SECONDARY school pupils who lack confidence in expressing their very own religious beliefs, or openness to hearing those of others, are being helped by latest resources exploring “the lived experience of freedom of faith and belief within the UK”, a seminar on the House of Lords this week heard.
The resources include case studies on the effect of recent anti-Israel protests on the Westminster synagogue, and the discrimination faced by the Ahmadiyaa Muslim community within the UK. Developed by Religious Education (RE) teachers working with Professor James Holt, associate professor of RE on the University of Chester, they draw on an 18-month research project (Lived Experiences of Religious Freedom: Organisational challenges within the UK) led by Dr Matyas Bodi of Regents Park College, Oxford, in partnership with the Freedom Declared Foundation.
As well as real-life case studies, the resources include lesson plans to assist teachers to develop skills from which students can learn, including “listening well and speaking freely”.
This week, Professor Holt said that he had desired to develop the resources because, within the UK, we tended to consider freedom of faith and belief as a foreign policy issue. “Dr Bodi’s research shows that there are real-life examples of persecution and harassment here, too,” he said.
“We must help children and young people to concentrate on this and to develop the abilities to grasp the rights and freedoms which our legal frameworks uphold, although our social norms and behaviours don’t at all times follow suit.”
Addressing the seminar within the Lords on Tuesday, at which the resources were launched, Anna Lane, an RE teacher at St Aidan’s C of E High School, in Harrogate, said that these were “really needed”.
“Students often indicate a sort of nervousness around expressing views that they perceive don’t match up with the established order, don’t match up with what they think is a norm,” she said. “This inhibits quite a bit. It puts a extremely low ceiling on the opportunities they take as much as develop dialogic skills . . . to disagree with each other, to precise their views. And it also puts a low ceiling on their openness to hearing latest perspectives.”
The resources aim to “construct student understanding of their right to precise their beliefs, and of the proper of individuals around them to precise different beliefs . . . equipping them with the tools to know what which means in real life conversations within the classroom, within the playground, around the dining room, in society”.
She hoped that they’d “give them a bit of a fireplace of their belly about protecting these rights in society”.
The resources had already helped students to think more intentionally about their very own participation in collective worship, she said, relatively than “passively partaking . . . with none real thought for their very own convictions, or own conscious or sense of private spiritual integrity”.
Scarlett Hayward, director of learning for RE at Hartford C of E High School, Northwich, said that the resources had helped to develop the boldness of scholars who “struggle with the dialogic approach. Often due to the increased secularisation that we’re witnessing, students often feel that RE or expressing religious beliefs or non religious beliefs is something that is not any longer relevant to them. . .
“Students are finding that they will have an opinion, that there may be nothing mistaken with having an opinion even in the event that they usually are not someone who identifies with a spiritual belief. They are capable of have a voice and advocate for other people.”
Dr Bodi told the seminar that, despite robust legal protections, “societal disapproval, misunderstanding, or stigma affects how those rights are exercised in practice.” He also highlighted examples of intra-community tensions affecting Messianic Jews and Ahmadiyaa Muslims. The latter had faced opposition from the Muslim Council of Britain once they had attempted to construct a latest mosque.
Professor Holt said that teachers often struggled to debate such tensions, and in addition to interact with the problems raised by anti-Israel protests. They needed “upskilling” on this area.
OFSTED reviews of RE have highlighted deficiencies, including an inclination for teachers to present “overly positive portrayals of faith, which could also be linked to the need for pupils to interact positively with members of spiritual traditions” (News, 14 May 2021).
A 2013 review found that teachers were failing to take risks, “unwilling to open up enquiry in case pupils asked difficult or controversial questions with which they felt ill-equipped to deal” and “limiting enquiry by directing pupils to a ‘joyful end’. Teachers signalled to pupils that they wanted a positive ‘right answer’ in regards to the value of faith, limiting the chance to explore more controversial possibilities.”
A Youthscape qualitative study of 16- to 19-year-olds in Luton, No Questions Asked, which encouraged teenagers to discuss their religious beliefs, found: “Although reassured by the interviewers that they may very well be honest and open, lots of the teens interviewed looked as if it would take great care to not offend them, and to try in any respect points to be politically correct” (News, 2 March 2018). One, Shahid, said: “I don’t wish to disrespect anyone or anything.”
The resources are free to download at: freedomdeclaredfoundation.org/school-resources
