Any airport bookshop is likely to have a section on spirituality or human potential, somewhere near the shelves on self-improvement. The topic has become, like gardening and celebrity biographies, part of the age in which we live, and linked to our leisure activities.

Yet in England and Wales, at any rate, reference to spirituality is a legal requirement of the educational system. Spirituality is inspected by Ofsted, linked across the curriculum to religious education, collective worship, music, art, literature and drama, or all of these. As John Keast of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority shows in his contribution to this collection of papers, spirituality may also surface in PSHE and citizenship. It gets everywhere.

Read more in this week’s TES Friday magazine

William K Kay is a senior lecturer in religious education at King’s College Londonnbsp;nbsp;nbsp;