Positive Faith, Worldview, and Spirituality Oracy: A Pilot Programme to Support Primary Teachers to Foster Good Pupil Talk in Religious Education.

This report presents the progress and findings of the Positive Faith, Worldview,
and Spirituality (FWS) Oracy pilot project, funded by the All Saints Education Trust and delivered by the National Institute for Christian Education Research (NICER) at Canterbury Christ Church University. The project set out to improve primary RE teacher confidence and competence with a specific focus on spiritual oracy, and to enhance children’s ability to speak, listen, and reflect meaningfully on matters of faith, worldview, and spirituality.

The report covers activity from September 2025 to May 2026, encompassing the
Autumn and Spring phases of the project. Across this period, NICER has delivered
two CPD sessions to participating teachers from a Church of England Multi Academy Trust (hereafter referred to as the Trust), visited RE lessons in seven schools, conducted focus groups with 41 pupils, and gathered evaluation data through teacher surveys and questionnaires. The report also highlights the extensive programme of wider dissemination that has already taken place, as well as plans for further dissemination.

The findings are compelling:

1. Teachers report significant gains in confidence and understanding.
2. Classroom observations reveal richer, deeper dialogue in RE lessons.
3. Most strikingly, children themselves have articulated a sophisticated understanding of spirituality as relational, expressed powerful accounts of what it means to be truly listened to, and demonstrated a remarkable capacity for respectful engagement across difference.
4. The evidence strongly supports the value of this approach and points to
outstanding opportunities for extending the work to wider school contexts.