What is spirituality? What is leadership? And what is their relationship? The article presents the concept of "discernment" (Latin: "discretion") as the link ("tertium comperationis") between spirituality and leadership. Spirituality is a way of life in (the growth of) discernment towards human fullness, which is…

In this opinion piece, the author writes that England is now well on the way to having the most totalitarian as well as one of the most inefficiently managed schools system in Europe. He states that in the much maligned 1960s, people came from all over the world to learn from what was being achieved in the best of England's publicly-funded,…

Assuming religious education to be the same as other subject areas of a Catholic school's curriculum by, for example, applying the outcomes based philosophy and language of other subject areas to religious education renders a category mistake. A prominent notion in the work of metaphysical philosopher Gilbert Ryle, a category mistake arises when…

This article is concerned with assessment issues in Religious and Moral Education (RME) offered in Scottish non-denominational schools. The analysis of the findings in this article is weighed against the framework of the new "3-18" Scottish curriculum called "Curriculum for Excellence" (CfE). CfE was introduced in primary schools in 2009 and a…

Dealing with values and moral issues is recognised as an integral part of teachers' roles. Especially in culturally heterogeneous societies teachers face multiple values that students and their families may hold. The study reported in this article explores different conceptions of teachers' moral roles aiming to develop an instrument for assessing…

The new Teachers' Standards draw upon the Prevent Strategy in foregrounding the upholding of "fundamental British values" as a central tenet in teacher work. This article explores the relationship between values, religion and Standards in teacher work. A consideration of the new Standards gives rise to the notion of teacher as cultural custodian,…

In 1999, a new curriculum for Roman-Catholic religious education was introduced in Flemish primary and secondary schools, taking into account both the growing de-Christianisation and religious pluralisation of pupils in the classroom. Recently, this new curriculum has been subjected to diverging criticisms: first it is considered still too…

An important debate in the literature on controversial issues concerns how to identify them. This matters for teachers because settled issues should be taught directively and controversial issues should be taught nondirectively. Teachers are professionally accountable for this decision. This article examines the contribution of Michael Hand to the…

In the course of reviewing a recent quantitative survey of approximately 1300 Swedish youths on subjects like religion and leisure activities, I came across a finding which seemed intriguing to me: some 50% of those identifying themselves as Muslims reported that they confided in their teachers (compared to only 5% of non-Muslims) for help with…

Teaching is interventionist. Agreement is necessary to decide what is to be taught. May one begin from the premise that God is worthy of attention? And how can teachers help pupils discern true from false in religion? This article compares the Non-Statutory National Framework for Religious Education with the Birmingham Agreed Syllabus to consider…

World Youth Day, a youth-focused Catholic celebration, is the largest recurring youth event in the world. The 10th International World Youth Day (WYD) was held from 15-20 July 2008, in Sydney, Australia and attenders participated in a week-long series of religious events and activities. Little research in English has been conducted on WYD…

This article seeks to engage with the contention that, given the dilemmas of the self purportedly raised by these aspects of modernity, teachers of religious education need, ethically as well as professionally, to urgently revise their often traditionalist view of society, of children and of appropriate pedagogy for their subject. The aim of such…

This study set out to examine the differences in attitude toward Christianity among year seven secondary school pupils who had undertaken their primary education either in a Church of England voluntary aided school or a non-denominational state-maintained school. Data were provided by 492 year-seven pupils attending three Church of England…

Aggregated attainment data for each of the four Key Stages of the National Curriculum during 2006-07 are used to compare the performance of schools having differing proportions of ethnic minority pupils on roll. The data are for all maintained primary and secondary schools that completed the 2007 Annual Schools' Census. There are noticeable…

The question explored in this article is whether religious schools can contribute to the formation of the civic virtues in pupils by means of citizenship education. It is commonly agreed that civic virtues are needed in pluriform Western societies to promote social cohesion and reduce hostile attitudes. However, some argue that religious schools…