A new educational approach is helping UK teachers and students explore complex topics at the intersection of science, religion, and identity.
Seven educators embracing an innovative classroom model where both teachers and students engage in open, inquiry-led exploration of life’s big questions are featured in this Stories of Impact podcast.
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Play the episode to find out how a new approach to Religious Education (RE) and science teaching that emphasizes worldviews is reshaping the way UK classrooms explore meaning, belief, and identity.
• The existing model of Relious Education (RE) in the UK is outdated and needs a fundamental shift to better prepare students for modern life, moving away from a teacher-centric, information-transmission approach. This includes science education needing to focus more on deeper "why" questions and the bigger picture, not just mechanisms.
• The "Religion and Worldviews" approach offers a refresh to RE by expanding its scope beyond traditional religions to include personal values, identity, and diverse (religious and non-religious) worldviews, centering students' lived experiences. This fosters critical thinking about their own beliefs and those of others.
• The approach emphasizes "dialogic teaching" and student agency, creating a classroom community where students are empowered to ask big questions, reason, discuss, and develop their own informed views, leading to greater engagement, curiosity, and the development of essential skills for a complex global society.
The shift toward a “Religion and Worldviews” approach broadens traditional RE to include both organized belief systems and individual perspectives. Developed by a collaborative team of educators and researchers, this approach moves beyond memorization and idealized accounts of belief systems. It provides teachers with training and frameworks to support inquiry, context, and critical reflection across disciplines.
“We’re very good in school science at answering ‘how’ questions... but we’re not always quite as good at helping young people to think about more deep questions — the ‘why’ questions,” says Michael Reiss, former President, Association for Science Education (ASE) .
According to Reiss, many classrooms still follow a 19th-century model: the teacher lectures, students write, and memorization is rewarded. But this doesn’t reflect how people actually learn. Reiss and his colleagues are pushing for a new model that supports agency, dialogue, and deep thinking. He says, “The good thing about TWCF's Big Questions in Classrooms (BQiC) is that it was meant to help teachers and students think: Why are we doing this? What’s it really all about?”
The term "worldview" helps shift the conversation from abstract religious doctrine to lived experience. As Dr. Trevor Cooling professor emeritus at Canterbury Christ Church University, and former chair of the Religious Education Council of England and Wales explains, a worldview is both inherited and personal: a mix of cultural, emotional, and intellectual commitments that shape how we see the world. “The old approach was largely about conveying information about religious and non-religious traditions. So it was about getting information into children's long term memory, if you like,” he shares. “The new approach is much more about using information in order to help young people grapple with questions of identity and worldview. And the big thing that we're looking at in our particular project is the question, how does worldview work in human life? Because every human has some beliefs and passions and desires, which sort of shape the way they encounter other people.”
This model distinguishes between organized worldviews (e.g., Christianity, Islam, secular humanism) and personal worldviews unique to each student. As Sarah Lane Cawte, Chair, Religious Education Council of England and Wales puts it: “All of us approach the world with a particular view. So our worldview doesn't start from nothing. We all have beliefs. We all have ideas. Nobody believes nothing — we don't live in a vacuum." This perspective is especially relevant in a society where many students identify as non-religious, and might otherwise feel excluded from RE. By acknowledging that all students bring a worldview into the classroom, educators can foster inclusion and self-awareness. “Our worldview is influenced by all sorts of things. It might be influenced by our upbringing. It might be influenced by the people we have around us. It might be influenced by the country in which we live. And it might be influenced by an institutional religion or belief,” she says.
This shift isn't about discarding traditional RE content, but about deepening it. Stephen Pett, National Religious Education Advisor, RE Today, shares: “We're not losing a focus on organized traditions and what religions have done and thought over centuries, millennia. But we're exploring that and exploring the relationship between that and how people live. So we're widening the lens on it rather than dropping something out.” Rather than only teaching idealized versions of six major world religions, the goal is to make space for diverse lived experiences and new kinds of questions. “It’s not just about revitalizing a subject… it’s about equipping teachers and pupils to think for themselves,” says Pett.
Gillian Georgiou of the Religious and Worldviews Project adds that this includes scrutinizing sources, examining context, and encouraging students to consider how their beliefs influence their behavior. “We are like tapestries woven of many different threads… it is crucial to understand something about [religion] if you want to engage in a diverse, open, global society,” she shares.
The worldview-based framework also encourages teachers to reflect on their own assumptions. When students ask unexpected questions, Cooling notes it’s okay to admit you don’t know, then model how to find out. “Once you open conversation up with young people… the skilled teacher will not be threatened by that," Cooling shares. This openness creates a collaborative classroom where students and teachers grow together.
Marianne Cutler, Director for Policy & Curriculum Innovation, ASE describes this as dialogic teaching, a method that encourages critical thinking through structured dialogue. Students develop arguments, examine evidence, and articulate their own views. She says this “gives space for children to stand back and come to their own conclusions... and teachers have told us they’re surprised, because children are responding in ways that they hadn’t thought they would.”
Katie Gooch, Primary Religion and Worldviews Curriculum Lead at United Learning notes that a worldview-based approach teaches students how to have respectful, informed conversations, even when questions are uncomfortable. She says “Pupils can deal with those in quite grown-up ways if we give them the language, the opportunities, and the skills to do that.” This is part of building a curriculum that is both intellectually demanding and personally transformative.
The benefits of this approach extend beyond the most engaged or high-achieving students. According to Cutler, students who are typically less confident in science, or who have special educational needs, often show greater progress under this model than with traditional teaching. “They look at things in a different way because they've looked at it from a different angle… using different tools and skills, which of course bring in their own worldview,” she says.
Cutler also sees the broader significance of the Religion and Worldviews framework in a time of global challenges. From climate change to sustainability, she argues, students must be equipped to analyze complex problems from multiple perspectives. “We owe it to children, from an early age, to show them the richness and complexities… of looking at their learning through different lenses,” she explains.
Georgiou offers perhaps the most powerful case for the worldview-based approach: “It is the difference between seeing a child as an empty box that you fill full of factual information… and helping them to become something more humane: engaged, curious, connected with the world around them.”
Watch a related video: Big Questions in Classrooms: Transforming Science Education & Religious Education in the UK (video)
Built upon the award-winning video series of the same name, Templeton World Charity Foundation’s “Stories of Impact” podcast features stories of new scientific research on human flourishing that translate discoveries into practical tools. Bringing a mix of curiosity, compassion, and creativity, journalist Richard Sergay and host Tavia Gilbert shine a spotlight on the human impact at the heart of cutting-edge social and scientific research projects supported by TWCF
