Peter Mitchell
Peter joined the Evangelical Alliance in 2018 as the Education Policy Officer and engages with national education policy and work with our members involved in education. Prior to this he had worked in the US for a Christian public policy institute (The Center for Public Justice) in policy areas including education, religious freedom and poverty and opportunity. He has been involved in politics as a local councillor in England and in public policy in both the US and the UK; having worked both on the policy side of education (particularly around education funding and curriculum design) and also having served as a school governor at both primary and secondary schools in the North East of England. He's married to a former primary school teacher and he and his bride have four children.
Inspiring choice
1 July 2019Unlike opt-out provisions available to parents who do not want their children to attend Religious Education lessons, the new Relationships Education curriculum will be compulsory for all children in primary and secondary school in England and Relationships and Sex Education will now have a diluted opt-out. The DfE says it wants to “support all young people to be happy, healthy and safe, and equip them for adult life and to make a positive contribution to society”. But for many families, these…
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A tale of two REs
2 May 2019At the same time, the government published its new statutory guidance on these subjects, which covers the content to be taught and stipulates that in secondary schools there will be no right of withdrawal from RE and a now limited right to withdraw (if the headteacher agrees) from sex education. These changes have been quite contentious, for a variety of reasons, but one to explore is the nature of these subjects. They propose to teach, among other things, about the nature of family, the…
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Calls to reform religious education
20 September 2018On 9 September the Commission on Religious Education (CoRE), released their final report, noting in their press release that “religious education must change to better reflect life in modern Britain”. CoRE is an independent commission of the Religious Education Council for England and Wales. According to the news release, the report suggests that religious education (RE) “needs to be strengthened to ensure all pupils receive adequate preparation for life in modern Britain and must adapt to…
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Education? Education? Education?
17 May 2018The Government is asking a lot of questions about education at the moment. This includes the consultation on relationships and sex education (see our response and poll results here); the Government’s response to the out-of-schools consultation (see our press release here); the integrated communities strategy green paper, and the recently announced home education consultation and the independent schools regulatory consultation. Behind these important questions are bigger and deeper questions…
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