Who is writing the new Religious Education curriculum?

Guy Hordern writes: For more than eighty years, the Church of England has had a formal place in determining what is taught in Religious Education in England. That may shortly change. The Government is proposing that Religious Education should become part of the National Curriculum. I am not writing to argue for or against that proposal. …

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Fractures and fractiousness at General Synod

The General Synod of the Church of England met at the University of York (as it does every July) last weekend. ‘This was the worst Synod I have experienced in all my time attending since 2005’ commented a Synod friend on Facebook. He was primarily referring to what he perceived as poor organisation, an inability …

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What should a ‘Schools Charter’ for RSHE contain?

From September 2020, primary schools will be required to teach age-appropriate Health Education as well as Relationships Education, and secondary schools will be required to teach Relationships Education and Sex Education. Together these can be referred to as Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE). At one level, this idea is hard to argue with; after …

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What does it take to reimagine Britain?

Justin Welby had already left a significant legacy from the first half of his tenure as Archbishop of Canterbury. The swift resolution to the inherited crisis of finding a workable settlement in relation to women bishops; the instigation of the Renewal and Reform programme; reorienting the Church’s administration and finances towards mission; the re-estalishment of …

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What does detailed biblical study offer ministry?

Father Richard Peers offers this review of the Tyndale Fellowship NT Study Group at the beginning of July: Anyone following current education debates on Twitter or in the blogosphere will know that there is a revolution taking place in schools. The old progressive ways of discovery learning are giving way to knowledge-based learning. Facts, memorisation …

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Searching for Super(wo)man…?

Three years ago, Trinity College Bristol were looking for a new Principal, and for some reason several people drew this to my attention. So I looked at the ad, and this is what I found they were looking for: a person of integrity, humility and wisdom; a leader of leaders, who thrives on the sharing and multiplying of leadership; …

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Coherence and variety in ordained ministry

One of the many fascinating debates at Synod this week was on the proposals for Resourcing Ministerial Education (RME) on which I have written a couple of times before. I had put down one of four amendments to the motion from Steven Croft, Bishop of Sheffield, and I was asking for work to be done to check that RME was not undermining ‘our shared, catholic understanding of ordination as expressed in the Ordinal’ prior to implementation in September 2017.

What is the future of ministerial training?

One of the important issues coming up in this session of Synod is the reconfiguration of ministerial training as part of the Renewal and Reform programme, under the title ‘Resourcing Ministerial Education.’ I commented on it last year, and had an exchange with Steven Croft, Bishop of Sheffield, who is leading on this. In view …

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Why are (some) academic books so expensive?

I am going to dip into a subject which is of extreme delicacy in the world of academic publishing. I am therefore going to avoid naming any particular parties in this issue, for two reasons. First, as a publisher myself, I don’t like people talking about what I do by name. Secondly, as a reviewer …

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