Religious instruction Information
Queensland State Schools embrace a multitude of cultural, religious and non-religious beliefs. Under the Education (General Provisions) Act 2006, schools are to provide Religious Instruction (RI) if approached by a faith group seeking to provide RI and students of that faith attend the school.
RI informs students about the beliefs and values of a particular religion. It is delivered by volunteers of a faith group using instructional materials approved by that faith group. RI is required to be consistent with legislation and Department of Education policies and procedures.
All RI instructors must hold a blue card and participate in compulsory Student Protection and Code of Conduct training. RI instructors are only entitled to deliver the RI program outlined below. A school staff member must be present during the delivery of RI.
Participation in RI is not compulsory. Any student (except Prep students) may participate in RI if a parent has provided written instructions to the school.
Students are allocated to RI based on information provided by parents on the completed Application for student enrolment unless other written instructions have been provided to the school. A description of the RI available is provided below.
Christian Cooperative Religious Instruction
Participating faith groups: Local Christian Churches come together to offer Christian RI on a cooperative and non-denominational basis. These local Churches may, amongst others, include Anglican, Australian Christian Churches, Baptist, Catholic, Churches of Christ, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Salvation Army and Uniting Churches.
Title of Authorised Program - Christian Cooperative Program
The providers of Christian RI use authorised program resources and are committed to best-practice programs that have been reviewed by independent curriculum experts. Christian RI program resources in use in Queensland state schools are: Connect, Beginning with God and Big Questions (all published by Christian Education Publications), GodSpace (published by Burst Christian Resources) and Love Out Loud.
Aims and goals: The aim of Christian RI is to inform students about the basic beliefs of the Christian faith from a non-denominational perspective.
Outline of lesson structure
Christian RI may involve a variety of up-to-date teaching methods including storytelling, prayer, music, drama, craft, activity books, games, quizzes, video clips and puppet shows. Program resources are written by professional educators and are age-appropriate.
Lesson structure: one 30 minute seminar delivered per fortnight or weekly.
For further information, including module and/or lesson descriptors please ask at the school administration office.
Other Instruction
Students who are not participating in RI will be provided with other instruction in a separate supervised location. Other instruction must relate to part of a subject area already covered in class and may include:
- personal research and/or assignments
- revision of class work such as creative writing or literacy and/or numeracy activities which could include online programs currently accessed by the students of that school (i.e. Mathletics, Reading Eggs)
- wider reading such as independent reading appropriate to the student