Citizenship and RE: links, opportunities and challenges
This article seeks to explore the relationship between Citizenship and RE on
two levels:
 Firstly exploring the possibilities of curriculum overlap between the two
subjects
 Secondly explaining what it means to become an RE teacher after
having trained in citizenship.
RE is an important subject for citizenship trainees and NQTs to be aware of
for two reasons.
1. RE is seen as a natural companion to citizenship as demonstrated by
the job adverts for ‘RE and citizenship’ departments.
2. Citizenship still doesn’t get the curriculum time it needs which means
that citizenship trainees are often employed primarily as teachers of
either, geography, history or RE. Those of you paying attention to the
government adverts will notice that RE is a shortage subject. So
ideals, principles, knowledge aside, if you want to get a job it may well
pay to diversify.
The good news is that RE has come a long way (even since we were at
school), and for the citizenship specialist there is a great deal of interest and
overlap between the two subjects.
There are gaping holes too and a shift of focus which some citizenship
specialists may find too much. Whatever individual opinions on the matter
may be, the fact is that citizenship is still not being taught properly in most
schools and the first generation of citizenship teachers needs to know and
understand the ways in which their expertise may be harnessed across and
through the whole curriculum.
In order to undertake a full analysis of the potential overlap between
Citizenship and RE this article would need to tackle KS3 and KS4 separately.
As I cannot hope to cover both fully, it will concentrate on KS3 and outline
some of the issues at KS4.
For a basic overview of the overlapping topics in RE and citizenship at KS3,
see the attached Venn diagram. This also shows clearly those topics that
remain largely under their own subject banner. A development of this is
made below using a citizenship lens to link the two curriculums directly.
Note: The citizenship national curriculum topics are underlined and the RE
national curriculum topics are noted in blue italics. Suggestions are given after
each topic as to how they might link.
1a:
Rights and responsibility links directly with 3j rights and responsibilities:
what religions and beliefs say about human rights and responsibilities, social
justice and citizenship. This could simply involve investigating what students
believe these mean, what our society believes these to be and comparing
them with those set out by the different religions.
1b:
Diversity of national, regional, religious and ethnic identities in the
United Kingdom and the need for mutual respect and understanding links with
1a investigate and explain the differing impacts of religious beliefs and
teachings on individuals, communities and societies. Students could look at
the religious diversity of the UK and examine the effects of that religion’s
teachings on that area of the UK.
1f:
Community-based, national and international voluntary groups links
with 3j what religions and beliefs say about human rights and responsibilities,
social justice and citizenship. This would seek to examine the work of
religious groups in response to social and welfare needs of communities
locally, nationally and internationally.
1g:
the importance of resolving conflict fairly links with 3k global issues:
what religions say about health, wealth, war, animal rights and the
environment. This is a big topic for RE and given that conflict so often
involves religion in some capacity then it is a natural ally for citizenship in this
case. Particular cases would be exploring religious teachings and responses
to conflict, religious conflicts, and religious fundamentalist terrorism.
1i:
the world as a global community … links with 3k global issues: what
religions say about health, wealth, war, animal rights and the environment.
Religious Education offers much in the way of coverage here and this could
easily be linked in with the international organisations and debates on the
necessary responses to these issues.
From the above it is clear that citizenship is most definitely relevant to RE and
can provide a useful starting point to a few RE topics.
This leaves a few key areas of the RE curriculum out, namely: religious
authority; religious texts; key religious concepts and beliefs; ultimate
questions; spirituality and religious visits. It is possible for any citizenship to
gain the necessary knowledge for these topics and an outline of how to do
this is given in part two.
For those individuals and groups interested in maintaining the profile of
citizenship in our schools it is important also to be able to recognise the areas
of the subject that RE cannot accommodate easily; thus creating a stronger
case for discrete citizenship time.
In citizenship terms there are several areas that are problematic to integrate
into the RE curriculum. Few of these are totally insurmountable and
suggestions are made but they don’t make the easiest of topics to link with the
RE curriculum.
In terms of knowledge and understanding the following obviously pose
problems to cross-curricular teaching between RE and Citizenship:
1a:
The criminal justice system and how it relates to young people. Clearly
this is a topic that doesn’t have a direct overlap with RE. It would be possible
to look at the different religious rules and guidelines that are set out and
compare them with today’s society but the criminal justice system would need
several lessons in itself to cover the content.
1c:
Central and Local government does not have any obvious links with RE
unless you were to look at a theme such as terrorism and explore how
government deals with it as well as examining the strength of religious
justifications but this seems quite complex to plan and teach at Key stage 3.
1d:
Forms of government are not easy to teach even within citizenship.
This could be touched on if we examined the invasion of Iraq and Saddam’s
regime as a conflict topic or if we looked at the exile of Tibetan Buddhists as a
result of China’s dictatorship.
1e:
Voting and elections are clearly not RE topics and no links to RE seem
apparent from the curriculum.
1h:
Media could be used as a link to examining the authority and impact of
religious texts but it doesn’t allow for a full exploration of the significance of
media in society and some of the more interesting topics in the media such as
the power and regulation of advertising.
Citizenship has its own problems with the development of skills of
participation and responsible action in curriculum time. RE can bring the
approaches of the different religions to the idea of community and charity
work but this doesn’t provide the kind of practical opportunity described in:
3b
negotiate, decide and take part responsibly in both school and
community-based activities.
Students could potentially work with religious groups in the community but it
could prove incredibly problematic to gain the permission of 30 parents to
work with and for a religious community which is not necessarily their own.
Whilst students can certainly reflect on the process of participating (3c) in
terms of their lesson work, there appears to be little opportunity to go beyond
this to a broader form of participation that is described in 3b.
Key Stage 4
As mentioned above there is not the space here to deal fully with citizenship
and RE at KS4 but a brief overview of the problems are described below.
KS4 is increasingly moving towards examination in all subjects to give each of
them more credibility. In order to recognise this we would need to analyse if
and where the GCSE RE curriculum can present opportunities for citizenship
teaching or whether there is a strong case for citizenship retaining its own
discrete teaching time. Of course this depends largely on which particular
GCSE and exam board the RE department has opted for.
From a quick glance at citizenship at KS4 it should be noted that some topic
areas; notably the economy, consumer rights, international relations and
sustainable development and interdependence would seem to pose a
problem for an RE curriculum to integrate in any significant way into its
teachings
Can we strengthen citizenship through RE or will it swamp it?
The overlapping topic areas above speak for themselves. The citizenship
curriculum can indeed be strengthened in part by RE. There are however too
many areas that remain untouched by RE to justify a complete integration of
citizenship into RE teaching.
There also remains the issue of RE topics that must also be taught in their
own right. Would citizenship dilute the RE teaching or would citizenship time
be sacrificed in order to fulfil all the necessary RE teaching? These must be
valid concerns for any RE or citizenship teacher.
If we were to increase the allotted teaching time to allow such integration,
great care would have to be taken in plotting the curriculum so that both
subjects could have the time they needed to focus on their subject specific
topics. This would also have to ensure that students knew when they were
doing RE and when they were doing citizenship, as this could lead to great
confusion later on, particularly at GCSE.
Linking citizenship with the whole curriculum is not only a requirement but
also a necessity if students are ever to understand its importance, but leaving
it to be taught purely in this way will most likely result in the problems that
have led Ofsted to conclude that citizenship is best taught discretely by
citizenship trained teachers. It is understandable that RE teachers would fear
similar problems occurring were citizenship be forced largely into the RE
curriculum.
What is needed to be able to teach RE
Teaching a subject beyond your own knowledge or expertise is a daunting
prospect for most people but especially when in your first years when you are
still learning to teach. Below is an overview of each Key Stage and what I
have needed to do so far (as a citizenship trained teacher) to teach it.

At Key Stage 3 it is the local education authority that decides on the
exact syllabus. They must include Christianity, at least 2 other major
world religions (designated by the authority) and a secular view. From
this they will then draw up a countywide syllabus, which your school
must follow.
Beyond the topic areas though RE is still fairly flexible at KS3. There
are some basic themes to be taught and objectives to be attained but it
is up to the teacher to decide how they want to do this.
Gloucestershire seems well organised in that there is a syllabus
together with a suggested Scheme of Work for most topics. These are
available through the school or through the county council.
The advantage of teaching RE at KS3 is that it is well resourced.
There are many good books (see below) to use for inspiration or to turn
to when you can’t face planning every lesson from scratch. These are
modern and relevant and if all else fails these will provide a strong
backbone to your first year’s teaching in terms of knowledge needed
and also some good teaching ideas.
RE seeks to be innovative, creative, discursive, contemporary,
questioning and provocative in its delivery. In this respect, citizenship
teachers are certainly some of the best placed to teach RE as these
are exactly what we are aiming for in our citizenship lessons. There is
real scope to replicate this in RE at KS3.

At Key Stage 4- most departments will have an RE GCSE in operation
across at least part of the year group if not the whole lot. From a
planning point of view the best starting point is a textbook based
around the specific exam board the department uses. Work back from
the book to figure out what you need to include. Flesh this out using
other more detailed textbooks for knowledge and add creative, active
learningideas. Create a check list (ask for help from your department)

Key Stage 5 is daunting for any NQT, never mind non-specialist. The
best approach is a topic at a time (you will need to spend a bit of time
reading the materials). Again use the book recommended by the exam
board as this should give you a really good basis for what is needed.
Use one or two articles from Dialogue or other books to flesh it out.
Spend the first few lessons going over expectations of the course,
practising some reading skills (picking out key words and rewriting an
explanation using the key words), familiarising students with the library
books that are appropriate. This is essential for them to make the jump
to AS level expectations and will also give you time to prepare a bit
more round your topic.
Keep lessons simple- don’t try and make them overcomplicated and
active like a Key Stage 3 lesson – you will lose your objective focus.
Use your first year to get your grounding and build on this in
subsequent years. You will only have so much time and energy and
you cannot afford to direct the majority towards AS and A2.
Resources
The following books are used in my school and have proved useful to me so
far:
KS3

This is RE! series: 1,2,3. ISBN 071957439/ 0719575214/ 0719575230
(teacher books are also available for this series).
This series is great because it is contemporary, it explores lots of
issues across all the major world religions and it has lots of lesson
ideas and questions

The Seeking Religion series published by Hodder & Stoughton is a
series of books with each one focusing on one major world religion.
These are a great little overview to each religion and are definitely
aimed at KS3. There are also mini activities/ questions every two
pages if you are stuck for ideas.

Websites such as www.christianaid.org.uk and www.redcross.org.uk
have a variety of activities relating specifically to RE or themes
addressed within the RE syllabus e.g. conflict, wealth and poverty.
KS4

Christianity in today’s world published by Hodder Murray.
ISBN:0719575265.
This book is aimed at preparing students for the Religious Studies
GCSE exam as designed by all the major exam boards
(AQA,OCR,EDEXCEL). It is contemporary and sufficiently in depth for
it to be used as the main textbook at GCSE.

Classroom Resources: An Exam Guide to GCSE Philosophy and
Ethics: A Christian Perspective by Jez Strickley. ISBN 1841068357
This is more of a booklet from a series called Classroom Resources.
This particular booklet outlines what the GCSE for OCR involves and
gives sample exam questions together with ideal answers and
breakdowns of how the marks allocated. It is not a complete rundown
of every question for every topic but it does explore a great deal of
likely questions at GCSE. Great for students to use as exam practice
and then self/ peer assessment if you don’t have time to mark 90
essays each time.

Folens Philosophy and Ethics GCSE Religious Studies for OCR B by
Michael Keene. ISBN 1843037793
This book is specifically related to this GCSE course and in that
respect it is useful as a basic overview of what is necessary. It does
not however provide much depth at all and would need to be fleshed
out by any serious candidates.

Introducting Philosophy of Religion by Dilwyn Hunt. ISBN 0748794662
Although this book can appear a bit babylike in its approach the ideas
and depth of it are ideal for the philosophy topic ‘arguments for the
existence of God’, ‘miracles ‘and ‘the problem of evil’.
Training
Go on as many training days as your school will allow you to. This might
include anything by the following people:
Lat Blaylock- amazing apparently- I’m still waiting
Will Ord- Philosophy for Children
Steve Garnett- good practical ideas for teaching RE across KS3-5
Exam boards will offer training days on particular areas – go to the exam
board website and look particularly at any days which help to explain what is
expected in the exam. This will help focus your teaching.
Exam marking will act as a form of training and is a great way of earning
some quick cash. The exam boards have training days specifically for it so
they will take you through it step by step. Doing this will help you better
understand the requirements of the course you are teaching so that you can
really focus your planning and teaching in the right direction.
Reflections so far
I had never imagined myself as an RE teacher up until this time last year,
when my first PGCE placement for citizenship offered me 3 hrs a week as my
second subject. I worked in a very good department and they showed me the
contemporary nature and objectivity that RE now has. An interest in different
cultures, human beings, and world issues meant that I was quite well suited to
teach this even if my subject knowledge was thin on the ground.
A year on I don’t regret taking this subject on at all. I am free to slip into
citizenship mode whenever and wherever it links up to the topic and the rest
of the time I am still learning which is part of the motivation for going into
teaching in the first place. KS3 has been fairly straightforward to settle into
with assessment proving the main question area, as citizenship does not have
the same regularity of national curriculum levelling requirements. KS4 is
easily within my grasp but it is knowing the exam style and questioning
techniques that are tricky rather than the subject knowledge as this is fairly
straightforward.
The leap to KS5 is very apparent especially in a subject like Philosophy and
Ethics where the ideas are fairly abstract and students are learning more or
less from scratch. This has been the toughest part of taking on a new subject.
I have however now just accepted that I am but an NQT who can’t do
everything in year 1.
If you are considering RE as part of your career in teaching then just be sure
you are prepared to work hard for a subject that is not necessarily your own,
and that your head of department is willing to give you maximum support all
the way through. With these you should have enough to get you through the
NQT year without too many moments of crisis. By September year 2 so much
will be in place you’ll probably have forgotten that you weren’t meant to be an
RE teacher in the first place.
Above all it is crucial to keep an eye on the fact that these two subjects
(whatever the problems they pose in being taught in the same curriculum
time) are strongly linked by institutions and that by having training and
experience in both citizenship and RE then you are putting yourself in a real
position of strength, in terms of your own career and the job market.
CITIZENSHIP
RE
Criminal justice
religious texts
Religious authority
Rights and
responsibilities
conflict
Voting and elections
Forms of government
Spirituality
global issues
Central and local government
Ultimate questionse.g. is there a God?
NGOs
Key religious concepts and
beliefs relating to God, truth,
the world, life after death.
active participation
Reflection on participation
Diversity, respect and
understanding
media
Religious visits