Learn Together
In an Educate Together school, a period of time is set aside for the ethical education curriculum, which is delivered in addition to the National Curriculum. This program is called the “Learn Together” curriculum and is published by Educate Together. It defines the core values of all teaching and learning in the school. It is subject to continuous review and development. The Learn Together Curriculum is taught both discretely, and woven into how we approach other areas of the curriculum.
Ethical Education is defined as education that enlightens, challenges and broadens our perspective of the world. It encourages reflection and engagement with local and global issues and emphasises a shared responsibility for ensuring that equality and human rights are extended to all. Ethical Education invites pupils and teachers to engage with issues and problems facing society and aims to develop the skills of critical thinking, discussion and debate.
The Learn Together Curriculum
The Learn Together curriculum aims to enable pupils to:
- Become self-aware, reflective individuals with a secure sense of belonging and identity.
- Develop the knowledge, skills, values and attitudes that will facilitate them to live as ethical people who are empathetic, socially aware and committed to democratic principles and values, global citizenship, and equality.
- Develop and use critical thinking skills that will facilitate them to critique their world and empower them to give reasoned explanations for their opinions, decisions and actions.
- Recognise their role as active members of a democratic society with the potential to take action that will lead to positive change.
- Recognise the impact of the climate crisis and their role as active members of a democratic society with the potential to take action that will lead to positive change.
- Develop ethical principles in relation to human rights, equality and justice, and apply these principles to their daily lives.
- Become familiar with the tenets and beliefs of the major religions and rational understandings of the world.
- Relate this learning to their individual experience in the context of their local, national and global community.
There are four strands of the Learn Together Curriculum. These are:
An Ethical Approach to the Environment
Pupils will be enabled to:
- Develop a knowledge, understanding and respect for the natural environment and an appreciation of its fragility and vulnerability.
- Explore the interdependence of life and the impact of over-consumption on the planet.
- Recognise the importance of active citizenship in attempting to redress the impact of human over-consumption on the environment.
- Demonstrate an understanding of the urgency needed to protect the environment for present and future life on the planet.
Equality and Justice
Pupils will be enabled to:
- Develop a critical knowledge, understanding and awareness of issues relating to human rights, equality, culture, diversity, social justice and social inclusiveness.
- Develop a critical way of being, fostering questioning, analysis and open engagement with ethical and social justice issues.
- Feel empowered to become informed, ethical and active citizens
Belief Systems
Pupils will be enabled to:
- Develop knowledge and understanding of the richness of belief systems and worldviews, both religious and secular, and relate these to the human experience and day-to-day life.
- Develop an understanding of the right to hold and practise a belief or worldview and to change that belief at any time.
- Develop their knowledge of conceptual understandings as they relate to religious and secular beliefs.
- Relate aspects of religious and secular beliefs to individual experience, leading to enhanced mutual understandings.
- Develop an understanding that beliefs and the practice of beliefs can vary from culture to culture and individual to individual.
Values and Ethical Perspectives
Pupils will be enabled to:
- Develop a critical knowledge, understanding and awareness of right and wrong and a heightened awareness of social, ethical, and moral standards through reflection on life itself.
- Learn to explore their own identities and in doing so, strengthen and enhance their self- worth and self-esteem.
- Explore, understand and identify appropriate responses to the multitude and richness of human emotions.
- Identify values integral to personal development which can inform ethical decisions.
- Engage in philosophical discussion and enquiry.
