ABSTRACT
There is an irony that spiritual, moral, social and cultural education appears to have grown directly out of the words of the 1988 Education Reform Act (Chapter 1, sec. 1, para. 2a) rather than out of any National Curriculum issue. What sharpens the irony is the way in which the intention of the Act has become focused in a manner unintended, certainly unplanned. It was the introduction of the OFSTED inspection process following the Schools’ Inspection Act 1992 that raised the profile of Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural (‘SMSC’) education and indeed that profile continues to imprint itself upon the inspector and the inspected.
