Minutes:
WORLDVIEWS
In 2018 the RE report made lots of recommendations.One of those being to not limit discussion to the big six religions but to broaden it and change the name of religious education to religion and worldviews. That hasn't happened and nothing from that report has become statutory but it's been massively influential to thinking around our RE curriculum.
Definition of Worldviews
‘A worldview is a person’s way of understanding, experiencing and responding to the world. It can be described as a philosophy of life or an approach to life. This includes how a person understands the nature of reality and their own place in the world. A person’s worldview is likely to influence and be influenced by their beliefs, values, behaviors, experiences, identities and commitments.’
Angela played a video ‘Nobody Stands Nowhere’ which encapsulates a lot of the thinking around the commission’s recommendations on RE.
The video can be found here Nobody Stands Nowhere - Theos Think Tank - Understanding faith. Enriching society.
Shifting to world view reflects society which is less religious than it once was and is also more inclusive, encouraging people to realise that everyone believes something. This would mean that RE is more inclusive and perhaps more relevant.
The topic of Religion and Worldviews is messy to say the least and, whilst there has been a great deal of thinking behind it, there is no firm consensus of what it is. But, it encourages us to recognise the messiness of human experience and the complexity of belief and the interchange between different religions and worldviews, ideas and ideologies and encourages us to celebrate the messiness. And this needs to be considered when we look at the new curriculum.
You will see from the diagram in the slides that there are opportunities as well as threats in shifting to the religion and worldview paradigm. One negative aspect is that there is too much subjectivity in relation to what you include or exclude from the topic. Ofsted are keen to see that schools have prepared pupils well for life in a multi-religious multi-secular world where worldviews are complex with people perhaps holding multi views and faiths at the same time.
Draft Handbook on Religion and Worldviews in the Classroom: Developing a worldviews approach - See handouts from page 58 -69 in the Agenda pack.
As part of a three-year Worldviews project , the RE Council of England and Wales (REC) has published a draft Handbook for Religion and Worldviews in the Classroom.
The Draft Handbook sets out a rationale for a religion and worldviews approach, building on the developments since the 2018 Commission report. It incorporates a revised National Statement of Entitlement (NSE), which gives a clear description of an education in religion and worldviews, and sets a benchmark for high-quality teaching and learning. The Handbook then offers practical guidance, including how to use the NSE to develop a syllabus or curriculum, applying ways of knowing, developing pupils’ personal worldviews, and what progress looks like in a worldviews approach.
We will aim to look at this in more detail at our next meeting.
Anju asked whether the curriculum would need to be changed in line with this. Angela advised that at the moment, this is just something for us to be aware of, that this is the current thinking and that it will probably be relevant when we look at reviewing the syllabus next year.
Shira commented that she has misgivings about it as, for example, Judaism is not a worldview but a way of life, a culture, an identity, a history, whereas the term ‘Worldview’ seems focus on individualism. Angela pointed out that, whilst she had only been able to give a taster to the topic this evening, Shira’s views highlight the complexity and the need for wider discussion.
ACTION Here is a link to the Draft Handbook. Could everyone please read it and come to the next meeting prepared with views and comments.