Spirituality within the Curriculum
At St Edburg’s, conversations around spirituality are a part of our provision for personal development and will be included in classroom teaching wherever appropriate.
Maths: The wonder of number patterns; What cannot be measured? For example, love. What cannot be accurately counted? For example, the difference an act of kindness makes.
Reading: What inspired you in this text? How did a character cope with a challenge in life? How did the actions of a character surprise you? How do you think you would have responded to that wow or ow moment? What do you think makes these words so powerful/beautiful/painful?
Writing: When pupils are invited to write about things that have profound meaning to them, how is this writing valued? We must ensure it be recognised as having value and purpose.
DT: What motivates designers and their decisions? For example, is it a desire to make money or a desire to help and make improvements to daily life for everyone?
Music: What style of music ‘invites you to explore the mystery that dances within your soul’ (K. Hall)? What styles of music have the opposite effect? How does music encourage creativity, delight, and curiosity?
MFL: What motivates language learning? For example, welcoming and comforting a stranger in our country? What does it feel like to genuinely communicate with someone in a new language?
Geography: The ‘wow’ of physical geography; Discovering different physical regions do not provide the same opportunities; What options/opportunities are there to respond and take responsibility in a challenging world?
History: Which stories tell historical ‘wows’? Which stories tell historical tragedies? What lessons for future decisions and choices do they provide?
PE: How do you celebrate a new skill? How does it feel to be proud of your whole self? What does it feel like to be completely focused on a task or challenge? How do you recognise the delight in movement, connectedness, and creativity? Encourage the awareness of one’s own strength and limitations. Recognise/celebrate equality, freedom, respect and trust.
Science: Delight in discovering how things work.; Opportunities to linger longer on the wonder! What questions cannot be answered by science?
Art: How does art invite you to celebrate life? What are the wows and tragedies in the stories behind the artists you study? How do you celebrate and respect different responses to art?
PSHE & RE: As you explore topics such as relationships, feelings & attitudes, keeping safe and ‘your body’ where are the natural links with other subjects learnt? How can the honesty and sensitivity needed to explore these topics gently reflect the language of spirituality already used throughout the school?
All Subjects:
How do you celebrate the achievement and break-through wows of success? How do you support the difficulty and frustrations experienced by children? How do you maximise the everyday moment of concentration and being in the present, creating a sense of calm and completeness?
Broadening the opportunity for spiritual development
If spiritual development is to be something ‘that should influence all areas of education as it does all areas of life’ it is helpful for schools to have a shared language to describe this and to have explored what this might look like in different subject areas. The work of David Hay and Rebecca Nye (2006) is helpful here.
Their survey of writers on spirituality and child psychology found that experiences of spirituality can be categorized into 3 broad areas: awareness-sensing, mystery-sensing and value-sensing. The table below (adapted from Hay and Nye (2006) gives some details of these different aspects of spirituality and some suggested activities for use by teachers. (See pedagogy overview for link).
