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The purpose of this paper is to provide curriculum support to religious educators working in Catholic schools. The paper provides a practical response to research advocating serious attention be given to religious educators because they are at the "coalface" of Catholic education, increasingly confronted by content and policy decisions, the diverse values and needs of their students, and other competing cultural and social challenges. Religious educators play a significant role in the evangelising mission of the Catholic Church as interpreters of Scripture and Tradition and can positively or negatively influence the quality of their students' learning and its application. Entitled RECALL, the support offered to religious educators in this paper is research-led and utilises educational, standards-based principles. It is a community-minded approach that aims to build religious literacy and deepen the religious educators' awareness and connections to the legacy of the Catholic Faith Tradition. The desired outcome is to inspire evidence-based conversations encompassing faith and reason, the perceived value and reality of the identity and mission of the Catholic Church, and its impact on Catholic culture and education. Intended to enhance rather than replace existing professional formation, the approach has structures, pedagogical processes, and practices that draw from a set of overarching theoretical considerations. Furthermore, the approach employs three guiding questions for categorising and analysing Catholic content. The questions are: (i) "Who are we as Catholics and what is our mission?" (ii) "What do we believe?" and (iii) "How do we practice?" The proposed curriculum support to religious educators may foster a culture of learning in Religious Education that is focused on improving and progressing the quality of educational outcomes for students. The premise is that if religious educators are supported to engage with the great Gospel narrative, their students may do the same. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a set of educational initiatives in Religious Education (RE). The paper addresses RE as an academic learning area and reserved for Kindergarten to Year 10 classrooms in Catholic schools. The initiatives described in the paper are evidence-based; they are guided by research and student achievement data addressing contemporary assessment reforms within the Australian educational context and considering the implications that the reforms have on the quality of student learning in RE. The reforms include quality assurance measures such as large-scale, standardised assessments (LSAs) and social moderation tools. The purpose of the measures is to establish standards that support the alignment of teaching and assessment practices. Such an alignment in the RE learning area has the potential to strengthen and improve student, as well as teacher, knowledge and understanding of the Catholic Faith Tradition. The paper draws from the Catholic RE school curriculum in Western Australia (WA), assessment principles outlined for schools in WA, an Australian Research Council Linkage project and local research about teacher perceptions of an LSA in RE. The paper supports local and national policy expectations recommending a review of the quality of RE as a learning area. Furthermore, given the prominence of the Catholic Church's mission of evangelisation and the nature and role of RE in Catholic schools as part of that mission, the paper endorses the Church's current stance on thoughtful dialogue and renewed efforts to bring a better understanding about Catholic culture and education to the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1953, officials of the Roman Catholic Mission (RCM) Church in Benin City, Nigeria, requested schoolgirls of Benin–Edo ethnic origin at the local Convent Primary School preparing for baptism to bring their fiancés to school as a condition for baptism. The demand for the presentation of their fiancé was the first time such a condition for baptism was given to young teenage girls since the establishment of the RCM in Benin City in 1923. The condition and demand affected the girls' relationship with the RCM denomination. In examining and historicizing this episode, this paper asks and answers the following questions: Why did the local RCM officials change their policy to demand fiancés as a condition for the baptism of schoolgirls of Benin–Edo origin? How did the policy affect schoolgirls, particularly their relations with the Catholic faith, and their response? This paper uses archival documents, personal interviews with some former Convent school girls and Catholic church members, and written sources to find answers to these questions and reconstruct the history of women's education under the RCM in Benin City Parish under colonial rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regarding the educational endeavour of their schools, Catholic school leaders are challenged to maintain "mission integrity", and to remain faithful to the principles of Catholic education. While their daily praxis is characterised by multiple interruptions, even school leaders with profound theoretical knowledge and extensive experience do not automatically know how to deal with them in a way that aligns with the distinctive and authentic principles of Catholic education. This article argues that a practical, wise leadership practice based on Christian discernment practices provides a kind of executive function that helps Catholic school leaders to decide and act wisely and purposefully. A generic design for interrelated strategies of practical, wise school leadership is presented that in a profound way does justice not only to the ethical but also to the transformative nature of the endeavour of Catholic education. The design consists of four clusters of strategies, characterised by practical wisdom and well-chosen reflective questions to activate these strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]