“Developmental group work is a way of helping people in their personal growth and development, in their social skills and in the kind of relationships they establish with other people. It purpose is to provide individuals with opportunities to relate to others in a supportive group, to try out new social approaches and experiment in new roles”
(Button 1987)
The form room under the pastoral guidance of the form tutor is the starting point for the delivery of SMSC and is also essential for maintaining the development of pupils.
The English Department within the secondary school makes one of the biggest contributions, second only perhaps to Religious Education, to the teaching of spiritual, moral, social and cultural education within the school curriculum. Bigger (1999) suggests that this is due to the fact that the texts that we teach are predominantly concerned with humanity and therefore have the resources readily at our disposal. However, it is important that as English teachers that pupils “acquire value-systems which are their own (rather then simply transmitted both other and adopted uncritically)”. Therefore we must offer alternative interpretations of texts as well as facilitating self-exploration and analysis by the pupils. It is also important to note that in order to allow pupils to acquire their own value-systems that we must take into account the culture and ethnicity of the pupils, particularly in a multi-cultural city such as Birmingham. The National Curriculum has begun to address this by including texts from different cultures and traditions in the key stage 3 programme of study.
There are many texts available to the English teacher, which can support the development of spiritual, moral, social and cultural education of pupils. One text I have personally used to examine social and moral values is Kes by Barry Hines. The passage I chose (Appendix 1) revolves around an incident when Billy Casper is sent to the head teacher along with some other pupils who have been caught smoking. A younger pupil is sent with a message for the head and is asked, by the boys, to look after their smoking paraphernalia. He agrees but a misunderstanding ensues, with the head presuming that he has been sent to the office for misbehaving, and he is caned for having the cigarettes in his pocket. I thought that this would be an interesting topic for discussion in terms of “Should the boys have owned up before the other boy was caned? and “Would you have owned up?”
It was important that the pupils’ own moral values were expressed and I knew that they would all answer “yes” to both questions if they were asked outright as this would be the response expected of them in accordance with moral norms so I effectively “set them up” to gauge their personal responses. Before the lesson I arranged with a popular but well-behaved pupil that I would pretend to send her to the head teacher for a serious offence that she had supposedly committed. The class read the selected extract and were then asked the questions I had planned. Their responses were exactly as I had expected so I then launched into the pre-planned routine and sent the girl out of the room – an action which gained little response from the class apart from a few gasps of surprise! I carried on with the lesson for approximately ten minutes and then asked the pupils why that had not attempted to support the girl who had been sent out and to relate their answers to the text. The answers that were received fell neatly into Kohlberg’s (1984) theory of moral development and it was easy to assess the pupils’ moral development against the stages (see below).
Other texts that I have found which lend themselves to spiritual, moral, social and cultural education are charity advertisements. I was required to teach a media scheme of work which would result in the pupils producing their own adverts for a charity of their choice. I began by selecting four adverts – Amnesty International, Christian’s Children’s Fund of Great Britain, the Cancer Relief Macmillan Fund and the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (Appendix 2-5) – and explained to the pupils in groups of four that they had twenty pounds which they could donate to one of the charities. They then had to negotiate and decide by looking at the adverts which charity would receive the money. When asked to justify their decisions a number of points were raised:
- Human life is more valuable than that of a dolphin;
- Do cancer patients really need holidays?
- Why should we send money to other countries?
Pupils were then asked to look again at the adverts in terms of pictures and language and to see if this changed their minds. They were then set the task, in groups, of choosing a charity and producing an advertisement for them. The advertisements were then presented to the class justifying their choice of charity and use of pictures and language.
This activity facilitates both moral and social development and it requires making a value judgement based on the information, as well as group work in discussion, justifying choices and negotiation when making a final decision.
Other texts that could be used in the delivery of SMSC are folk tales from other cultures (see appendix 6-7). Many folk tales from other cultures have moral messages which it is worthwhile to discuss and examine. It is also worthwhile to examine the cultural relevance of the texts. For example, although The Boy Who Forgot His Mother is an Indonesian folk tale, the idea of parent-child relationships and the importance of remembering your roots as an individual are explored. Similarly The Precious Stone examines parent-child relationships through the theme of greed. An extension task for these stories would perhaps be for the child to consider what they feel to be important moral values and to write their own story imitating those that they have read.
From September 2002, all schools will have a statutory responsibility to teach the programmes of study for citizenship at key stages 3 and 4. Although citizenship will become a subject in its own right, occupying up to five per cent of curriculum time across the key stages, the QCA has suggested that teaching in other subjects can enhance citizenship education and also be enhanced by it. There are three programmes of in citizenship and the English Department can be responsible for taking a leading role in two of those areas:
- developing skills of enquiry and communication;
- developing skills of participation and responsible action.
In these areas pupils are required to “think about”, “justify orally and in writing”, “contribute to discussions”, “use their imagination”, “negotiate and decide” and “reflect on the process of participating. All of these skills they are asked to apply, on almost a daily basis, in the English classroom. For example, I taught a scheme of work to a low ability Year 8 group based on a book, The Chicken Gave it to Me by Anne Fine, which is concerned with animal rights. The pupils were encouraged to think about the moral dilemma surrounding battery farming by looking at various sources of information ranging from web sites to advertisements and were then asked to produce a short piece of writing outlining their own opinions on the subject. Pupils then read their work aloud and invited other members of the group to share their opinions on what they had heard.
As well as taking a leading role in the areas of key skills, English teachers can also contribute to the area of knowledge and understanding as many literature texts deal with human issues such as Animal Farm, Stone Cold and Across The Barricades which deal with politics, homelessness and secular violence in Ireland respectively.
One particular issue of professional development within spiritual, moral, social and cultural education is assessment. As English teachers are largely responsible for delivering SMSC the question has to be raised as to who has responsibility for assessing, recording and reporting achievement in this area. When undertaking the activities outlined above should the English teacher be responsible for recording achievement in SMSC as well as achievement in English? It would perhaps be useful to incorporate assessment for SMSC into existing assessment arrangements for English and to build up a citizenship portfolio across the curriculum.
It is evident, with the introduction of citizenship into the curriculum, that tutorial periods, which were previously the main receptacle for PSHE sessions, will now be used as timetabled slots for citizenship and PSHE will either be pushed into the background or taught through another subject. There is a strong possibility that if it is the latter that it will be taught through English and greater responsibility will be placed on the English teacher. Therefore English teachers must be aware of current issues, include controversial issues which are particularly prominent in the media, and are able to select and teach texts accordingly which deal with these aspects of SMSC.
In conclusion the new challenges and initiatives in SMSC offer a great deal of opportunities in both professional and pastoral development through the teaching of English, although it does mean that the English teacher will have more responsibility than previously for this aspect of the curriculum.
