Rewriting Oxfordshire's agreed syllabus post 1988

Introduction
Chapter 1 The context
Chapter 2 New syllabuses for old?
Chapter 3 Towards a first draft
Chapter 4 Working on the draft
Chapter 5 The final stages
Chapter 6 The new syllabus: an analysis
Bibliography

submitted in part fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MA in Religious Education at the University of London Institute of Education

© copyright Derek Gillard 2001
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Gillard D., (1992) Rewriting Oxfordshire's agreed syllabus post 1988 http://www.dg.dial.pipex.com/articles/educ13.shtml
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Acknowledgements
I should like to record my thanks to

• Jo Cairns and Michael Totterdell of the Institute of Education
• Isobel Vale, Religious Education Advisor for Oxfordshire
• the members of the Oxfordshire Statutory Conference and my colleagues on the Syllabus Working Party
• Dr Jim Robinson, Head of Religious Education at Wallingford School

Introduction

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the processes and issues involved in writing an Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education, and in particular to assess the effects of the religious education clauses of the 1988 Education "Reform" Act, taking as a case study the re-writing of Oxfordshire's Agreed Syllabus between 1990 and 1992.

The ingredients in this process are all considered: the historical background, the legal requirements, the process itself and the participants - the religious education advisor, the members of the four groups on the Statutory Conference and the (largely teacher dominated) working parties - and their respective motives.

The paper begins with a survey of the history of religious education and agreed syllabuses. The 1944 Act and changes in society and education during the 1960s and 70s are presented as a backdrop to the 1981 Oxfordshire Syllabus (i.e. Hampshire's of 1978). A summary of the religious education provisions of the 1988 Act is included in Chapter 2.

Chapter 3 gives a brief account of the composition of Oxfordshire's SACRE and the Statutory Conference. The reasons for the decision to review - and subsequently to replace - the current syllabus are presented and evaluated.

Chapters 4 and 5 present an account of the deliberations of the Statutory Conference and the working parties. Whilst I was a member of the working parties, I have tried to describe the process as objectively as possible.

In Chapter 6 I have attempted to analyse the new syllabus in the context of contemporary theories of curriculum design and religious education and in relation to various other educational issues. The agenda here is my own: some of the issues were not discussed by the working parties whose principal concern, I suggest, was to write a syllabus which complied with the law.