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International Journal of Children's Spirituality

ISSN: 1364-436X (Print) 1469-8455 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cijc20

Every Child Matters and childrens spiritual rights:does the new holistic approach to childrens careaddress childrens spiritual wellbeing?

Jacqueline Watson

To cite this article:Jacqueline Watson (2006) Every Child Matters and childrens

spiritual rights: does the new holistic approach to childrens care address childrensspiritual wellbeing?, International Journal of Children's Spirituality, 11:2, 251-263, DOI:

10.1080/13644360600797255

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13644360600797255

Published online: 19 Aug 2006.

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International Journal of Childrens Spirituality,

Vol. 11, No. 2, August 2006, pp. 251263

ISSN 1364-436X (print)/ISSN 1469-8455 (online)/06/02025113

2006 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/13644360600797255

Every Child Mattersand childrens

spiritual rights: does the new holistic

approach to childrens care address

childrens spiritual well-being?

Jacqueline Watson*

University of East Anglia, UKTaylorandFrancisLtdCIJC_A_179671.sgm10.1080/13644360600797255InternationalJournalof ChildrensSpirituality1364-436X(p rint)/1469-8455 (online)OriginalArti cle2006Taylor&Francis112000000July2 [email protected]

Every Child Mattersis a major change programme aimed at integrating all services for children and

young people in England. It seeks to enable a new holistic approach to their care and so improve a

number of outcomes for children, thus improving their overall well-being. Every Child Mattersseeks

to address the rights of the child to improved life chances but also their right to a voice in decisions

made about their care. Although Every Child Mattersseeks to improve a number of outcomes for

children, it makes no mention of their spiritual well-being. This article examines Every Child

Matters holistic approach and discusses in some detail its attempt to put into practice the right ofchildren and young people to have their voices listened to and their opinions valued. The article

points to the absence of any specific reference to childrens spirituality in Every Child Matters, and

asks whether its holistic approach and its recognition of childrens right to be heard are sufficient to

address childrens and young peoples spiritual rights, particularly in education.

Keywords: Spirituality; Every Child Matters; Childrens rights

Every Child Matters: the Children Act and change for children

Everyone involved in childrens

1

services in England, whether in education, socialservices, health, the voluntary sector or the police, will be aware of the massive change

programme underway to improve the well-being of all children and young people in

England. Originally laid out in the Every Child Matters Green Paper(DfES, 2003), and

developed in Every Child Matters: next steps(DfES, 2004a) and Every Child Matters:

change for children (DfES, 2004b), government policy became law with the 2004

Children Act.

*Centre for Applied Research in Education and Keswick Hall Religious Education Centre, School

of Education and Lifelong Learning, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ UK, UK. Email:

[email protected]


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252 J. Watson

Every Child Matterswas partly a response to concerns about child protection and in

particular the recommendations of Lord Laming (2003) following his examination of

the circumstances surrounding the murder of Victoria Climbi. Every Child Matters

does not merely concern social services, however, but aims for everychild, whatever

their background or their circumstances, to have the support they need (DfES,2005a; emphasis added):

This means that the organisations involved with providing services to childrenfrom

hospitals and schools, to police and voluntary groupswill be teaming up in new ways,

sharing information and working together, to protect children and young people from

harm and help them achieve what they want in life. Children and young people will have

far more say about issues that affect them as individuals and collectively. (ibid.)

Every Child Mattersseeks to improve childrens well-being in five domains:

(a) physical and mental health and emotional well-being;(b) protection from harm and neglect;

(c) education, training and recreation;

(d) the contribution made by them to society;

(e) social and economic well-being.

(Children Act, 2004, 10.2)

Every Child Mattersalso responds to broader social and political agendas. In partic-

ular it is a response to the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the

Child, enshrined in the 1989 and 2004 Children Acts and the 2002 Education Act.It also responds to a growth of interest in citizenship and to increased attention to

users perspectives in the design of services.

Every Child Matters and spirituality

Every Child Matters seeks to improve outcomes for all children in England and

includes an Outcomes Frameworkwhich explains the mechanisms for achieving this

goal (DfES, 2005b). Every Child Matters and the Outcomes Framework make no

mention of childrens spiritualwell-being. In other words, and like the UN Conven-

tion on the Rights of the Child, Every Child Mattersmakes no reference to childrens

spiritual rights.

However, at the heart of the Every Child Mattersinitiative are values which will reso-

nate with many educationalists and teachers interested in spirituality in education.

The Government wishes to encourage a holisticapproach to children by developing

partnership between professionals, and between professionals and children and their

families. It says it puts improving childrens well-beingat the heart of our policies

(DfES, 2004, 2.3) by focusing on the whole childand by ensuring children and young

peoples voices are heard (ibid., 1.6).

Despite the lack of an explicit reference to spirituality, Every Child Mattersrecog-nises values often equated with childrens spirituality: well-being, holism, the whole


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Every Child Matters 253

child, and listening to childrens voices. So, although spirituality is not specifically

mentioned, Every Child Matters could nonetheless be seen as addressing the spiri-

tual because, as John Hull said about the UN Conventions concern with chil-

drens rights to a good standard of living, Spirituality, we are thus reminded, is not

only to do with the spirit but with the physical well-being of the child (Hull,1998, p. 59).

In the field of education specifically, many educationalists and teachers interested

in the development of childrens spirituality in schools have been concerned that

education since the National Curriculum has demonstrated an unbalanced emphasis

on economic and utilitarian aims, leading to an over-emphasis on school as a compet-

itive market where the child is unable to flourish and grow as a person, or to be

listened to (Watson, 2003). And across the literature on spirituality in schools, spiri-

tual development is routinely presented as being about protecting a set of educational

values seen as vital for holistic human development, and perceived as having been

devalued or ignored in the National Curriculums unconstitutional, illiberal, and

anti-humane approach to education (White, 1988, p. 118). The Every Child Matters

project seems finally to offer hope that schools can rebalance away from the crippling

emphasis on examination targets and toward a child-centred approach, concerned for

the development of the child as a whole person. So could it be that Every Child

Mattersaddresses childrens spiritual development even though it makes no specific

reference to the spiritual? Of course, this all depends on what is meant by the spiritual

in education.

The word spirituality, in its more general usage, is not merely about well-being

and voice, important though these are. Spirituality also refers to the beliefs and valuesthat human beings develop in response to the human condition. Yet this significant

understanding of spirituality has been reduced to only an element of the broad secular

conceptualisation of spirituality that has been used for spiritual development in

education in England since the 1988 and 1992 Education Acts. Spiritual develop-

ment, as Terence Copley has said, was cut adrift from spirituality as understood by

world religions (2000, p. 9) because the secular humanist common denominator

arises in any attempt to find linguistic expression for the spiritual dimension that is

universally acceptable within the communities of education [and this] implies that

spirituality is not in its essence religious (ibid., p.139). Stewart Sutherland, theolo-gian and first Chief Inspector of OFSTED, acknowledged retrospectively that the

inspection of spiritual development must be evaluated under what for shorthand

reasons I shall refer to as the secular inspection teams (1996, p. 34). Andrew Wright

has pointed to a contemporary consensus (Wright, 1999, p. 11, and see Wright,

1997) on what is meant by spirituality for education, arguing that, the recent history

of spirituality in education has been almost unanimous in insisting on a universal

anthropological notion of spirituality which transcends any specific religious belief

system (Wright, 1999, p. 17).

In my view, the shift of emphasis brought by Every Child Mattershighlights the

problem of what we want from spirituality in education. If spirituality is, indeed,largely about changing pedagogical values to attend to the well-being of the whole


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254 J. Watson

child, then Every Child Matters could be seen as addressing childrens spiritual

rights. If, however, we believe that addressing childrens spiritual rights is about

more than this, then we might want to give Every Child Matters a more cautious

welcome.

The aims of this article

This article, then, has two main aims. The article was prompted by my involvement

in the work of the National Evaluation of Childrens Trusts (NECT) and the article

makes some use of the published findings from that evaluation (NECT, 2005).2The

articles main focus is on an examination of Every Child Matters early progress in

addressing the rights of children to improved well-being and life chances, and to a

voice in their care. It describes the holistic approach to childrens care and its focus

on the whole child. It then turns to Every Child Matters ambitious aim to enable chil-

dren and young people to have a voice in their care, whether, for instance, in schools,

hospitals, family centres or with youth offending teams, and it examines in some

detail issues raised by putting this ambition into practice.

The articles emphasis on these subjects is based on an assumption that these

aspects of Every Child Mattersmay be of interest in their own right. However, the

article is also concerned to draw attention to the absence of any direct reference to

childrens spiritualwell-being and, ultimately, seeks to ask whether this matters. The

article is primarily interested in spirituality in the context of school education and

returns to a discussion of that issue in the conclusions.

Taking a holistic approach to childrens services and the whole child

The scale of change to a holistic approach is huge. It involves the reconfiguration of

service sectors and co-ordination of diverse professional groups and organisations

working with children with a wide variety of needs. It involves breaking down long-

standing cultural barriers to cross-sector working and the building up of trust to

develop a new professional culture and language. The holistic approach also involves

new processes such as cross-sector information sharing and common assessment and

the use of multi-agency teams of practitioners, sometimes working peripatetically andsometimes based in newly developing co-located sites such as childrens centres or

extended schools. The overall aim is to provide a holistic service which will address

the needs of the whole child, either by providing a wide range of services on one site

and/or by having a lead professional to co-ordinate a care plan for the individual

child. This is a challenging task, however, because, although these ideas are

welcomed in principle, there are cultural barriers to overcome to do with professional

openness and trust around issues such as data security, delegation and supervision.

The NECT team found that the move to greater integration presents formidable

challenges to the professionals involved, including anxieties about the policys impli-

cations for jobs and professional paths. Nonetheless, professionals and families inter-viewed for the evaluation were all enthusiastic about the Every Child Mattersvision


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because they believed the new holistic approach could improve childrens well-being

(NECT, 2005, para. 36).

There will be those who argue that the new integrated approach has more to do

with efficiency savings and cost cutting than with holism as such. However, greater

integration does have real potential for a holistic approach that could improve indi-vidual childrens overall physical and emotional well-being. It is also the case that

there has been an increasing commitment to child-centred, ecological and develop-

mental approaches to childrens care in social and health care, and the transfer of

these values to education will constitute a challenge to the emphasis on the targets

approach to education since the National Curriculum. In these senses, Every Child

Matterscould be said to address the spiritual needs of children and young people in

education if the aim for spiritual development in a school is to provide those condi-

tions in which individuals as well as the whole school community might flourish

(Gent, 2002, p. 6). As Stewart Sutherland said in his introduction to the Charisseries

of text books for spiritual development:

We talk of accountability and appraisal, SATs scores and measurable outcomes, league

tables and competition between schools. Somewhere, the pupil as a whole person is in danger

of getting lost beneath the demands of all these outside constraints. (Charis, 1996, p. v)

Every Child Mattersshould re-introduce holistic values: it is certainly set to challenge

the current status quo.

Giving children and young people a voice

The Government also expects that children, young people and their families will be

given a voice in the services provided for them and anticipates, Community partici-

pation will be critical to the success of future arrangements (DfES, 2004b, p. 14).

The necessity to listen to children and young peoples voices has been a significant

concern for many of those involved in the discussion of spiritual development and

spiritual pedagogy and particularly, of course, by Clive and Jane Erricker (see for

instance, Erricker & Erricker, 2000).

The professionals interviewed for the NECT felt childrens participation would

result in improved outcomes for both service users and their communities but, at this

early stage of development, the NECT researchers found the mechanisms for engag-

ing children and young people could vary considerably across trusts and take different

forms (ibid., para. 9196). Children, young people and families might be actively

involved in decision making with adults about the nature, organisation and delivery

of social and health care services. In other cases children were represented through

school and youth councils, and most local authorities had websites aimed at inform-

ing children and young people and sometimes soliciting their views. Sometimes chil-

dren were consulted directly through questionnaires. However, children and young

people tended to be involved in low-level decision making in statutory services,

although Connexions, the Childrens Fundand voluntary organisations had strongerand longer-standing involvement.


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256 J. Watson

The NECT conclusion, that there have been a number of small, successful activ-

ities involving children and young people but there has not been an approach that

represents a systematic framework for participation (ibid., para. 94) echoes other

investigations into childrens involvement in services, showing that these are still

early days (see for instance, The National Evaluation of the Children Fund, 2004;Franklin & Sloper, 2004; Oldfield & Fowler, 2004). There is a commitment to

listening to children, but progress is slow because engaging them proves challenging

in practice.

What do we expect from listening to children and young people?

One of the biggest challenges to putting participation into practice is that listening

to children is not enough; adults must provide responsive mechanisms so that listen-

ing results in action. The NECT is also working with the National Childrens

Bureau (NCB) in order to listen to the views of children and young people, as well

as those of their parents and carers.3Already the evaluation has found that children

and young people have a number of clear demands, suggesting that one of the

biggest challenges across, for instance, schools, hospitals, family centres and the

police will be working out how to respond to childrens and young peoples high

expectations.

A number of the issues highlighted by the children and young people and reported

by the NECT and NCB, such as safety, transport and improved sports and recreation

provision, are similar to those in the Governments recently published Green Paper,

Youth Matters(DfES, 2005c). This is encouraging because it is crucial that consulta-tion leads to a serious recognition and acknowledgement of childrens and young

peoples perspectives. The evidence demonstrates that children and young people can

be wisely observant and vocal about their needs (NECT, 2005, Sections 2.8 and 2.9).

However, without action there is a risk that consultation will merely produce a wish

list followed by disillusionment. There is already evidence of young people develop-

ing cynicism in social care (Danso et al., 2003) and research has also identified a

particular need to more seriously address feedback to children in the social and health

care contexts (Franklin & Sloper, 2005, p. 12). In education, Kerr and Cleavers work

on citizenship education notes the lack of progress in involving children through

active citizenship in schools and raises the question whether schools and other insti-

tutions in society are ready to provide real active citizenship opportunities for all

young people, given prevailing cultures and structures that are largely hierarchical

and undemocratic (Kerr & Cleaver, 2004, p. 33).

Every Child Matters attempt to give children and young people a voice will be coun-

terproductive if they are not meaningfully included as partners, since participation

can also have negative consequences if children and young people are not listened to

or their views are not taken into account (Franklin & Sloper, 2005, p. 3). Rather than

managing childrens expectations, it may be more productive to be open and honest

from the start about what children and young people can realistically expect, partic-ularly if we are concerned for their spiritual development.


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What is meant by participation for childrens well-being?

Before such expectations can be addressed, however, greater clarity is needed, not

only about what is meant conceptually by listening and responding to children but

also by engaging them. Every Child Matterstends to use the umbrella term participa-

tion, but the meaning, use and development of this term itself is unclear, and appears

to include a continuum of activities from allowing children greater opportunity to

speak in lessons, to consulting them about service development and quality, through

involvement in decisions which affect the nature of those services, to genuine partic-

ipation in shaping the way local government responds to the challenges facing young

people. The Every Child Mattersproject as a whole faces major challenges with confu-

sion over language, since professionals in different sectors understand key words,

such as assessment or need, in different ways. The same cross-sector language

problem also surrounds the word participation.

Boyden and Ennew have put forward two interpretations of participation: takingpart and, rather differently, knowing that ones actions are taken note of and may be

acted upon, sometimes called empowerment (1997, p. 33). This distinction fits with

the notion of a ladder of participation, associated with the work of Roger Hart (1997),

where participation is presented as a power struggle, with children needing to climb

a hierarchical ladder to increased levels of power and autonomy which they must wrest

from adults. More recently, however, and perhaps as a result of increased use of partic-

ipation in practice, other researchers have challenged Harts hierarchical model and

argued instead for what Ruth Sinclair has called a multi-dimensional understanding

of participation (2004, p. 108). Sinclair and Kirby et al.(Kirby et al., 2003; Sinclair,

2004) have put forward a model which describes childrens participation in practice

as having a variety of levels which are context dependent. In some contexts, they argue,

it may only be appropriate for adults to take childrens views into account when they

make decisions. In different contexts, however, children might be involved in decision-

making with adults, or children could share power and responsibility with adults. In

certain contexts, children could make autonomous decisions (Sinclair, 2004, p. 109).

Sinclair has also pointed to the need to distinguish between private and public

forms of participation (ibid.). In social and health care since the 1975 Children Act

participation has tended to be about involving children in private decisions about their

personal care. It is only more recently that social and health care have adopted a publicform of participation, consulting children and young people about services with a view

to improving quality. In schools, particularly since the introduction of Citizenship

Education with the 2002 Education Act, participation has been understood as public,

involving representation of childrens views via school councils and Youth Parliaments.

Participation discourse and childrens rights in social and health care and in

education

The discourse of participation also varies across sectors. A comparison of the way inwhich the word participation is used in social and health care policy documents by


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258 J. Watson

contrast with education policy documents shows the word tends to be understood

differently in these two domains. The variation in use suggests cross-sector historical

differences in expectations of participation activity and outcomes. The variation also

suggests differences in response across and within the sectors linked to three different

types of rights: consumer rights, equal rights and democratic rights.In social and health care there is greater evidence of consumer rights, of children

being invited to participate in the design and delivery of services. Here they are char-

acterised as users or consumers, valuable for ensuring services are properly designed

to meet their needs and satisfy their consumer rights. The 1989 Children Act raised

an expectation that disabled children should have their views taken into account in

determining their care. Since 1998, the Quality Protects programme, through its

Objective 8, has required local authorities working with looked-after children and

young people to actively involve users and carers in planning services and in tailor-

ing individual packages of care (quoted in Franklin & Sloper, 2005, p. 2; and see

DfES, 2005d). Since the 1999 Local Government Act, local authorities have been

required to carry out Best Valuereviews of all services which must include listening to

the wishes and concerns of children and young people. In Health, the childrens

National Service Framework has emphasised the need for a systematic approach to

consulting and involving children and young people in their own care and treatment

(DH/DfES, 2004).

In education, the word participation is used differently. Most frequently it is used

in connection with inclusion, referring to children and young people with disabilities,

mental health or social problems, or those who are disaffected achieving their equal

right to an education. Conventionally in education policy terms, participation hasbeen used to refer to the enrolment of young people in post-compulsory education

and training in a competitive global market:

Participation among 1619 year olds remains very low by international standards. We are

close to the bottom of the OECD league table for participation among 17 year-olds. That

is now the burning problem facing our education service. The system for 1419 education

curriculum, assessment and the range of opportunities on offer needs radical modernisa-

tion to meet contemporary and future demands. (DfES, 2005e, 1.3)

Emphasis has also been placed by some on consulting young people about teaching

and learning, with striking developments in the relationship between teachers and

learners as a result (Rudduck, 1996). However, the relation between consultation

and participation is unclear. In education policy (although less in practice) user

participation in the design and delivery of schools has generally been reserved for

parents, who are invited to shape the education their children receive and the progress

of their school (DfES, 2005f, 5.4). One earlier education document, interestingly

from the National Healthy School Standard, a body which has a strong commitment

to children and young peoples participation, has suggested that pupils views [should]

influence teaching and learning in PSHE and citizenship (DfEE, 1999, p. 13), but

there is no suggestion yet in education that children or young people should have adirect influence on the teaching (design and delivery) of any other curriculum subject.


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Since the 2002 Education Act, the term participation has also been closely linked

in education with active citizenship. Children and young people should learn about

citizenship in Citizenship Education but schools should also encourage them to take

part in active citizenship, including benefiting from a democratic right of representa-

tion to school councils and youth parliaments. School councils offer pupils the oppor-tunity to have a real say in how they learn and achieve and can be much more

involved in how the school is run, for example helping to interview new members of

staff or contributing to decisions on school meals (DfES, 2005f, 5.24). Here again,

participation appears to refer to involvement rather than to the effective engage-

ment of pupil voice. It remains unclear how far children can realistically influence

schools through school councils. Kerr and Cleavers examination of Citizenship

Education reports that active citizenship and school councils show little real impact

as yet, and that OFSTED has acknowledged difficulties here (reported in Kerr &

Cleaver, 2004, p. 41).

In education there is greater evidence of democratic rights, of children being

invited to participate through elected representatives on school and youth councils.

In Every Child Matters, where the different sectors converge, the difference between

these understandings of participation is blurred, making it less obvious what is meant

by and expected of the participation of children and young people. There is also room

for further confusion where participation is used in education to simply mean achiev-

ing access to the service provided.

Is spirituality a missing link?To ensure childrens well-being, and perhaps particularly their spiritual well-being,

there is room then for the Every Child Mattersproject to clarify what is meant by the

word participation and what is expected from this new engagement with children,

so that children and young people are at least engaged with more honestly.

What is crucial is that those involved have an understanding of these complexities so that

they can match appropriately the nature of their activity to its purpose and to the decision-

making context and the appropriate level of power-sharingonly when the adults have

thought this through are they going to be in a position to engage honestly with children.

(Sinclair, 2004, p. 110)

There is also room for greater honesty from government about its commitment to

childrens involvement because, although much has been achieved, without substan-

tial funding for the training and support of children, young people and professionals,

childrens voices will continue to be silenced and the project seriously flawed:

The resource implications of participation should not be underestimated, and without

adequate funding or long-term planning what can be achieved is greatly reduced. (Franklin

& Sloper, 2005, p. 15)

It must be recognised, however, that these are early days in what is a demanding

change programme for childrens services and, if we are concerned about childrenand young peoples well-being, then we can celebrate the new emphasis on a holistic


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260 J. Watson

approach to the well-being of the whole child, and to the national and local recogni-

tion that children and young people have a right to have their voices heard and their

concerns addressed.

However, as has been said, Every Child Mattersand the 2004 Children Act, like the

UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, make no explicit reference to childrenand young peoples spirituality (or religion) or to their rights in this regard

(Schweitzer, 2005). Likewise, the Every Child Matters Outcomes Framework gives

extensive coverage to various aspects of childrens physical, emotional and economic

well-being but nowhere mentions childrens spiritual well-being (DfES, 2005b). Not

only do the Childrens Act and Every Child Mattersignore childrens spiritual rights,

recent education white papers also made no mention of spiritual development, plac-

ing emphasis instead on the development of social skills and citizenship, and the

Governments White Paper 1419 Education and Skills also hinted at whittling

down Religious Education (RE) by integrating it with Personal Social and Health

Education (PSHE):

There are clear links between RE, PE, sex education, citizenship and PSHE, and learners

benefit when the links are emphasised in the way in which they are taught. Teaching the

subjects in a co-ordinated way can also help to free up time within the curriculum. (DfES, 2005e,

para. 5.21; emphasis added)

It certainly remains the case that schools are under a legal obligation to provide all

pupils with opportunities for spiritual development (Education Act, 1988 2(a);

Education Act, 1992 2:1 (d) and 9:4 (d)), and, in recent advice, OFSTED confirms

the importance of pupils SMSC development and that schools are required by lawto promote pupils SMSC development and inspectors are required to inspect it

(OFSTED, 2004, p. 4). However, stating that spirituality is important is not the same

as stating what spirituality is; and this is an educational concept that has been noto-

riously vague and characterised, for instance, as conceptually adrift (White, 1994,

p. 369) and an ill-defined holdall (Copley, 2000, p. 9).

If in education we understand spirituality to mean the kinds of things described in

this article, then we may feel that Every Child Mattersis well placed to, at last, chal-

lenge the spiritless pedagogy of the National Curriculum and bring in real and valu-

able change for children. However, to limit our understanding of spirituality to things

like the well-being and voice of the whole child is to limit the richness of what can be

meant by spirituality: those transcendent beliefs and values which give deepest mean-

ing to our lives. While Every Child Mattersmay help reintroduce the former, there is

a danger that meanwhile the latter, richer understanding of spirituality may be

marginalised yet further by other aspects of educational policy. Spiritual pedagogy

must address the knowledge base and critical thinking needed for addressing this

richer sense of spirituality, to enable children and young people, as Andrew Wright

would argue, to be spiritually educated informed, articulate, [and] literate

(Wright, 1996, p. 148).

So, while Every Child Mattersis to be welcomed for its holistic vision for improvingchildrens well-being and for giving them voice, it does, I think, raise concerns about


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future attentiveness to children and young peoples spirituality. Not only are the spir-

itual rights of the child not explicitly recognised by Every Child Matters, because of the

way in which spirituality has largely been conceptualised for education since the

National Curriculum, there is a risk that educationalists and practitioners maynone-

theless think that they are.

Notes

1. The words child and children are used in this article as shorthand for both children and

young people. Likewise the word parent refers to both parents and carers of children and

young people.

2. The NECT is being undertaken by an interdisciplinary team at the University of East Anglia

in partnership with the National Childrens Bureau (NCB). It was jointly commissioned by the

Department for Education and Skills (DfES) and the Department of Health (DH). Reports of

the evaluations work and findings can be found via the Every Child Matters website (NECT,

2005). The author is a research associate with the NECT and is grateful to the projects co-

directors, Professor Chris Husbands, Professor Max Bachmann and Professor Margaret

OBrien, for their support and indebted to the team researchers, Dr Yuelia Lu and Ann

Shreeve, and particularly to Dr Natalia Jones, for their contributions. However, the author

takes sole responsibility for the views expressed in this article, and for any errors.

3. This work is being carried out for the NECT by the NCB. Detailed findings of the first round

of their panel interviews can be found in the NECTs Phase I Report (NECT, 2005, Sections

2.8 and 2.9).

Notes on contributor

Jacqueline Watson is a research associate with the National Evaluation of Childrens

Trusts at the University of East Anglia. She is also an associate of the Keswick

Hall RE Centre in the School of Education. Her longer-term research interests

are in spiritual development and Religious Education, and in particular the

discourse around spiritual development. Until recently she was a secondary

school Religious Education teacher.

References

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