People need information to make informed decisions… decisions born out of ignorance or half a story – that’s not education.

The Interview

Sue Woodroofe has been a secondary school teacher in different countries as well as a principal to both primary and secondary students, both in the UK and abroad. She is now the principal of an interdenominational independent school in Yorkshire. Sue was kind enough to let me interview her on the role of religion in education.

1. What do you feel that you have gained from the engagement?

This engagement really helped me put lots of the ideas and opinions that I had heard from parents and politicians into perspective. This gave me a valuable insight into the views of educators and I was surprised to see that despite the differences in the national curriculum and the different pressures from parents and the state, there were a lot of similarities in the views of Muireann Nic a Ri (Irish teacher) and Sue Woodroofe.

2. How does it inform the political issue?

This interview was very relevant to lots of the issues brought up by my political topic and Sues’ responses were very detailed and thought-provoking. Her views as a Christian teaching in a secular environment were very interesting especially her view that the responsibility of schools is to provide students with the wider context / the bigger picture for them to place their own views into.

3. What are the most important points to take away from this engagement?

Sue ideas were that students have a right to information and that a national curriculum needs to represent the views of different groups to give students the ability to reach informed opinions not born out of ignorance or bias. She did recognise however that schools often experience enormous pressure from parents and that the pressure is inevitably less for independent schools than that of state schools.  Sue’s responses helped me realise the importance of religious education for most families and her responses also acknowledged that when talking about a particular religious group’s view on sex education it is important to recognise the hugely diverse spectrum within religions with many people of the same religion holding different views.

4. What key concepts and theories does it relate to in the global politics course?

This links to the idea of human rights as people have the right to have access to education as well as the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. Human rights are, by design, indivisible and therefore all rights are of equal importance and cannot be placed above another. Governments are not permitted to choose some rights over others and have to respect all rights that are afforded to individuals. Whilst the government can try to increase tolerance and acceptance as part of a national curriculum the cannot/shouldnot do so in a way that undermines the importance of freedom of religion.