What is Religion and Worldviews?

In 2018 a coalition of parents, teachers, academics and religious leaders came together and decided that RE in schools needed to adapt if it was to keep up with the changing nature of belief in Britain. In its report the Commission on RE recommended that both religious and non-religious ideas be taught through a worldviews approach.

A worldview is a person's way of understanding, experiencing and responding to the world, or a philosophy of life. It can include, but not be limited to, ideas about god, nature, ethics and the nature of reality. A person’s worldview may be a mixture of both religious and non-religious ideas and may also be changing in response to the world around them.

The Commission made the point that everyone has a worldview - even young children - and subsequently they need to be taught the academic skills and knowledge to develop this. They saw this as essential for helping children understand and navigate the diverse nature of belief in the 21st century and the world beyond their own community.

Not necessarily. At present, Religion and Worldviews is a recommended approach that offers pupils religious education in line with the latest scholarship and research. A recent Ofsted research review states that high-quality RE helps prepare pupils to ‘engage in a diverse and complex multi-religious and multi-secular society’. This is one of the core aims of the worldviews approach.

From September 2022, RE in Wales will be renamed ‘Religions, Values and Ethics’. While this approach does not fully adopt the 2018 Commission on RE recommendations, it reflects some of the changes.

This still depends on the school or the locally agreed syllabus. However, perhaps the biggest change you may notice is that your children may begin to talk about everyone having a worldview and to appreciate that these worldviews may include non-religious ideas and religious ones. They will continue to learn about Christianity and traditions like Buddhism, Humanism, Hindu Dharma (Hinduism), Islam, Judaism and Sikhi (Sikhism). Children may be taught about religion alongside concepts such as secularism, atheism and agnosticism. Worldviews significant to the local community may also be included such as Jainism, the Baha'i Faith and Zoroastrianism.

The way that children learn about these worldviews may also be slightly different from the sort of RE lessons you remember from your school days. Children are encouraged to look at the impact of religious and non-religious worldviews on individuals, communities and societies. An RE lesson might start with a look at a specific teaching or story linked to a particular tradition, and then look at a case study of how this plays out in a person’s day to day life. This approach is intended to provide children with an opportunity to explore the diversity of lived experience and to consider the impact of religion in the modern world.

The use of the Religion and Worldviews approach will not limit curriculum makers’ choices about how many religions and beliefs to include in their programme of study. Some schools, such as those with a religious character, may choose to focus on one or two specific religious traditions. Others may choose or be directed by a locally agreed syllabus to include Christianity, or the other principal religions represented in Britain, alongside non-religious worldviews as set out in the legal framework.

To find out more about an education in religion and worldviews you can visit the ReThinkRE site to keep up to date with developments. You can also watch the following short video narrated by Professor Francesca Stavrakopoulou of the University of Exeter.