Church of England and Methodist schools in England are inspected under Section 48 of the 2005 Education Act. SIAMS, the ‘Statutory Inspection of Anglican and Methodist Schools’ provides the inspection framework used.
A new SIAMS framework was introduced in September 2023, requiring something new of schools: that they explicitly engage with theology. Schools are asked to reflect on their context and vision to articulate how a “theologically rooted Christian vision drives the work, and enables the school to live up to its foundation as a Church school”.
Many schools have well developed Collective Worship and RE curricula and a sense of how their Christian Foundation informs their ethos. However, an area schools struggle with is to say how their teaching and learning are expressions of their Christian foundation.
The Church of England’s 2016 Vision for Education, addresses this issue in only the broadest terms, its concern largely being with school ethos and students’ formation, rather that considering how the curriculum and teaching and learning are core expressions of the school’s foundation.
Trinitarian Paideia 