion is not always a force for good.
BBC NEWS | Education | Call for ‘post-9/11’ RE teaching.
The guest speaker at our meeting in Ipswich on 13 June, the BHA’s Education & Public Affairs Officer Andrew Copson, was interviewed on BBC News 24 today, 17 June, about this Ofsted report, together with Kate Ivens from the Campaign for Real Education (I think we might differ about what “real education” means). She claimed that young children were “confused” by learning about a variety of faiths and secular world views.
Ofsted has also suggested it’s time to consider a new national RE curriculum:
It says that lessons often fail to build on prior learning. There is no national curriculum in RE.
Instead, all 151 local authorities are responsible for developing their own locally agreed syllabus. Ofsted says that hinders attempts to raise standards in RE, and consistency, across the country.
Suffolk county council’s new RE syllabus will be taught from September this year.