Religious Education Curriculum Directory (3-19) - The Catholic ...

Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales — Department of Catholic Education and FormationPart I — IntroductionThe purpose of this new edition of the Religious Education Curriculum Directory (3-19) is to provideguidance for the Religious Education classroom curriculum in Catholic schools 1 . Followingthe publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992), the Bishops of England and Walespublished the Religious Education Curriculum Directory for Catholic Schools (1996) to ensure that teachingand learning in our schools truly reflected the vision and breadth of the teaching of the Church outlinedin the Catechism. This revised Directory is published so that religious educators can continueto meet the needs of the pupils of our time.Whilst the context of Religious Education has changed significantly over the last fifteen years inEngland and Wales, the teaching of the Church is to be proclaimed faithfully in season and out ofseason 2 and is the key to human happiness and social prospering. The contemporary focus on themarket economy and personal autonomy creates a more hostile environment in which to presentthe teaching of the Church. The challenges for educators are significant.In Britain, the landscape of primary and secondary education is changing rapidly. The ways in whichChurch and State cooperate in the task of educational provision are having to be reshaped and thisis taking place in the context of increasingly vociferous arguments from those opposed to right ofparents to choose those means and institutionss which can best promote the Catholic education oftheir children. The Catholic community is continually challenged to explain and justify Catholicschools even though those schools are frequently popular and oversubscribed because parentsrecognise, explicitly or not, that they deliver an excellent education of the whole person.We note in particular some current trends which affect the teaching of Religious Education:• rapid developments in communication and information technology that have led to a webbasedproliferation of competing sources of ‘authority’;• a further privatisation of morality and a focus on personal choice rooted in feelings has increasedthe domination of the ‘dictatorship of relativism’ 3 in moral reasoning;• the practice of selective adherence to the teachings of the Church and growing suspicion ofthe sources of any authority;• new challenges to justice and peace, e.g. the threat of global terrorism;• the influence of the ‘New Atheism’ and the rejection of the supernatural;• the widespread yet fallacious view that science and faith are opposed to one another;• the rich diversity of religious practice found in modern Britain including the growth of Islam;• the changing religious and cultural profile of pupils and teachers in Catholic schools.In recent years, a number of teaching documents of the Church have further explored the distinctivenature of the Catholic school and have articulated more deeply the underlying philosophy ofCatholic Education. We have also grown in our understanding of the needs of children with disabilitiesand special needs and this is reflected in this guidance.1