RE Northern Ireland

Religious Education students from Queen's University, University of Ulster and Stranmillis University College were inspired by creative and thoughtful approaches to teaching RE at a one-day conference in Stranmillis led by Lat Blaylock and Stephen Pett of RE Today Services . The day involved a number of active workshops which challenged the students to think about their own values and opinions as well as how they might create a reflective and challenging environment in their own classrooms.  This event was also a unique opportunity for students from these different institutions to work together, to learn from each other and to connect with the local and national Religious Education community.  One Stranmillis student commented: 'Really enjoyed it! Lots of ideas and great resources.' Lat stated that the value of the event was to bring students together and to inspire them to take creative and thoughtful RE into classrooms. You can hear Lat in conversation with James Nelson

Some of the participants at the Spirituality and Education conference On 17th September, three university colleges from the island of Ireland held a one-day conference for teachers on Spirituality in Education at Stranmillis University College as part of a new research project investigating the opportunities and challenges for spiritual education in Primary and Post-Primary schools, North and South. The conference was led by Aostre Johnson, Professor of Education at St Michael's, Vermont who has published widely in the field of children's spirituality.  The day involved a range of work-shop based sessions on experiential learning as well as some presentations on theoretical perspectives.  James, Aostre and Aiveen The event was part of a research project funded by the North-South teacher education agency SCOTENS. Over the next six months the teachers will attempt to implement some of Aostre's ideas into their own classrooms and will record their progress in a learnin

According to the authors of a recent study the answer to the question, 'Does Religious Education Work?', is 'A heavily qualified yes.' They go on to say: 'In general religious education offers students a positive experience and a pedagogy that focuses on developing their discursive abilities and makes a contribution to multicultural awareness.'  The report is the result of a three-year investigation carried out by the University of Glasgow, King's College London and Queen's University Belfast (where a one-day seminar on the report was held recently).  Using qualitative and quantitative methods, researchers investigated the practices and outcomes of religious education in 24 schools across England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. While the report regards religious education generally positively it also makes clear that, in the schools it investigated, the subject 'did not, in the main, make students religiously literate' and that it suffered from

Teachers from eight schools across Northern Ireland had the rare opportunity to chat with Tony Blair during a video conference at Stranmillis University College. The teachers were participating in a one-day training event for the ‘Face to Faith’ programme run by the Tony Blair Faith Foundation (TBFF) which aims to facilitate inter-faith dialogue through video conferencing and online collaboration. During the session Mr Blair told the teachers: ‘Young people have an enormous appetite to learn about others who are different from them’ and he emphasised the positive value of enabling pupils to dialogue about faith issues and beliefs. Jo Malone, UK Coordinator of TBFF, introduced teachers to the basics of video-conferencing as well as the learning materials and cooperative learning techniques at the heart of the programme. During the day there were also international contributions from experienced inter-faith facilitators in India and Lebanon who stressed the benefits of Face to Faith

Is support for RE in schools in Northern Ireland on the wane?  It is possible to think that results of a recent survey commissioned by the Integrated Education Fund suggest so. Only a small minority of those surveyed (20%) said they want to see schools or the state as having the main responsibility for religious education and fewer than half (47%) believe the state should fund religious education. But what do these figures mean? A closer look shows that the language used in the survey is somewhat ambiguous, and the reporting potentially confusing. On the issue of funding religious education, for example, the question states:  In your opinion should schools providing one type of religious education and one type of religious observance be funded by ...?  In other words, the focus of the question is about non-inclusive faith-based education rather than broadly-based curriculum RE.  In the section in the report titled 'Main responsibility for religious education', the actual qu

As one of her final actions as Minister of Education, Caitriona Ruane has attempted to clarify the situation on opting out of Religious Education in schools in Northern Ireland. In response to a written question from Green Party MLA Brian Wilson, Ms Ruane stated: 'My Department has informed schools of their requirements and responsibilities to publish information in their schools prospectuses, including the teaching of Religious Education and parents’ right to withdraw their children. Additionally, new guidance provided recently for school governors in the on-line guide ‘Every School a Good School – The Governors’ Role’ includes a specific focus on the provision of religious education and highlights specifically parents’ right to withdraw their children along with governors’ responsibilities in relation to the promotion of equality, good relations and diversity. In line with this guidance, I expect schools to ensure that parents are notified of the facility to opt out of religious

  As part of Catholic Schools Week 2011 Bishop Donal McKeown spoke recently of the future of Catholic Education in Northern Ireland. In his address at Holy Cross College in Strabane he reflected on this year's theme: 'Catholic Schools - Rooted in Jesus Christ'. At the heart of his message was a call for a new relationship between school, parish and family in the education of young people: 'How we were schools in past is not the model for being a Catholic school in the new environment.' When the default position for Catholic children is now generally assumed to be non-involvement in a parish church, schools and parishes must do things differently, recognising 'what schools can do, and to accept what schools alone cannot do.' In a society where the greatest threat, he believes, is 'religious indifference', he reaffirmed the centrality of faith to all of life and all of education. Such formation in the faith could not be reduced to a qualification

Congratulations are due to Norman Richardson and Tony Gallagher for the provision of an excellent new publication, Education for Diversity and Mutual Understanding: the experience of Northern Ireland . Bringing a wealth of experience, locally and internationally, in the fields of inter-cultural education, peace education and education for mutual understanding the editors, along with other contributors, provide a much needed overview and analysis of developments in these fields in Northern Ireland. While the editors acknowledge in their Introduction that the story of mutual understanding and diversity work in education in Northern Ireland has not been without its difficulties, they are keen to draw out the valuable legacy of this work and the need to learn from both the positive and negative aspects of it. In this way the book points to the future as well as reflecting on the past and reminds educators and policy makers about the need for continued attention to these important iss

The RE community is mourning the passing of Terence Copley. He was an important and influential scholar who as teacher, author and teacher-educator contributed much to the RE community in England and beyond and whose work inspired many local RE teachers during their studies in Initial Teacher Education. In relation to Northern Ireland Terence will be remembered for his challenging comments on the aims of the first Core Syllabus for Religious Education, when he questioned the nature of the 3 Attainment Targets (Revelation of God, Christian Church, Christian Morality). More recently his vision of a broader, more open form of RE that acknowledges wide diversity has given food for thought in our local context (see Nelson 2007, p. 13 ): 'What British religious education needs to do… is not to continue teaching a sort of disembodied world-religions course as it is currently doing, but to engage with the complex cultural realities of religion in Britain, including popular spiritualiti