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.
Educate Together’s ethos standards similarly emphasise the importance of Ethical Education, and include it as one of the six domains for evaluating systems, processes and practices as part of the school self-evaluation process. Read more about the standards and statements of effective practice here.
Educate Together’s Charter affirms that children of all social, cultural and religious backgrounds have a right to an education that respects their individual identity whilst exploring the different values and traditions of the world in which they live.
The Learn Together curriculum enables teachers to enact this vision by providing a comprehensive roadmap for Ethical Education in equality-based primary schools.
Educate Together is working towards a future in which all people have access to an excellent education that is inclusive of all, irrespective of belief system, race, ethnicity, class, culture, gender, language, and ability.
This new edition Learn Together is a comprehensive, contemporary Ethical Education curriculum. It will support teachers to ensure all students develop important knowledge, skills and attitudes for a rapidly changing world, equipping them to embrace the challenges and opportunities of the twenty-first century.
Learn Together includes learning about values and ethical perspectives; equality and justice; belief systems and an ethical approach to the environment. The curriculum teaches students about different belief systems as well as atheism, agnosticism and humanism, without promoting any one worldview over another.
Strands of the Learn Together Curriculum
The four strands of the Learn Together Curriculum are:
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.
You can view the Learn Together Curriculum here:
