Teach-Secondary-Issue-14.5

Seeing the light AndyMcHugh explains why religious education still matters in an increasingly secular society R E is probably the most important subject you can study at school. A bold claim? Perhaps, but I’d argue that it explores the one thing that every other subject merely touches upon – the profound questions that truly matter most in life. Let’s start with the numbers. According to the 2021 Census for England andWales, almost 4 in 10 people said they had no religion. Just 46% of the population now identify as Christian, continuing a steady decline that’s been happening for decades. On the face of it, then, RE looks increasingly irrelevant, doesn’t it? Why study religion in a world where more and more people say they’re not religious at all? Yet I’d argue that, in fact, the opposite is true. It’s precisely because we’re living in a more secular society that the study of RE is more essential than ever. Humanpursuits It goes without saying that STEM subjects matter. The demand is everywhere. A quick scroll through any job site will turn up hundreds of listings for software engineers, data analysts, developers and scientists. There’s no doubt in my mind that STEM experts will shape the future, as technology continues to be ever more central to the way we live, work and relate to each other. And then there’s the arts. With AI creeping ever further into creative spaces, it’s becoming increasingly clear that truly human creativity will, in the years ahead, become an ever more rare and precious thing. Art, music and dance are all deeply ‘human’ pursuits. You can generate a decent image with an algorithm, sure – but fall in love with it? That’s a different story. We ignore the arts at our peril. But here’s the thing – RE sits above both arts and sciences. Not in a competitive sense, but in terms of what it does. I’m not speaking from a place of religious conviction here, either. I’m talking about the heart of high quality RE teaching (by which I do mean high quality ). STEM and arts subjects (only) teach us about the world around us; RE goes further, by teaching us about ourselves. Space for the ‘why’ Our education system, quite rightly, tends to be heavily focused on questions of ‘how’. That’s what most GCSE papers ask for – how something works, how to analyse data, how to solve a problem. RE, on the other hand, holds space for the ‘why’. Why do people believe what they do? Why does any of this matter? Why are we here at all? It’s one thing to teach students how Hindus worship. It’s quite another to explore why they choose to worship in the first place. We can explain the Big Bang and the evolution of the universe, but RE goes beyond that to ask ‘ Why is there something, rather than nothing? ’. We can teach young people how to write a personal statement, or ace a job interview, but what about asking why we feel ‘called’ to perform certain jobs in the first place? These ‘why’ questions matter. They’re not just philosophical distractions. They go right to the core of what it means to be human. And the beauty of RE is that it opens these questions up to everyone. It’s one of the few subjects that is, by default, relevant to every student in the room. Even if they’ve never set foot in a church, mosque or temple, they’ll still have wrestled with questions of purpose, morality and identity. The big, open questions we explore in RE allow students of all abilities and backgrounds to engage with something meaningful and worthwhile. You don’t need to be a walking encyclopaedia of scripture. What you need is curiosity and a willingness to think. What grades can’t do None of this is to say that RE isn’t academic. It absolutely can be, and often is, but its success isn’t limited to exam grades. A student might leave an RE lesson without a perfectly written essay, but with a head full of thoughts about free will, the nature of good and evil or how to live ethically. That kind of thinking makes students more useful to themselves, their classmates and to society at large. Great RE can do what a grade sometimes can’t. It can build confidence and shape how a student navigates the world. It can help themmake better decisions, or think more deeply about their personal relationships, fairness and justice. Whether they come to believe in God or not isn’t the point. RE isn’t about converting people – it’s about helping them understand themselves and their place in the world. That’s why I teach RE. I don’t call it ‘compulsory’, any more than I’d call breathing compulsory. I call it essential. Vital, even. “RE isn’t about converting people – it’s about helping themunderstand themselves and theirplace in theworld” 66 teachwire.net/secondary