Religious education for children with severe learning difficulties: constructing a framework,finding a medium,exploring a story

In this article Jane Webster enquires into the status of religious education (RE) in the curriculum of children with learning difficulties. She maintains that if RE is to be taught well its essence as a subject must be grasped by those responsible for its teaching, and that this involves establishing a viable conceptual framework for the subject. In this article a possible framework is constructed which, in respecting the cognitive and affective dimensions of human personality, enables all children to develop an understanding of the meaning of religion and a sense of their own spirituality. Jane Webster suggests that religious stories are one medium through which this kind of learning may be achieved, and describes the way in which a class of children with severe and complex learning difficulties explored the biblical story of creation in their RE lessons.