RELIGIOUS EDUCATION AND CROSS-CURRICULAR THEMES

The National Curriculum requires all subjects, including RE, to make a contribution to the following five themes:

(a) Economic and industrial understanding;
(b) Education for citizenship;
(c) Careers education and guidance;
(d) Health education;
(e) Environmental education.

The degree of contribution is clearly affected by:

(i) the maturity of pupils;
(ii) the overall allocation of curricular time;
(iii) the available resources;
(iv) the nature of the course being run at any given time by individual subjects or topics.

Integral to the planning, development and evaluation of a school's curriculum, these themes can be represented in at least the following ways in RE:

(a) attitudes to wealth and values in society; the value of people created by God; first and third world issues;
(b) the Components of Celebrations, Ethics and Founders seen in a variety of faiths;
(c) the concept of vocation; some aspects of Ethics, e.g. community support and charities;
(d) the Ethics Components again, and KS4 and 16-19 work on social issues and marriage/family;
(e) Beliefs Components, particularly concerning creation and the stewardship of God's world (e.g. the Islamic notion of Khalifah), Components of Ethics and Worship, particularly contemplation of nature; Celebrations Components, especially Harvest and equivalent occasions.

Schools must present clear evidence of the presence of these themes in their Syllabuses and programmes of study.

The Revd Peter Jackson Chaplain and Head of Religious Studies, Harrow School Next... or go back to the Contents