Birmingham Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education 2007

4. Factors to be used in identifying and selecting the religious traditions to be studied

In selecting the religions to be used to achieve the development of pupils and society, the following factors must be considered. Whilst all the identified factors are applicable throughout the key stages they are separated into the two distinct phases of education to acknowledge the differences of approach and emphasis in each phase, therefore:
In primary schools teachers should take account of:
  1. The family background of all the children in the classroom9.
  2. The historic and cultural roots of Birmingham and Britain in the traditions of Christianity10.
And in addition:
  1. The need to deepen the spiritual and moral dimension11.
  2. The need to broaden the spiritual and moral dimension12.
  3. The societal concern to build social cohesion and solidarity13.
  4. The need to challenge and engage pupils, meeting their learning requirements relative to their ages, aptitudes, and daily experience14.
In secondary schools teachers should consider the above and also that:
  1. A pupil should study Christian traditions.
  2. A pupil should be able to study, broadly speaking, his or her own tradition.
And in addition:
  1. The presence of a religious tradition in Birmingham and in the school should have a strong bearing on its inclusion in the curriculum.
  2. The curriculum should take advantage of the range and complementarity offered by traditions.
  3. The Religious Education curriculum should exploit the potential for cross-curricular links.
  4. Pupil interest and choice should be taken into account.
The above factors will give schools, or groups of schools, the flexibility to devise schemes of work that are most appropriate to their specific communal context. These schemes of work will aim to develop the agreed dispositions of pupils with a spiritual, moral, social and cultural depth, employing the most pertinent religious traditions in all their dimensions.
Copyright Birmingham SACRE © 2007-2008