Series Information:
Curriculum in Primary Practice

This indispensable guide for teachers, students, and all those interested in the history and politics of pedagogy charts the course of religious education in England and Wales from 1944 to the present. The fully revised and updated second edition includes a major new chapter covering the years since the book's original publication in 1995, and places recent changes in the religious education system in context through judicious use of documentary sources and interviews with key policy makers and curriculum practitioners. As Terence Copley engagingly explores the interaction between religious thinkers, educators, and politicians, "Teaching Religion" suggests that our approach to the teaching of religion within the national education system offers insight into the type of society we aspire to be.

Professor Terence CopleyAEs new biography of Thomas Arnold combines a study of his life with an examination of ArnoldAEs influence as an educator, a theologian and a churchman. Arnold was only a Victorian for five years (he died in 1842) but he has been remembered as a major figure of the age, not least because Lytton Strachey chose him as one of his objects of ridicule and pillory in Eminent Victorians (1918).He stands as a monument to the development of the 19th-century public school system whose influence spread far beyond BritainAEs upper-class. Arnold was the celebrated headmaster of Rugby School and HughesAEs Tom BrownAEs Schooldays (1857) fixed him in the public imagination.Copley assesses both the uncritical Victorian versions of ArnoldAEs life--including Hughes and Dean StanleyAEs original Life--and the sneering assessment of his influence, perpetuated by Strachey, to provide the first rounded portrait of Arnold. In conclusion Copley explores the possible legacy that this great but neglected figure has left to our age.

How can children 'develop' spiritually and how do their teachers know when 'development' has occurred? This volume traces the roots and growth of school worship and spiritual development from Victorian times and earlier through the 1960s and beyond in order to see how we have reached the present situation. The subject is examined in various contexts: its historical and cultural background; politics and legislation; philosophy and values; curriculum development. The book addresses the problem of how to define spiritual development and the contentious issue of compulsory school worship. It offers new insights and a thesis for the way forward.