Background
In 2023 FDF partnered with Regent’s Park College in London to research the lived experiences of FoRB in the UK. This empirically based research examines the current state of freedom of religion or belief in the United Kingdom. It is conducted by Mátyás Bódi, in partnership with Baroness Berridge of the Vale of Catmose, a member of the House of Lords and trustee of the Freedom Declared Foundation, and with the support and supervision of Dr. Helen Cameron of Regent’s Park College.
The objectives of this research are to:
- Identify the challenges faced by religious and non-religious belief organisations in relation to Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
- Develop an empirically grounded theory explaining how these organisations address these challenges.
The project aims to inform policymakers, enabling the development of more effective and nuanced laws and policies. In addition, it seeks to raise public awareness about the challenges surrounding freedom of religion or belief in the United Kingdom. The findings of this research will be published in a forthcoming book and report.
These school resources are an outworking of the research conducted and seeks to provide resources that can be used in English classrooms at Key Stages 3-5. Subsequent publications will adapt these resources for use within Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. This application of the research has been led by Dr. James Holt, Associate Professor of Religious Education at the University of Chester, and Chair of the Board of Trustees of Freedom Declared Foundation.
The resources were developed as a collaboration between the teachers involved in the research project. At the beginning of the project weekend an exploration of various principles and aims of the teaching of religion and worldviews in the classroom. Using these as a basis the teachers moved forwards in co-creating resources for use in Key Stages 3, 4 and 5. Excellent work has been completed already by Culham St. Gabriel’s Trust in exploring an approach to FoRB in the Primary School, as such these materials can work together in meeting the needs of all schools.
In being able to reflect this reality in the resources it was felt necessary to utilise the lived experience of people within the UK. For these teachers drew on the work in the first phase of this project. In this work two aspects to the realisation of FoRB in society were identified:
1. The legal framework, which defines the rights, duties, and permissible activities of religious and non-religious belief organisations in the United Kingdom. It includes primary legislation enacted by Parliament, delegated legislation made under the authority of those Acts, binding case law established through decisions of higher courts, and relevant international legal obligations arising from treaties the UK has ratified.
2. The societal framework, which refers to the cultural norms, shared values, and prevailing public attitudes that influence how religion and belief are perceived, discussed, and manifested in everyday life. Even when legal protections formally exist, societal disapproval, misunderstanding, or stigma may restrict how freely those rights are exercised in practice
Both of these aspects became important in the creation of the resources. There is sometimes a disconnect between the legal and societal frameworks and it was important to recognise and explore these tensions in the resources produced. Therefore, teachers felt that in each Key Stage the resources would follow a similar structure and explore similar themes, stepped in the complexity of knowledge and skills. In this way the resources could be stand alone in an individual Key Stage or adopted across the years in a way that developed and reinforced student understanding. The topics explored in each Key Stage are:
- Dialogue and listening
- Legislation
- Religion in the local area
- Practice, worship and expression
In order to reflect the lived experience of FoRB in the UK the resources utilised case studies developed by Dr Matyas Bodi that came out of the initial phase of his research. Teachers were able to use these case studies to avoid repetition both within and across the Key Stages.
The Lesson Plans and other materials (including Presentations) developed by the teachers in this project are freely available for teachers to use. They should be able to be taught ‘off the shelf’, but we also recognise that as with all educational resources teachers know their classes best, and they may feel the need to adapt them for their circumstance. In so doing we would ask that the Intellectual Property of Freedom Declared Foundation and Regent’s Park College are respected and they not be used for profit, or without attribution.
Click on the icons below for the different Key Stage resources.
