Minutes:
Teacher Adviser for Religion, Values and Ethics presented to the Forum.
Key Points:
· A cluster Humanities Day was held at Caerleon Comprehensive which gave practitioners time to discuss their approaches to the Humanities curriculum, including RVE.
· Caerleon Comprehensive discussed what they do in Key Stage 3
· RVE is monitored through termly progress checks.
· Caerleon Comprehensive suggested that Primary schools could develop learners’ RVE skills such as: describe and explain religious events, practices and traditions. This can then be further developed in Year 7 as they begin to analyse, interpret and evaluate. Discussion of non-religious world views need to be included too.
· Discussions with the primary school practitioners indicate that the approach to RVE is a mixture of integrated and discrete lessons to provide depth of religious knowledge across Humanities subjects as they explore a concept. However, RVE does not always lend itself to the concept with some discrete teaching necessary to understand the religious beliefs and practices.
· Initial discussions highlighted that a more pluralistic approach was needed when teaching RVE and to provide greater opportunities for inquiry. The school also felt that they needed to implement a greater variety of ways to capture learning within RVE.
· Practitioners across the cluster are more confident in the delivery of RVE and feel that they have ‘something to work from’. When capturing RVE, practitioners are using a greater variety of resources, including videos.
· Schools report that learners are benefitting from capturing their RVE learning in a variety of ways, and enjoy different ways that RVE is being delivered. Planning and monitoring of RVE in schools shows that practitioners are beginning to think more about the pluralism within RVE and schools are reporting that learners are more confident to share what they think and give their opinion.
· Practitioners are also beginning to change their way of questioning and responding in lessons, ensuring that what they say is far more pluralistic, open-ended and allows pupils to think for themselves, developing different viewpoints.
· Collaboration with the schools in the cluster to discuss what the 3-16 curriculum should look like for RVE and gain shared ‘vision’. The RVE Network was beneficial in talking to other colleagues and sharing what has been done in different school settings around RVE. Education Achievement Service (EAS) shared progression maps for RVE and Humanities to begin the process of concept driven curriculum design.
The following was discussed:
The Forum stated that having a curriculum that is mapped out to ensure it is progressive and based on values allows schools to be far more comfortable with aspects of RVE.
The Forum stated that they found that children who are taught about different faiths are more rounded. They queried whether it would be possible to display some RVE work in the reception area of the Civic Centre. The Chair noted that they will look into this with the Head of Education.
The Forum stated that they were surprised in terms of the comprehensive view of looking at one religion each year as the big questions cross all religions and non-religious views. They enquired whether the Right to Withdraw still exists and if so, how would this work in primary schools. The Teacher Adviser for Religion, Values and Ethics informed the Forum that the Right to Withdraw has been removed within RVE. In the wider school, values that cover all of the school is more of a grey area, for example, Christmas. Within an RVE lesson, there is no right to withdraw however a Christmas concert would fall under collective worship so the Right to Withdraw applies. They informed the Forum that schools are good at knowing their parents and pupils and adapting to what works for their current learners. Time is the major issue and the focus on one religion allows them to make best use of their time.