See also: Spiritual development provision : policy document : the spiritually aware school

 

Definitions of Spiritual Development

The Law and OFSTED

The 1988 Education Act stated that the curriculum should be taught so as to promote the spiritual, moral, social, cultural development of pupils.

Since 1992, and the Education (Schools) Act, pupils' spiritual development has been inspected under OFSTED. Of course it is not the actual development of individual pupils per se that is inspected as this would be both intrusive and impossible, but OFSTED looks to make sure that a school is offering opportunities for spiritual development within the curriculum and school life. The inspectors will comment on the charcteristics that pupils in general display which indicate that spiritual development is taking place.

Over the years, several official documents have been issued which give definitions of spiritual development. the most important of these are: (a) 1993 Spiritual and Moral Development - a discussion paper from the National Curriculum Council (b) 1994 OFSTED's Handbook for the Inspection of Schools. Part 4 (c) 1996 the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority's Education for Adult Life: The Spiritual and Moral Development of Young People. The latest document was published by OFSTED in March 2004. Entitled Promoting and evaluating pupils' spiritual, moral, social and cultural development, it brings together official thinking in this area to provide the definition below:

Spiritual development is the development of the non-material element of a human being which animates and sustains us and, depending on our point of view, either ends or continues in some form when we die. It is about the development of a sense of identity, self-worth, personal insight, meaning and purpose. It is about the development of a pupil’s ‘spirit’. Some people may call it the development of a pupil’s ‘soul’; others as the development of ‘personality’ or ‘character’.

This definition covers what are usually seen as the three principal elements of spiritual development

• the development of insights, principles, beliefs, attitudes and values which guide and motivate us. For many pupils, these will have a significant religious basis
• a developing understanding of feelings and emotions which causes us to reflect and to learn
• for all pupils, a developing recognition that their insights, principles, beliefs, attitudes and values should influence, inspire or guide them in life.

 

Spiritual Development and Church Schools

For Church Schools the definition of spiritual development goes beyond that of OFSTED; spiritual development takes place in a Christian framework, it is the heart of the life of the school.

Christian education will seek to represent God in Jesus Christ who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. Powerful secular and material forces operate through many media in British society. Christian education will seek to provide a coherent alternative world view in which, for example, the denial of self and the life of service provide the route to real happiness and perfect freedom. Such counterbalances to secular messages do not indoctrinate the young rather they free them for personal choices on the basis of understanding.

In a Church school, Christian education cannot be restricted to some aspects of the curriculum, such as worship or religious education. Schools recognize that all aspects of the life of the school contribute to the moral and social development of their pupils. Similarly, all aspects of the life of the school contribute to the pupils' spiritual and cultural development. So, a Church school will find opportunities throughout the school curriculum, explicit and implicit, and through relationships at all levels, to share the Christian gospel and to exemplify the life of faith. Such integration requires the inspection of schools by OFSTED inspectors and denominational inspectors to take place in close consultation. Such proclamation of the gospel, like the teaching of Christ himself, will be powerful and attractive but not overwhelming or oppressive. Faith cannot be evoked through coercion.

In character and mission statements, in the school prospectus, in aims and objectives, in policies and schemes of work, a Church school will express the centrality of the Christian faith to the life of the school, not as an additional or incidental feature but as a fundamental and guiding principle. Thus it will be central to the Church's mission.

Extract taken from The National Society's Inspection Handbook, 3rd edition (The National Society, 2000)

 

Some Spiritual Development quotations to stimulate your thinking

'Spirituality is like a bird: if you hold it too tightly, it chokes; if you hold it too loosely, it flies away. Fundamental to spirituality is the absence of force.' Rabbi Hugo Gryn, quoted in Things of the Spirit, Westminster LEA 1993

'Spiritual education is the life-long process of putting together pieces from our experience and learning to form a jigsaw map of values and meaning. We use this emerging map to guide us on our journey of response to life's ultimate questions.' Michael Beesley

'Youngsters, especially, have little time or space, never mind quiet, in which to become aware of themselves, their feelings, reactions and needs. Anything which systematically helps them to do so is surely an important part of promoting their spiritual development.
We need to give pupils opportunities to reflect, in increasing depth, on what they have seen, or read, or done; to analyse their reactions; to justify the meaning they give to a particular experience. To help pupils into the habit of this kind of reflection is, therefore, an essential part of spiritual development.'
Bishop Vincent Nichols in an address entitled Spiritual and Moral Development and the Catholic School, 1993

'Spiritual Development is the development of the awareness that there is:
Something more to life than meets the eye
Something more than the material
Something more than the obvious
Something to wonder at
Something to respond to'
Professor Terence Copley, from Educating for Spiritual Growth (governor training video) produced by the College of St Mark and St John

Spiritual development involves intellectual curiosity, questioning, challenging the received values of society - there are no easy answers to the important questions of life. Bishop David Konstant

Spiritual education inspires people to live for others. Spirituality exists not within people but between them. Spirituality is to do with solidarity and communion. John Hull

 

And a story for all teachers to ponder......

PETALS OF BLOOD
by Ngugi Wa-Thiong’o

(Munira is Headmaster of the new primary school in the African village of Ilmorog.)

Munira took the children out into the field to study nature, as he put it. He picked flowers and taught them the names of the various parts; the stigma, the pistil, pollen, the petals. He told them a little about fertilisation. One child cried out:

“Look, a flower with petals of blood.”

It was a solitary red beanflower in a field dominated by white, blue and violet flowers. No matter how you looked at it, it gave you the impression of a flow of blood. Munira bent over it and with a trembling hand plucked it. It had probably been the light playing on it, for now it was just a red flower.

“There is no colour called blood. What you mean is that it is red. You see? You must learn the names of the seven colours of the rainbow. Flowers are of different kinds. different colours. Now I want each one of you to pick a flower . . . count the number of petals and pistils and show me its pollen. . . “

He stood looking at the flower he had plucked and then threw the lifeless petals away.

Yet another boy cried:

“ I have found another. Petals of blood – I mean red . . . It has no stigma or pistils . . . nothing inside.”

He went to Munira and the others surrounded him:

“No, you are wrong,” Munira said, taking the flower. “This colour is not even red . . . it does not have the fullness of colour of the other one. This one is yellowish red. Now you say it has nothing inside. Look at the stem from which you got it. You see anything?”

“Yes,” cried the boys. “There is a worm - a green worm with seven hands or legs.”

“Right. This is a worm-eaten flower . . . it cannot bear fruit. That’s why we must always kill worms. . . “

He was pleased with himself. But then the children started asking him awkward questions. Why did things eat each other? Why can’t the eaten eat back? Why did God allow this and that to happen? But he had never bothered with those kinds of questions and to silence them he told them it was simply a law of nature.

What was a law?
What was nature?
Was he a man?
Was he a God?
A law was simply a law and nature was nature.
What about men and God?

Children, he told them, it’s time for a break.

Man – law – God – nature: he had never thought deeply about these things, and he swore he would never again take the children to the fields. Enclosed in the four walls he was the master, aloof, dispensing knowledge to a concentration of faces looking up at him. There he could avoid being drawn in . . . but out in the fields, outside the walls, he felt insecure . . .