Crossing Humanities Threads: What RE Can Learn from Inclusive History Classrooms

This chapter examines how inclusive pedagogical practices developed within History education can inform and strengthen Religious Education (RE) teaching, particularly in relation to supporting pupils with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). It argues that inclusion is most effectively secured through thoughtful curriculum design and disciplinary clarity, rather than through reactive or individualised adaptations. Drawing on research from History education, disciplinary literacy, and curriculum theory, the chapter identifies shared epistemic approaches across the humanities, narrative coherence, structured enquiry, multimodal meaning-making, and contextual grounding that support access to complex disciplinary thinking. It explores a range of transferable strategies from History, including scaffolding enquiry, working with complex texts, conceptual and temporal sequencing, explicit vocabulary instruction, and modelling disciplinary reasoning, demonstrating how these can be adapted for RE without reducing intellectual ambition. Through illustrative case studies, the chapter shows how inclusive practice can support SEND learners’ engagement with interpretation, perspective-taking, and critical thinking, while maintaining high expectations. The chapter concludes by emphasising the value of cross-subject dialogue within the humanities and positioning inclusive practice as a shared curriculum responsibility for classroom teachers, curriculum leaders, and SEND specialists.