The TES RE Group is a great source of lesson ideas and inspiration and is the place to share best practice and get your questions answered by your peers. This is also where you go to debate the latest issues in the teaching of RE.
This has also gone onto the PSHE thread.
I am not a specialist in this, but being in a PRU with a humanities background, some of this stuff heads my way.
Always a fan of random resources, sometimes you can find some real gems…..however we had a ‘cold drop’ of some DVDs from the Way to Happiness Foundation, looks very much like Scientology to me, and having googled it, seems linked in to that organisation quite heavily. Although I have taught (and sometimes do still) RE, really not sure about this. I don’t want to dismiss something out of hand, will quite happily discuss any religious/ethical belief as am non-practicing CofE myself, but I do have some issues with this.
What is the official stance on Scientology being discussed, I do not recall seeing it in any local guidelines, but would it be mentioned when discussing ‘alternative religions’?
Thanks
B x
I don't know how reliable the sources are but according to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_in_the_United_Kingdom
"The UK government does not classify the Church of Scientology as a religious institution.[11] The Church's application for charity status in England and Wales was rejected in 1999, on the grounds that there is no "public benefit arising out of the practice of Scientology.[5][12][13] "
The Ministry of Defence has confirmed that Scientology is "an officially recognised religion in the Royal Navy".[13] The Prison Service in England and Wales does not recognize Scientology as a religion,[8][17] but prisoners who are registered as Scientologists may practice their religion and are given access to a representative of the Church of Scientology if they wish to receive its ministry.[11]
The Crown Prosecution Service announced in March 2009 that Scientology should be treated as a religion for the purposes of the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006, which criminalises threatening words or behaviour directed at religious groups
Scientology has received critical judgements from British courts, calling it "pernicious nonsense,"[1] "dangerous material"[1] and "immoral and socially obnoxious".[2] It has been described in Parliament as a socially harmful enterprise which indoctrinates children and other vulnerable people by "ignorantly practising quasi-psychological techniques".[3] The UK Government's 1971 official report into Scientology was highly critical,[3] as was another report prepared secretly several years later.[4] Since then, the Church has been recognised as a religion by some authorities, but is not itself a registered charity
Thank you for that.
I shall probably not use them, would rather not cause any problems...
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