RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY
Religious Instruction
As parents, we know that we start teaching our Catholic faith to our children at the earliest age, long before they are ready for any formal lessons. As a priest once said to me, 'I don't really expect to see a child for instruction before 6 or 7 - until then the catechesis is best done at the mother's knee.' I think that's true, and it is, anyway, a joy to pass on the faith to our little ones. If we feel inadequate to the task because our own knowledge of the faith is somewhat lacking, this is the perfect opportunity to make good our deficiencies. I had a typical Catholic education in the 1970's- 80's - which means that I left school thoroughly ignorant of the most basic truths of our faith. Consequently, I was rather daunted by the idea of having to teach those truths, but in fact this has been one of the greatest blessings stemming from our decision to home-educate. When you are teaching a four or five year old, it is not too demanding to educate yourself to that level in preparing to teach your little one. Nor is it so difficult to stay a few steps ahead, consolidating your knowledge as you teach each child, expanding in your knowledge as your older ones grow. By the time I had prepared a few children for their First Holy Communion, I knew the Penny Catechism fairly well and was in a better position to deal with any tricky questions which arose! Once you are more confident in your own knowledge of the basics, teaching any younger children you are blessed with will be a much more rewarding, rather than a daunting, task.
Textbooks
Unfortunately, good UK based materials for this subject are seriously lacking. Most parents I know use either the Baltimore catechism series or 'Faith and Life', both of which are American (more details on the following pages). There are no courses available which are based on the English 'Penny Catechism', at least not in a readily accessible form (you might get some old textbooks second hand if you are lucky). First Holy Communion prep is somewhat better served and some of the newer books are actually quite orthodox compared with what was being produced a few years ago. I do not know of any books used to teach the faith in our Catholic schools which are of a decent standard (and some, such as the ever popular 'Here I Am' scheme, or the older 'Weaving the Web' are dreadful). If you have any recommendations do please share them.
Update 2020: The Light of the World catechism series from the 1950's (which is based on the Penny Catechism) has been made available online here in PDF format.
The outline I aim to follow with my own children (using a somewhat eclectic range of second hand books, a Penny Catechism and my own materials) is shown below. As you can see, it follows a repeated three year cycle in which the main sections of the catechism (Faith, Hope and Charity - corresponding to study of the Creed, prayer and the Sacraments, and the Commandments/living a Catholic life) are repeated in increasing detail, first from ages 7-10, then ages 10-13, then ages 13-16.
Philosophy
As I explained on the Literature page, in a Catholic curriculum philosophy is not an obscure added extra for the very academic child. Every Catholic has a duty to know and understand his faith - that is, to understand at least the most basic theological truths contained in the catechism - and part of this is to understand (even if on a very basic level) the philosophy which underpins that theology.
This doesn't mean that every Catholic has to read Aquinas! It simply means that every human being has a philosophy of life (whether he calls it by that name or not), and unless he thinks about it and applies his judgement to it, he is very likely to fall into following whatever happens to be the dominant philosophy of the society in which he lives. The current dominant philosophy of our secular society (which informs almost all of what we see and hear in the mainstream media), can be characterised as subjective and relativist: i.e. there is no objective truth (one person's truth is as good as another person's) and there is no objective morality (what is wrong for one person may be right for another). This can appear a very attractive philosophy to Catholic teenagers, suggesting as it does a sense of being tolerant and non-judgemental and, so the popular argument goes, 'authentically Christ-like'. Without some understanding of the reasons why this thinking is wrong headed and fundamentally un-Christian, your average teen is going to find it very hard to resist its attractions. He is, at the very least, more likely to 'go with the flow' than openly profess the Church's perennial teachings at the risk of being derided as a narrow minded, old fashioned, intolerant bigot.
Reading the right books at the right time might just give him the capacity to understand both what is wrong with the predominant philosophy or our times, and to see the truth and beauty of the teachings he is called on to profess.
GCSE: There is no exam specifically testing knowledge of our Catholic faith. However, there are Religious Education exams available which contain at least some elements of Catholicism. There is also an exam which is pure Bible Study (on one of the Gospels, and the Acts of the Apostles): this is the 'O'Level in Religious Studies offered by CIE. For our own family, we have opted simply to teach sound doctrine and apologetics with the help of the books outlined below; we do not work towards a qualification as this is not necessary.
Overview by age
Preparatory
See the Preparatory Level page for general comments on teaching catechism pre-7, and age specific ideas in the ages 4-5, 5-6 and 6-7 catechism sections. The last of these includes ideas for direct preparation for First Holy Communion, based on the presumption that a child will be making his or her First Holy Communion around the age of 7.
4-5 Basic prayers (Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be, Grace Guardian Angel prayer)
5-6 Major feasts; patron saints; what happens at Mass; Prayer: Order of Rosary mysteries; Angelus; sequence Mass cards.
6-7 Old Testament stories; New Testament stories; Life of the Church; First Holy Communion prep
Primary
7-8 First Holy Communion prep if not already made (see prep schedule).
8-9 Catechism study: Faith ( The Creed).
9-10 Catechism study: Hope (Prayer and Sacraments)
10-11 Catechism study: Charity (Commandments)
(Contact me directly for texts to use in these four years)
OR Light of the World series for ages 6 - 11(see link above)
Middle
11-12
Study of the Mass using Montessori's The Mass Explained to Children.
Read Gospel of Luke and Acts of the Apostles.
12-13
Study of the Gospel of Mark
Study of the Acts of the Apostles
Secondary
13-14 Suggested schedule for Laux: Chief Truths of the Faith
Laux, 'Intro to Bible' New Testament only; or study of a selection of St Paul's letters
Traditional logic 1, Memoria Press
14-15 Schedule for Laux 'Mass and the Sacraments' Questions for the section on the Eucharist
Apologetics texts: either 'Following Christ in the world', Carroll Part 1
Questions for chapters 1-10 Questions for chapters 11-21
or Fr Laux Apologetics
or : Truth be Told by Mark Hart and Joe Cady.
or Fr Chacon's series. Book 1 covers the basics
Traditional logic 2, Memoria Press
15-16 'Following Christ in the world', Carroll Part 2
Various encyclicals on moral issues
Introduction to Philosophy, Sullivan.
Introduction to Aquinas.