REtoday - cpb-eu-w2.wpmucdn.com · 4 Teaching students gifted in studying religions Jane Simpson ... Stab in the back ... as to whether critical thinking alone made a student Gifted

In this issue …The power of words

• The power of silence• Do you sanitise Islam?

Do people satanise Islam?• An Iranian Schindler: a fresh focus

for Holocaust Memorial Day

REtodayThe termly magazine for teachers of RESpring 2013 Vol 30 No 2

ISSN 0226-7738

02 REtoday Spring 13

Editorial: Powerful Religion

This term’s cover:

Religion has a sometimes surprisingly powerful capacity to endure. One of Karl Marx’s less successful prophecies was about the withering of faith. Who could have guessed 40 years ago that the ‘twilight of atheism’ would be darker than the twilight of religion? (Alister McGrath’s fascinating book of that title is worth every teacher of RE’s attention.)

One way religions pull off the endurance trick is by the transmission of the faith by the word: Bibles and Qur’ans, Gita and Dhammapada are powerful texts, loved and memorised by millions, with sales figures that make J K Rowling seem ordinary. And although there is surely some truth in the idea that the Bible is the least-read bestseller, it’s also evident that ancient texts carry the power of faith in word to the future in 2013. That’s one reason why this issue of REtoday magazine is themed around the power of words.

Here’s another reason: a few words can sometimes encapsulate a whole movement. Dr King’s dreams and Mandela’s idea that ‘there is no easy walk to freedom’ are well-known examples. Words such as harmony, peace, freedom or love can turn an election, can inspire a movement, evoke a commitment or elicit co-operation for goodness.

RE sometimes slows down a child’s thinking to contemplate the power of just one word, and it is good to do so. The word carries the concept with its history in a few letters: a lot of weight on one word.

But words of love and peace are not the whole of this term’s REtoday theme. There are words like prejudice, genocide, Satan, evil, hatred, Islamophobia or torture to think about in RE too. These words – well, concepts really, endure just as strongly as the sacred texts I refer to above. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ Reith Lectures on the ‘persistence of faith’ from over 20 years ago went onto the BBC website recently, and are worth a look if you teach A level. Still he is often asked: Where was God at Auschwitz? His reply is an affirmation and some questions: ‘God trusted us, but we betrayed the trust. Where was God? In the words: “Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbour.” Can we sense the presence of God in one whose colour is not ours? Can we see His trace in one whose faith and way of life is not ours? There’s only one thing on which God has set his image: on us, all of us.’

You could do worse, as Holocaust Memorial Day comes soon this term, than to use his challenging words with your able pupils. Listen here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/judaism/holocaust/reflections.shtml

Lat Blaylock, Editor

Contact addresses

Editorial matters Lat Blaylock, Editor REtoday, 1020 Bristol Road, Selly Oak Birmingham B29 6LB Email: [email protected]

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Staff

Editor Lat Blaylock

Editorial team Lizzie McWhirter (News) Jane Brooke Julie Grove Chris Boxley

Design & layout www.twelve20.co.uk

Subscribers – anyone who buys REtoday – can access the extra resources that go with four of our articles each term. See the inside back cover of each term’s issue for the password.

REtoday on the web

There is a cave on Mount Hira outside Makkah where the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, used to go to pray.

Here he first heard the messages from the Angel Jibril that became the text of the holy Qur’an. See our story on p.32 for ways of making these powerful words the focus for good learning in RE.

RE TodayServices

Focus 4 Teaching students gifted in studying religions Jane Simpson

6 The power of religious words Julie Grove

8 The name’s Bond Mark Rocques

10 Beyond words Mike Keogh

Classroom 4–1912 Age 4–7 How will you teach Easter to the 4-7s this year?

REtoday Editorial Team

14 Age 4–11 Are you sitting comfortably? Richard Linford

16 Age 7–14 Literacy skills in the service of RE Julia Diamond Conway, Shabana Jabbar and Daniel Hugill

18 Age 5–11 The power of words: prophecy, politics and symbol Gill Tewkesbury

20 Age 7–16 If Peter was a tweeter REtoday Editorial Team

22 Age 7–14 What has the Polish National Stadium to do with the ‘Iranian Schindler’? Chris Boxley

24 Age 11–16 Gold Award for RE! Joanne Harris

26 Age 11–16 The power of words: the F-word REtoday Editorial Team

28 Age 11–16 Reflection diaries Rosie Bradberry

30 Age 14–19 Who am I becoming? Ellie Ellis

Story & emails from the classroom32 Story: The Prophet Muhammad and the Word of Allah

34 Being creative through the RE curriculum Rachel Kemp

36 Plato’s Academy: in Pod we trust Natasha Penford, Joe Southwood and James Roberts

37 Adam and Eve and Rama and Sita Stacey Archbold

38 When life gives you lemons, make RE Maureen McDevitt-Norman

39 A kinaesthetic Holy Week Val Hines

Staffroom40 Satanisation or sanitisation and the teaching of Islam

Joyce Miller

42 Harmony Verity Bishop

44 The word ‘justice’: how do we learn its meaning? Jo Hopper

46 Peace is more than the absence of war Students of Manchester Metropolitan University

47 Beginner RE teachers Imran Mogra

48 ‘Be the change you want to see’: Boteler pupils help the blind Jean Reynard

News50 News from NATRE, RE Today and around the UK

Edited by Lizzie McWhirter

Reviews56 Reviews

Stab in the back62 More thorough, more ambitious Dilwyn Hunt

Contents …

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This term’s theme: The power of words

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Focus

Teaching students gifted in studying religions

Jane Simpson shares her research into quality learning for Gifted & Talented pupils in RE.

They are some of your most able and most frustrating students. They can have insights well beyond their years into complex ethical issues. In other lessons they seem to be in a dream, off task no matter what you do. In all lessons they struggle to get their ideas down. Their ability is masked by their ‘disability’. In most subjects these students are unlikely to be recognised as having both special needs and special abilities, as being ‘doubly exceptional’. It is often in RE, with its range of disciplines, traditions, sources and methods, that their gifts and talents are first picked up.

Background to the study

The potential of RE to identify as Gifted those students who might be passed over in other subjects is realised in too few schools. How has the training and praxis of RE teachers affected the way they identify and challenge students Gifted & Talented in studying religion? This was my main question as I undertook a study of three heads of department in three very different secondary schools in Cambridgeshire. I approached this both as an academic and as a practitioner, as a former lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, and a secondary school teacher. Teaching RE in schools in Cambridgeshire and other counties (2005–09) enabled me to draw on recent professional training in Gifted & Talented education and bring these perspectives together.†

How have RE teachers approached Giftedness?

Soon after starting to teach in a range of schools in East Anglia, it was clear to me that there was a gap between RE and Gifted education, not only regionally, but nationally and internationally. For some time RE teachers had been using standard checklists to identify their more able students and designing activities to extend and enrich them.

Pragmatic approaches predominated over critical and theoretically informed approaches to Giftedness. There seemed to be little awareness of the body of research on Gifted education.

Are the findings in the literature on Giftedness relevant to RE and spirituality?

Four main findings from the literature on Giftedness are directly relevant to RE and subjects regarded by Ofsted as having a ‘spiritual dimension’. First, Gifted children from faith, agnostic or atheist backgrounds can show profound spiritual sensitivity and ask deep questions, unusual for their age. In other respects they are like their peers. This ‘asynchronous development’ can be both a challenge and a delight for the RE teacher.

Second, the way Gifted students think about philosophical and existential issues is far from linear or cerebral. Their thinking is divergent and links thought to emotion, sometimes in startling ways. ‘Over-excitable’ highly Gifted students can excel when this is allied to expression in writing, art, drama or music, as is done in many RE lessons.

Third, many Gifted learners have global thinking and concerns of a metanature. RE curricula encourage human values such as caring for the environment. They also include questions about the existence of God and overarching webs of meaning. Global thinking and critical thinking skills can work together. Lastly, and linked to their heightened awareness of others’ suffering, Gifted students often have an acute sense of social justice, a theme in all Agreed Syllabuses.

Critical thinking and empathy in RE: skills or gifts?

All three heads of department interviewed agreed that critical thinking and empathy are central to RE, as students seek to understand the cultural and religious lives of others. They differed as to whether critical thinking alone made a student Gifted in RE, as in the model of ‘schoolhouse giftedness’, based on high levels of academic achievement and abstract reasoning. They also differed as to whether empathy was a gift or a skill that could be learned. All had taught students who were strongly empathetic and had weak academic skills, but only two recognised them as Gifted, as ‘doubly exceptional’. Teacher frameworks and experience played a crucial role in this identification.

The importance of teachers’ frameworks

Teacher B, a reforming teacher in a rural Fenland market town comprehensive, became Head of Department after two years of full-time teaching. After having completed a bachelor’s degree in RS at Westminster College, Oxford, she became unwell and for the next six years did care work.

Dr Jane Simpson suggests that RE has a very particular offer to make to gifted pupils.


Reflecting on her training as a secondary school teacher at Homerton College, Cambridge, she concluded that her experience as a carer was more important in identifying as Gifted those students whose ‘disability’ masked their ability.

Teacher C, a recently trained teacher in an inner-city comprehensive, felt that her PGCE training did little to prepare her for teaching students Gifted in studying religions. She had worked with a number of students who had high verbal ability but poor written expression and taught them metacognitive skills. Given her view of Giftedness as superior general intellectual ability and of empathy as a sign of maturity, she was unable to recognise signs of asynchronous development, which made these students doubly exceptional.

Poetic reflection by a ‘non-writer’ on the Holocaust

All three teachers used open-ended questions that the more able could ‘fly with’. In Teacher A’s school, an independent school in a market town, all students were offered opportunities for enrichment. Students with developmental dyspraxia, who were full of insight but never wrote much, were given laptops in lessons so that they could do justice to their ideas. Teacher A vividly remembered how a doubly exceptional Year 9 student reflected on the Jewish Holocaust. After seeing a short film, he immediately grasped the significance for Jewish people as a ‘people of the book’, when all Jewish books were burned six weeks after the passing of new laws. With poor syntax, but strong empathy, he wrote: ‘As the flames and the ash went up, part of that person’s identity went up in flames and ash. They must have felt hollow’. While weak academically, he showed ‘deep down intuition’.

Divergent thinking and paradox

Tying in with international research in Gifted education, all students can be challenged in lessons that encourage them to crack concepts open, find related concepts and then look at how religions diverge in putting their ideas into practice. Divergent thinking challenges the very able to think both critically and creatively.

RE stands alone in the curriculum in the multitude of ways it offers to wrestle with paradox, holding opposites together in creative tension. Authentic tasks can encourage higher order thinking by posing moral dilemmas and juxtaposing primary source texts that provoke non-linear divergent thinking. For Teacher A, higher order thinking enables students to do justice to religion itself. Religions became ‘more 3D, more tactile, more like a sculpture than like a flat picture’.

Helpful approaches and Baumfield’s book

Excellent books have been written for RE teachers in the UK that integrate theoretical approaches with sound praxis. This is what students Gifted in studying religions sorely need. In 2002 such a book was published, melding cognitive and affective approaches. Vivienne Baumfield’s Thinking Through Religious Education (2002) came out of a collaborative project between researchers at the University of Newcastle, RE teachers in the region and students of all abilities and backgrounds who took part in trialling lessons. In 2011 national programmes for Gifted education in the UK ended. The onus once again fell on schools. Ten years on, the units in Baumfield’s book have become perhaps even more relevant to teaching Gifted students, with their artful linking of theory and praxis, rationale and exemplar, critical thinking skills and empathy.

Dr Jane Simpson is a New Zealand religious historian, independent researcher, writer and tutor. She lives in post-quake Christchurch, with all its problems and potential.

† The full article, including the topics discussed in interviews, can be found in the British Journal of Religious Education, vol 34, no 3 (Sept 2012), pp.247–61.


Focus

The power of religious words

Julie Grove, of the REtoday Editorial Team, introduces the theme of our Spring issue with an approach to ‘words that change the world’ from different religions.

Context

The word is a conflation of two Arabic words: ‘Bismi’ means ‘in the name of’ and ‘llah’ is an abbreviated form of Allah. It is a proclamation, declaring that what follows comes with all the power and authority of God. Every recitation from the Qur’an begins with the Arabic words: Bismillah Rachmani Rachim: ‘in the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful . . .’

In some cultures young Muslim children celebrate with a Bismillah party when they begin to learn Arabic at mosque school, as recognition that they are beginning their learning of the Qur’an, the book which will profoundly influence their lives.

Classroom

After making due and deliberate preparations, show pupils a beautifully illustrated Qur’an and invite their reactions. Explain that the ‘patterns’ are words, beautifully written and, for some people, holy because they are about God. Tell pupils some people know all the words off by heart and talk about what that phrase means.

Introduce the words ‘Muslim’ and ‘Qur’an’, explaining how children sometimes have a party when they are just four years old to mark the time when they start to learn these words, so that they can have them in their heads all the time. Explain it is called a ‘Bismillah’ party because those are the first words in the book and the first ones to be learned. Show pupils the Arabic letters and find them in the Qur’an.

Invite children to talk about words they know and their favourite books. Ask them what they like to learn and how they celebrate their learning.

Learning

Suggested age group: 4–5 years.

For pupils to:

• know that words about God are important to some people

• begin to understand that the Qur’an is precious and learning its words is important to many Muslim children

• reflect on how they celebrate their growing up/their learning.

Many proverbs capture the essence of a truth universally understood, but that cannot be said for the often-quoted: ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me.’ Words do indeed have the potential to hurt in ways more profound than the physical.

When they are religious in origin they also have the power to shape lives, to promulgate a given orthodoxy and to endorse or condemn practice. In the classroom such words can be used to give insights into the way words influence the lives of believers.

Bismillah [bis-mil-uh]


Context

These are Punjabi words translated as ‘There is only one God’, visually represented in a stylised form of Gurmukhi script as a symbol which has enormous spiritual significance for Sikhs.

The words open the first hymn composed by Guru Nanak which has become a universal prayer for Sikhs called the Mool Mantra. They express the essence of a Sikh’s belief and introduce every chapter of Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh holy book.

Classroom

Introduce the symbol and invite discussion about it before showing pupils the Gurmukhi text of the Mool Mantra and inviting them to find this shape and explaining what it means. Talk about its importance as a visual reminder to Sikhs of what they believe about God. Encourage pupils to explore the ideas expressed in the prayer and invite them to add their own thoughts about God, whatever they might be. Explain the origin of the words and their use today, emphasising how Sikhs believe they link them to their beloved Guru.

This can be developed through one of the traditional stories about Nanak, thinking about how he is remembered and revered, or in an exploration of the Sikh kara, another concrete representation of Sikh belief in one God.

Learning

Suggested age group: 5–7 years.

For pupils to:

• know that Sikhs believe in one God• understand something of the power of words

and symbols to influence a person’s life• reflect on their own ideas of what God

might be like.

Context

Aum, pronounced Om, is both a visual and an auditory symbol. The sound of the word is used by Hindus as a mantra, repeated many times, to concentrate their minds and raise their spiritual awareness. It is considered a most sacred and auspicious sound, an echo of Shiva’s drum, beating the rhythm of the dance of creation and expressing the essence of the faith.

In its visual form it has three parts, representing different elements of the faith: birth, life and death; past, present and future; masculine, feminine and neuter forms of life; and it says of God: there is Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver and Shiva the Destroyer.

Classroom

Begin by playing a recording of the Om being chanted. It may be necessary to prepare pupils first by giving them a series of questions to focus their listening and then talk about the sound and how it made them feel. Explain its use and purpose and what it represents to Hindus. Invite them to imagine the sounds of creation.

Introduce the word in its visual, preferably three dimensional, symbolic form and talk about the ideas it represents.

Invite a Hindu into the classroom to talk about the significance of the shape and to explore some of its symbolism in ordinary life.

This can be developed through exploration of the figure of Shiva Nataraja, the Lord of the Dance, using the traditional story to interpret the imagery and raise issues about good and evil, life and death and belief in God.

Learning

Suggested age group: 7–11 years

For pupils to:

• know that words can take many forms and carry meaning in different ways

• understand that for Hindus the divine can be expressed in the sound of a word

• reflect on the sounds that make up their world.

Other words that could be given this sort of treatment just as profitably include: ‘I am the Resurrection and the Life’; the Shahadah; God is Love; the Shema; and many more!

Ik Onkar [ik O un kaar]

Aum / Om [Om]


Focus

The name’s Bond. James Bond. Man of faith?

Mark Rocques, RE visitor and storyteller extraordinaire, says that everyone lives by a theology, but it isn’t often put into words. He demonstrates with Bond – James Bond. Can your pupils deduce the unspoken theology of Shrek, Jason Bourne or Hannah Montana?

007’s worldview

Is James Bond religious? Does he have faith? Most people would say ‘Don’t be ridiculous! Do you ever see 007 praying when attacked by sharks? Or studying his Bible? Do you ever catch him bothered by the ten commandments?’ You could argue that Bond takes particular delight in breaking commandments six and seven. Bond seems to be a supremely confident spy who lacks faith. Or are we missing something?

Bond isn’t religious in a traditional sense (faith in God) but he does have a worldview. He does have faith. The Bible asserts that people can trust in ‘gold’ (Job 31:24). They can trust in the ‘temple’ (Jeremiah 7:14). They can even put their faith in ‘military power’ (Psalm 20:7). The psalmist confesses that he does not trust in his bow (Psalm 44:6). In this sense Bond does have faith but his weaponry is far more sophisticated than the humble longbow. So what are worldviews?

Worldviews are best understood as the dreams, longings and ambitions that get people out of bed in the morning. For some people it is naked profit. For others it’s the destruction of Her Majesty’s enemies. Still others crave status and celebrity. Some Buddhists are desperate to avoid reincarnation. Worldviews are the ‘spectacles behind our eyes’ – we look at the world through them, not at them. Worldviews can be compared to secret agents. Often they are invisible and elusive.

See the lifestyle, deduce the worldview

Consider the billion-pound challenge. How would you live your life if you suddenly got such a huge ‘wad’? Would you spend the rest of your life consuming Aston Martins, Omega watches, Bollinger champagne, Beluga caviar and gorgeous women or men? Or would you dedicate your considerable resources to ending the slave trade? Your answer to this question tells us what you really believe. Your lifestyle reveals your worldview.

Every worldview tells a story. These stories function as maps that guide the way we live. They captivate our imaginations and our spending habits.

Worldviews are communal and they are grounded in faith. What is faith? It is the way we answer five basic questions facing everyone: (1) Where am I? Or, what is the nature of the world and universe I live in? (2) Who am I? Or, what is the nature, task and purpose of human beings? (3) What’s wrong? Or, what is the basic obstacle that keeps me from finding fulfilment? In other words, how do I understand evil? (4) What’s the solution? Or, how is it possible to overcome this hindrance to my fulfilment? In other words, how do I find salvation? And (5) What happens to me after death? Or, will I rot in the ground or will I be waiting for the resurrection of my body?

Pour yourself a martini (shaken, not stirred) and holster your Walther PPK. Let’s investigate how Commander James Bond would answer these five ‘faith’ questions.

Where am I?

I am living in a world full of gadgets, helicopters, booby-trapped briefcases, beautiful women, luxury and enemy spies.

Who am I?

I am Bond . . . James Bond. I am a supremely confident MI6 agent. I am 007, licensed to kill. I have complete confidence in my ability to achieve all my assignments. All women find me extremely attractive.

What’s wrong?

Sometimes I lack complete control over nature and other people. Sometimes enemy agents refuse to be killed instantly. Sometimes I am attacked by huge crocodiles and sharks.

What’s the solution?

I will trust in science and technology. Q will help me here. I have complete confidence in my ability to conquer my enemies and seduce all the attractive women. They can’t resist me.

What will happen to me after death?

It’s almost impossible to kill me, but after I die at home in bed I will rot and be eaten by worms.

Conclusion

James Bond is a great way of introducing faith to young people. There are 22 films out there and young people love talking about 007 and his amazing adventures. Spend time with Bond. Get young people to understand Bond’s faith – his worldview. From this beginning there are skyscrapers to climb. Bullets to dodge. Bombs to explode. Questions to answer.


Focus

Beyond wordsMike Keogh

I have been teaching for almost a quarter of a century, but I have been a Buddhist for longer. Inevitably I often try meditation with the kids. I set it up properly: prewarn the students, prewarn my colleagues (lest SMT or an inspector barges

into the lesson, clipboard in hand) and send letters home (in case parents object). It goes down well with the students – for some of them it may be the first experience of real stillness that they have had – and for me, I get 30-odd minutes to enjoy the silence and reflect on the strangeness of modern schools as institutions of development and learning.

Often when I announce the forthcoming intention of trying some meditation, it is marked by giggling as students demonstrate sitting cross-legged, adding elaborately confected mudras, while sonorously chanting ‘OM’.

To which I say, ‘Er, no, it’s best to sit on a chair rather than cross-legged, and meditation isn’t really about Omming, it’s about trying to be still and aware!’

Yet the kids – as good inquisitive learners – push me.

‘What’s the Om about, then?’

‘Well, Om is a syllable, and is part of a mantra–’

‘What’s a mantra?’

‘Well, a mantra is a sound symbol, a meaningless set of sounds that represent qualities – for example compassion or wisdom, or fearlessness, or transformation. Buddhists recite the mantra in order to develop the quality it symbolises.’

I see brows furrow – ‘What’s the point of words that have no meaning?’

What is the point of meaningless words?

Where does meaning come from?

Does it help you walk on water?

There is a Buddhist story about a diligent and devoted meditator, who spent years in a monastery mindfully reciting a particular mantra. One day his abbot felt it was time for him to begin to teach, as this was the best way to learn. Our devoted and diligent meditator – now a teacher – had become more knowledgeable about the mantra practice, more established within it, and more certain in his beliefs.

One day this teacher heard about a famous hermit living nearby, and resolved to visit to see if there was anything he could learn.

The hermit lived alone on an island in the middle of a lake, so after travelling to the lake, the meditator-now-teacher hailed the ferryman to row him to the island. As they journeyed, the ferryman and the teacher chatted, and the ferryman shared some tea with the teacher.

In between sips of his tea, the teacher asked the old ferryman about his spiritual practice. He replied that he had no particular spiritual practice, except for a mantra which he repeated all the time to himself, but when the ferryman spoke the mantra out loud, the meditator was horrified!

‘What’s wrong?’ asked the ferryman.

‘You are pronouncing the mantra incorrectly! You have wasted all that time; so much of your precious life has been pointless!’

‘Oh, dear, that is terrible!’ said the ferryman, ‘How should I say it?’

The teacher gave the correct pronunciation, and the old ferryman was very grateful, and finished rowing the little boat to the island shore.

The teacher explored the island, looking for the hermit, but could not find him anywhere so, a little irritated, he decided to return home, and finding the ferryman gone he resolved to row the boat himself.

On the way back across the lake the teacher calmed down somewhat and, as he rowed, he mused about the ferryman wasting so much of his precious life on an erroneous practice.

Suddenly he heard a voice: ‘Excuse me, please. I am so sorry to bother you.’ The teacher looked up to see the ferryman standing on the water, next to the boat.

Can the image of the Buddha lead to physical and mental silence beyond words?

‘I’ve forgotten the correct pronunciation that you taught me. Would you tell me it again?’ With a clunk, he realised that his ferryman was the revered hermit! A very great adept indeed, one who needed no lessons from the now humbled teacher. He replied ‘You obviously don’t need it!’ But the old man asked twice more, so the teacher told him again the way that he thought the mantra should be pronounced.

The old ferryman thanked the teacher and, saying the mantra very carefully and slowly, over and over to himself, turned and walked across the surface of the lake back to his hermitage.

There are several versions of this story. They all focus on someone getting hung up with correct words, correct pronunciation, correct forms, correct interpretation, correct meanings; whereas the point is that it is the correct intent that matters! The ferryman-hermit got the mantra wrong; but it still worked!

Story communicates

The purpose of story is to inspire and communicate, to give a meaning through giving a narrative to life. Story communicates to a particular person or audience, within a certain context at a particular point in time. Most religious traditions began with stories such as these – with myth not philosophy.

Over time we moved from a spoken to a literate, then a literary and now an ‘information’ culture – becoming increasingly obsessed with text, with the correct ordering of particular and precise words and ideas. As we became more philosophical, more ‘rational’, we became more concerned with right and wrong beliefs – orthodoxy and heresy – and with stripping away from story all narrative and context, to reveal what are thought to be embedded, timeless truths. These truths are part of a wider Truth, understood as a systematic series of statements, as something purely propositional. Yet this is a post-Enlightenment view of truth (in the Western, philosophical and cultural sense of the term), rather than a sense of truth as something magical, mysterious, ineffable. We miss something in this; that the truth is not in the story – it is the story!

The Pali word samyojana means ‘chain’. One understanding of the process of growth is that of freeing oneself from ten fetters – ten habitual bonds that tie us to the delusion of Samsara. The third fetter is that of ‘dependence on rites and rituals’ – or, as I prefer to see it, pedantry! This is the obsession that there is a right way of doing or seeing things and that there is ONLY that right way.

Perhaps a characteristic of all religion is pedantry, and all spiritual insight eventually descends into dogma and from that, inevitably, into conflict. On the eve of the new academic year, lesson planning, I find myself encountering the dogma of the tripartite lesson – starter, main course and pudding, sorry, plenary! So much for the magic of teaching! Perhaps Nietzsche is right, and all human corporate endeavours are marked by the will to dogma or system.

For Buddhism, all ideas and all practices are instrumental: they are simply a means of getting from A to B, wherever, or whatever, B is. They are means to an unknown end. Zen Buddhism sternly regards doctrine, intellectual analysis, and ritual practices as of little or no use, and it celebrates ‘beginners’ mind’, when one simply and honestly encounters life without preconception or expectation, free from dogma and any overarching systematic philosophy. I guess what a long immersion in Buddhism has given me, in addition to a love of story, is a healthy scepticism about words! How words are simply the vehicle – the ferry boat – to get you to an experience, to an understanding, to a place; perhaps to a place or state which you can’t really express in words. The purpose is the experience, not its expression. There is spirituality beyond the words.


Classroom 4–7

How will you teach Easter to the 4 –7s this year?

Most schools use the occasion of a festival to teach about it. We do Divali at Divali time and Eid at the end of Ramadan. Because there is always a school holiday around Easter, some schools find it hard to make the best use of the opportunity. Here’s a fresh way of working that might energise learning about Holy Week and Easter for your younger pupils.

Storytelling is the foundation of religious festivities: a story to remember for thousands of years lies at the heart of most religious celebrations. At Easter, this is the story of Jesus’ last days, his death, and what happened afterwards. These artefacts come from TTS’s RE catalogue. The pack includes a story mat, a ‘big book’ with a well-told version of the Easter stories in it, and a series of eight tactile wooden objects to use in telling the story and in play. The pupils might like to select one at a time from the mystery bag, and say what they have got and how it links to the stories of Holy Week and Easter.

Teaching a festival well in RE always includes the four elements in the diagram, which are important within every religious celebration and festival. Teachers are alert to these dimensions, but sometimes it’s helpful to highlight them. In the Christian celebrations around Holy Week and Easter, there are important connections between the stories of Jesus’ last supper, crucifixion, and beliefs about worship (holy communion), forgiveness (from the crucifixion) and life after death (from Jesus’ resurrection stories).

Teachers who keep these links in mind as they tell the stories are often able to make helpful simple connections for pupils in the 4–7 age range. It’s obvious in a way that the ‘fun stuff’ of festivals is what makes them religions’ most popular offer – many more people do Christmas and Easter than do church on an average Sunday, even those loosely associated with Christian identity or community.

A good approach to using the ‘story + community + fun + values + beliefs’ approach can be to ask pupils the simple question: ‘What matters most at Easter?’ The answer ‘chocolate’ is always contested! Ask them to think about how much each of these things matters at Easter: bread and wine/ a donkey/ a cross/ a grave/ a hot cross bun/ a rabbit/ a daffodil/ a chocolate egg/ a towel and bowl of water.

Ways to use the artefacts

• Kim’s Game: Put the objects associated with the story on a tray and ask pupils to look for 30 seconds, then cover them up. Who can remember them all? Who can say how each one is connected to the Easter festival?

• Take away . . .: ask the pupils to suggest a ‘take away’: which one of the objects doesn’t matter too much? Which one can you have Easter without? Then another, and another, until you have two objects left. Why do these two matter most at Easter?

• Connect up: How does each object link to a belief that Christians hold? Beliefs include:

• ‘Jesus was like a great king’• ‘Bread and wine can help people to remember Jesus’• ‘There is life after death’• ‘Love is stronger than death’• ‘It is good to remember Jesus’

The photos here show the ‘Reflect a Story Easter Kit’ by Jane Bentley and Amanda Bartlett, an excellent set of teaching materials from TTS Group, sold as an Easter story pack, which includes a large vinyl story mat, a ‘big book’ version of the Easter story retold for a whole class of younger children and eight attractive double-sided wooden plaques showing key aspects of the story which can be used for both storytelling and play. The whole kit (fairly traded, as well!) costs £42.95 from www.tts-group.co.uk


When children retell the story using these eight double sided wooden pieces, they make sense of it for themselves.

Story remembered

Teaching a festival well

Values + beliefs highlighted

Community strengthened

Fun enjoyed in groups


Classroom 4–11

Are you sitting comfortably? Are you thinking deeply? Then we’ll begin . . .Richard Linford

Do you remember a teacher from your own childhood with a particular quirk or something memorable? Hairy legs, a twitch, a glass eye – you know the sort of thing. If there’s one thing I hope children in my RE classes will remember me for is my habit of placing a finger on each temple. This is my signal that I need deep thinking. I use it a lot.

The following activity, ‘Doing what is good: Learn from religions’, is typical of the kind of strategies I use throughout the whole school to get children thinking deeply. I will often say to colleagues that the approach is best described as ‘high thinking, low recording’. My Year 5s were due to complete a unit on ‘Right and Wrong’. I’ve developed it over several years to include a balanced mixture of PHSE activities and quality RE, so that children can explore their own point of view as well as learning from religions.

First of all I gave the class 35 pieces of advice from five different religions. After sorting and prioritising the statements to find their personal top five, the children explained their reasons. I find that with some very simple open questions the children are always willing to explore their own ideas.

Very few children at my school have any religious background but they are very good at being open to other people’s points of view. ‘That’s racist!’ one boy called out, as he bounded over to me from the other side of the room. I read the piece of advice with him, and then put it in slightly different words. ‘God sees everyone the same,’ he exclaimed immediately, turning straight away to return to the important work of considering his top five.

The class showed that they were thinking deeply and at ease with explaining how they had chosen their top five ideas about what is good.

‘[I think that] living things (are important) because we want plants and trees for oxygen.’

‘…should work hard to get a good education, remember God so he always looks after you and help others if they are hurt.’

‘….shouldn’t steal because it’s a bad thing. If you believe in God you want to go to heaven. Think of yourself.’ [Pause for a second while the realisation dawns that this could be misconstrued as selfishness, before adding another point.] Also think of others.’

Be truthful and honest: No lying or wrong speech . . . ‘If we did this sometimes then it would be like we were better people . . . if we all lied we wouldn’t know right or wrong and it might get confusing.’

Men and women are all equal before God . . . ‘Nobody would think there’s boy stuff and girl stuff . . . [the opposite would] change history.’

Be fully aware: no misuse of drink or drugs . . . ‘There wouldn’t be any people dying or put in jail because of drugs; only take medicines you need, don’t drink a lot . . . take drugs all the time and drink too much because it makes your imagination grow.’

The class found it a great deal harder to consider the consequences of their choices. We had started the term’s work by successfully using Conscience Alley‡ to explore moral dilemmas. I had then used ‘Moral Islands’ to help children think even more deeply. The graphics for this came from ‘Making hard decisions’, which was included in Exploring Codes for Living, RE Today Services, 2008, pp.16–17, and can also be downloaded from the website.

The picture shows a boat with the caption ‘Which is the right way?’ on its bow. There are then a series of islands each with a sign such as ‘My family’, ‘TV’, ‘My religion’ or ‘A religion to which I don’t belong’. While reflecting on a moral dilemma, children decide which island they would visit in order to make a decision. The final island in the picture has a sign ‘My decision’.

The children understood the wider implications for all this deep thinking. I pointed out how the moral island signposted ‘A religion to which I don’t belong’ was the ‘learning from religion’ part of this activity.


We repeated this activity, but instead working in a group to explore the consequences of the right and wrong decisions for a particular moral dilemma. This year I have targeted ensuring that all children are being effective participators and self-managers.

Someone in each group is appointed to ensure the effective participation of all group members, and the group’s scribe writes the initials of each contributor. Finally, an envoy is sent to another group with a different moral dilemma. In this way the consequences are reviewed, added to and sent back to the original group for consideration.

The children were now ready to think more deeply about the consequences of the five pieces of advice they had chosen. They placed the advice in order and for each explained the consequences: ‘If everyone did this the world would change.’ Next to this the children thought about the opposite of this.

The children understood the wider implications for all this deep thinking. I pointed out how the moral island signposted ‘A religion to which I don’t belong’ was the ‘learning from religion’ part of this activity.

They could see the point of sorting and prioritising the pieces of advice for themselves: ‘which advice to choose from helps [me to] know which is the right or wrong choice’. One boy was aware that otherwise you might ‘jump into a situation without thinking’. Another child explained how considering advice from other religions helps in deciding right from wrong because there is ‘not one to choose to go to’. In contrast, someone else felt that there was a ‘best one’ piece of advice; while another reminded us all that there was a choice of islands to visit.

Whichever point of view, everyone could now say that they had fully explored ideas of right and wrong, and described reasons for their own response. They had considered what is good and learnt from religions. Deep thinking – definitely!

Postscript

The natural progression for me now is to consider how to extend this deeper thinking in my own practice.

The Primary Westhill Seminar in Bristol this year included a keynote speech from Jonathan Doney describing Re-flect which is an Exeter University programme to foster metacognition in RE. Effective RE is defined as an encounter or dialogue between pupil, peers and teachers.

It is a fusion of outlooks and horizons which establish that there is not necessarily a right or wrong point of view but instead a coming together in order to move forward. However, while this may establish the child’s own foreground beliefs, pupils may not be critically aware of where that belief has come from. Instead quality RE raises questions of what is true or real, and the question ‘How do I know?’

My work so far has reinforced to the children I teach that there is no right or wrong point of view in RE. The next step is ‘Yes, you are thinking deeply but how do know you what you think?’

Richard Linford is a primary teacher in a large rural school in Nottinghamshire. As well as being RE co-ordinator he is fortunate to have taught RE across the whole school from Foundation Stage to Year 6 on a regular basis. He has worked for Nottinghamshire SACRE as well as taken part in various RE Today events.

‡ Conscience Alley: a way of setting up simple drama for pupils to think about a dilemma by asking for advice from other class members.

Images anti-clockwise from top left: RE can make you think harder; Written thoughtfulness is important; Conscience Alley.


Classroom 7–14

The power of words: literacy skills in the service of RE

Background: The Children Talking Database is a NATRE website section, free to use, where over 30,000 children from all faiths and beliefs have contributed their answers to a dozen big questions. It’s easy to search and use.

The database provided my pupils in Year 6 with an excellent stimulus to begin a final assignment in RE before leaving primary school. This project allowed children to showcase and extend RE skills while focusing on several areas of literacy.

Learning activities: Pupils studied questions from this database before reading through answers stored on it and inputting their own responses, developing some useful ICT skills. The database exposed pupils to some good questions which required higher-order thinking skills to answer. It also helped enable pupils to write their own ‘big question’ which they wanted to use as the basis of an enquiry.

Reading, writing, speaking and listening were key components while children researched their big question. Pupils interviewed a range of people and worked with teachers to prepare for these meetings, rehearsing the type of oral language used in these situations and developing appropriate questions. Prior to the interviews, letter writing was a focus as the children officially invited their interviewees to contribute to the project.

Afterwards, pupils worked on interpreting the main messages behind quotes taken while interviewing. Reading was a vital part of pupils’ investigations, with children not only using books and websites to find information, but being encouraged and helped to assess written texts for their usefulness. Teachers used this research stage to develop pupils’ note-taking skills.

After researching, evaluating and drawing conclusions, pupils published their findings in a format of their choice (information posters, booklets and videos were popular) after assessing the pros and cons of each type of text. Use of correct technical vocabulary was a focus here. The final element was an oral presentation given to peers with the purpose of imparting findings and helping others to think further. Pupils worked on speaking formally and how to adapt their speech for an audience.

Links:

The Children Talking Database: http://www.natre.org.uk/db/

Julia Diamond Conway teaches RE at Newbury Park Primary School.

As REtoday explores how RE can make an important contribution to literacy and oracy (verbal skills) three members of the NATRE Executive reflect on how RE in their schools is already doing this.

The Children Talking Database

Editor: I was really pleased to receive this article because it models so much good thinking about RE and literacy from three different classrooms and lots of different religions.

If you would like to contribute one example from your classroom to the next issue of REtoday, then the theme is ‘Expert RE’ and the deadline in February. Contact me by email: [email protected]


Background: The use of oracy (developed and developing) helped the learning and progression of pupils in this lesson for 11-year-olds based on the Muslim concept of God, of Allah. I decided to use the 99 beautiful names of Allah for pupils to come to an understanding of Muslim beliefs about Allah.

Learning activities: The lesson outcomes I was seeking were that pupils be able to:

• Outline and identify some basic Muslim beliefs about Allah

• Explain the concepts of Shahadah and Tawhid (the Muslim statement of belief and the teaching of the oneness of God)

• Analyse some of the 99 names of Allah to identify the nature of Allah in Islam.

The key process was ‘learning about’ Islam. Pupils were aiming to be able to explain religious beliefs, investigate the impact of religious

beliefs and apply a wide range of religious and philosophical vocabulary consistently and accurately, recognising both the power and limitations of language in expressing religious ideas and beliefs. The last was an integral part of the lesson and the field of enquiry was language.

During the first stage of the lesson pupils engaged in group guided discovery – they were given a series of questions that they discussed. This naturally involved them using prior knowledge and understanding. The second stage of the lesson was when pupils were given a list of the 99 beautiful names and much dialogue (with some questions to help) took place around the different names and how powerful (or limiting) they might be.

The final stage centred around a beautiful calligraphy ‘drawing’ of the word Allah in Arabic and discussion of how it might make a Muslim feel by the power of what it looks like and means. During the final stage, pupils were able to write their thoughts on the board.

Some of things that were written included:

The first and the last (there is a circle around the word Allah)A never-ending spiralGiver of lightThe Great Power!God is at the centre of everythingLike an eye – Allah sees everythingLight and dark / hope and death – can we put that on?Made of spirit so we can’t draw God – that’s why we have the imagery

The dialogue that took place throughout the lesson, the focus on the 99 beautiful names (which also used and developed literacy) was essential to the learning. It allowed pupils to express their own thoughts about beliefs, and they were able to draw together their own ideas about the Muslim understanding of Allah which were very perceptive and thoughtful.

Shabana Jabbar teaches RE at York High School: http://natre.org.uk/bigpicture/pages/kq1_film2.php

Background: Our school has recently had a renewed focus on literacy across the school – and this is an area where RE has long played an important role. The first part of our Buddhism unit for 13–14 year olds is described here to show some of the ways RE can contribute to wider literacy. The lessons building up to the assessment have covered such key questions as: ‘Who was the Buddha?’, ‘How can we stop suffering?’, ‘What happens when we die?’ and ‘What are the different Buddhist traditions, and how do they compare?’

Learning activities and resources: Each lesson has introduced four or five key terms from the Buddhist tradition which students have been expected to learn for the subsequent lesson. They have also been expected to use the words in their writing and discussions throughout the lesson (this is also modelled by the teacher). They have also created visual images or symbols to help them remember the meaning – the resource book Questions: Buddhists has been particularly useful here. The SHAP online audio glossary has also proved to be a fantastic resource for both students and teachers.

The students have watched a range of short videos on Buddhism around the world, hosted online by BBC Class Clips. While watching the videos the class were asked to write down key words, beliefs or ideas that they saw or heard. These were pooled and the class were asked to do a piece of writing including all these ideas: they rose admirably to this difficult task!

A key aspect of the extended assessment task has been to get the students reading a range of material on Buddhism and Christianity (this is hosted on the VLE) and includes fact sheets, quote sheets, chapters from academic books and school textbooks.

The students complete the assessment in their own time and have access to a range of resources to help them. They find the sentence and paragraph starters found in Literate RE (ed. P Draycott, RE Today) to be particularly useful as they start writing their final response to the assessment task.

The concentration on key vocabulary, reading a range of texts, providing a range of writing structures and a demanding question has resulted in high levels of attainment.

To see an example of one outcome of this task, do look at the Exemplification of Standards files hosted on the NATRE website.

Links:

• SHAP Audio Glossary: http://www.shapworkingparty.org.uk/glossary/

• RE Today resources: Literate RE, ed. Pamela Draycott, RE Today, 2007

• RE Today resources: Questions: Buddhists, ed. Stephen Pett, RE Today, 2012

• Literacy and Learning in RE (DfES): http://www.mmiweb.org.uk/publications/re/literacy.pdf

• BBC Class Clips: http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/

• RE Exemplification of Standards files (DfE, 2010): http://www.natre.org.uk/qcda/religious-education-level8.html

Daniel Hugill teaches RE at Coopers’ Company and Coborn School.

Islam through a constructivist approach

Christian and Buddhist views on life after death


Classroom 5–11

The power of words: prophecy, politics and symbol

Gill Tewkesbury teaches in Devon. She got her primary pupils thinking about the power of words and it led on to a study of prophecy, African politics and personally chosen symbolism. Could you do the same?

On the whiteboard, I wrote: THE POWER OF WORDS. I stood back and scratched my chin. ‘I wonder what that means,’ I said. ‘Do you have any ideas?’ Encouraging the children to chat to their neighbours, I then got them to couch their ideas as a question. Questions of varying degrees of depth and relevance came up . . .

Can words change the world? We wondered. Some were divided on this. How might we find out? What might people with a religious faith say to that?

I invited the children to have a look at Isaiah 58 (the more child-friendly Easy-to-Read version from Biblegateway.com as well as NIV) from the Bible. They discussed what they thought it meant and what words or phrases they liked the sound of.

I will tell you the kind of day I want—a day to set people free. I want a day that you take the burdens off others. I want a day when you set troubled people free and you take the burdens from their shoulders. I want you to share your food with the hungry. I want you to find the poor who don’t have homes and bring them into your own homes. When you see people who have no clothes, give them your clothes! Don’t hide from your relatives when they need help.

If you do these things, your light will begin to shine like the light of dawn. Then your wounds will heal. Your ‘Goodness’ will walk in front of you, and the Glory of the LORD will come following behind you. Then you will call to the LORD, and he will answer you. You will cry out to him, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’ . . .

Feel sorry for hungry people and give them food. Help those who are troubled and satisfy their needs. Then your light will shine in the darkness. You will be like the bright sunshine at noon.

© 2006 World Bible Translation Center

Jews and Christians believe that God was announcing through Isaiah an important message for his time as well as ours. The children were asked: What do you think the listeners are being asked to fight against (‘bad words’)? What do you think they are being asked to work for (good words’)? What might Christians and Jews do as a response to these powerful words?

The topic we are studying at the moment is South Africa so we watched a short video about a charity called ‘The Warehouse’, a group of churches in South Africa who respond to the poverty and injustice they see around them. Looking back at the text, could they identify what commands were being followed?

Focused thinking leads to good work in RE

Creative outcomes from teams of children make for good RE

A wide moral vocabulary in a class enables good thinking


I reminded the children of the question ‘Can words change the world?’ How might we respond the powerful words in Isaiah? What words or phrases stood out for them? Could they explain why? Having shown some symbols-with-meaning from African cultures, such as Ashanti and Bantu, I asked the children to design symbols to represent the word that meant most to them, from the reading in Isaiah, or as a response to it . . .

These symbols were then painted onto fabric which I (as a keen, if time-poor, aspiring quilter) sewed together. I asked the children to write down why they had drawn their symbols and what it represented.

Answers included:

‘My symbol represents compassion. I chose this because I feel sorry for the people who are poor, and the people who don’t have food, and water and clothes.’

‘My symbol is kindness. I chose this because if we are all kind the world can be a better place.’

‘. . . giving clothes to the poor . . . I think people who are rich should give clothes to the poor. . .’

‘. . . freedom . . . because people should not be in captivity . . .’

‘. . . peace . . . I want people to love each other and make peace.’

These answers were then transferred to the border of the work.

So can words change the world? In Josh, Caitlin and Harvey’s words:

Words can change the world by . . . education.

Words can lead to action.

Words can change the world by important people talking.

As a follow-up to this work, children each created a pledge card or something similar, with their symbol on it, as a promise to themselves that they will do something to make a difference in this world, like those who listened to these words in Isaiah and put them into practice. It has also tied in very nicely with work on ‘Send a Friend to School’.

The finished artwork on display in the school is a reminder that their words can lead to action – and that will change the world.

Gill Tewkesbury, Pilton Bluecoat School

Craft and art in RE sometimes makes space for deeper thought

“On the whiteboard, I wrote: THE POWER OF WORDS. I stood back and scratched my chin. ‘I wonder what that means?’”

RE Today on the web www.retoday.org.uk


Classroom 7–16

If Peter was a tweeter, then what would Peter tweet?

If Sita was a tweeter, then what would Sita tweet?

Ask the class to think about the story of Holy Week and Easter, and retell the story in eight 140-character tweets from Simon Peter’s point of view, or ask pupils tackling the Divali story to do eight tweets from Sita at key moments in the story. Working in pairs is probably more creative than trying this alone.

To get the idea clear and the pupils going, here are some tweets from Moses’ twitter feed. Cut them out and give a set of cards to pairs. Pupils might put them in order, and suggest a couple more before they do some of their own in relation to another story. To make it simpler, give them 4, 6 or 8 moments in the story from which to tweet, but to make it more challenging…

The approach to story is fun. You might prefer to ask the pupils to tweet from a peripheral character rather than the central character.

If you want some variety of interpretation, then get the pupils to plan tweets from different characters in the story – for Holy Week and Easter, for example, they could do Judas, Pilate, the Centurion, Mary Magdalene and Joseph of Arimathea.

For the Christmas story, how about Herod, the innkeeper, a shepherd, Mary, a wise man and the Angel Gabriel?

Any well-known faith story might be suited to this activity: Good Samaritan / Life of Gandhi / Jonah / Divali / Prodigal Son / Life of the Buddha / Christmas.

Challenge the children to draft and redraft their tweets: can they make them funnier? Deeper? More thoughtful? Cleverer?


Bulrushes and the smell of tar always make me think of my

sister, my mum and the Princess. They’re sweet to me!

They say that if you know where the bodies are buried, then you are a danger to the government.

I do, but I’m running for the desert.

Pharaoh: heart like a stone. Will crack with frogs, blood river, dead

cows and all. Let the people go, Rameses, you old fascist!

Leading crowd of slaves to the beach. Egyptians chasing. It’s

Pharaoh-Devil or the deep red sea. Wish I’d never listened to

the bush.

Growing up at the palace makes me feel like the fresh prince of

the Nile. My (not so) secret plan: to be Pharaoh.

Bush that burns and talks? Stick turning into snake? Am going

crazy today. Actually I’ve never been saner. Off back to Egypt.

Painted doorposts with blood. Ate roast lamb supper. Bread rather

flat, but now we wait in hope, listening. How do angels sound?

You’ve got to be kidding us, God. Sea rolled back, slaves all safe.

Egyptians all trying to swim home. Promised Land here we come!

New and cool communication tools like Twitter always invite application to old and significant stories. Here’s a lesson idea that is adaptable to any big story in a faith, and fun to do, but also really makes pupils think about the action, characters and meanings of stories.


Classroom 7–14

What has the Polish National Stadium to do with the ‘Iranian Schindler’?

Chris Boxley, of the RE Today editorial team, tells the surprising story of the Iranian Muslim who saved thousands of Iranian Jews from the Nazis. This makes a challenging piece of learning for pupils thinking about Holocaust Memorial issues.

January 2013 sees the first anniversary of the opening of the Polish National Stadium in Warsaw. The stadium hosted the opening match of the UEFA Euro 2012 competition. The stadium is equipped with a heated pitch, training pitch, façade lighting and underground parking.

Visitors to and users of the stadium can also make use of an ecumenical chapel which was opened with a ceremonial blessing, led by Jewish, Muslim and Christian clergy, in January 2012.

The chapel honours the memory of someone that few people have heard of but whose unselfish actions elevate him: he has been called a ‘Muslim Schindler’ who risked his life to save Iranian Jews in Paris during the Second World War. Thousands of these Jewish people and their descendants owe their lives to this Muslim diplomat in wartime Paris, Abdol-Hossein Sardari, who risked everything to help fellow Iranians escape the Nazis.

Sardari unexpectedly found himself in charge of Iran’s diplomatic mission in Paris during the German occupation of France. A lawyer by training, he used his negotiating skills to try to persuade the Nazis’ experts on racial purity that the 150 or so Iranian Jews living in the city in 1940 were assimilated to non-Jewish – and ‘Aryan’ – Persians through history, culture and intermarriage. At the same time, the modest diplomat quietly began to issue new-style Iranian passports to Jews, making it easier for them to flee France.

Eliane Senahi Cohanim was seven years old when she fled France with her family. She remembers clutching her favourite doll and lying as still as she could, pretending to be asleep, whenever their train came to a halt at a Nazi checkpoint.

I remember everywhere, when we were running away, they would ask for our passports, and I remember my father would hand them the passports and they would look at them. And then they would look at us. It was scary. It was very, very scary.

Eliane and her family were part of a small, close-knit community of Iranian Jews living in and around Paris.

Even though Sardari was stripped of his diplomatic immunity and ordered to return to Tehran after Iran signed a treaty with the Allies in 1941, he resolved to remain in France and carry on helping the Iranian Jews, at considerable risk to his own safety, using money from his inheritance to keep his office going. The story he spun to the Nazis, in a series of letters and reports, was that the Persian Emperor Cyrus had freed Jewish exiles in Babylon in 538 BC and they had returned to their homes.

Abdol-Hossein Sardari, Bern, 1931


He told the Nazis that at some later point a small number of Iranians began to find the teachings of the Prophet Moses attractive – and these Mousaique, or Iranian Followers of Moses, who he dubbed ‘Djuguten’, were not part of the Jewish race. So, using all of his lawyer’s skill, he exploited the internal contradictions and idiocies of the Nazi ideology to gain special treatment for the ‘Djuguten’, as newly published archive material shows.

High-level investigations were launched by the Nazis in Berlin, with ‘experts’ on racial purity drafted in to give an opinion on whether this Iranian ‘sect’ – which Fariborz Mokhtari, author of In the Lion’s Shadow, suggests may well have been Sardari’s own invention – were Jewish or not.

Mokhtari estimates that there were between 500 and 1,000 blank passports in Sardari’s safe. If each of them was issued to a family of two or even three, ‘this could have saved over 2,000 Jewish people from the Nazi genocide’.

In April 1978, three years before Sardari’s death, Yad Vashem, the central Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, sent a series of questions to him about his wartime role. He replied: ‘As you may know, I had the pleasure of being the Iranian consul in Paris during the German occupation of France, and as such it was my duty to save all Iranians, including Iranian Jews.’ Sardari the humanitarian did not distinguish between Muslims and Jews.

There is even a British connection in this story. Sardari spent the last few years of his life in a bedsit in Croydon, south London, having lost his pension and properties in the Iranian Revolution. He never sought fame or recognition for his bravery and he died, poor and alone, in 1981.

Sadly, few Jews and even fewer Muslims are familiar with his name or life story. However, the Board of Deputies of British Jews and Faith Matters held an exhibition during 2012 recognising the contribution by Muslims to saving Jews during the Holocaust – including Sardari.

In the classroom: pupils might consider these questions in discussion and written work:

1 What would you think Sardari would have been expected to do when the Nazis took over Paris?

2 Some people in 2013 picture Jewish and Muslim relations to be mostly conflict. Can you give examples? Why is that? Does it have to be so?

3 The story has a sad end. How would you have liked the story to end? Why?

4 When Sardari arrived in paradise (if there is such a place) what do you think the angels would have said to him?

5 Do you know any other stories of surprising inter-religious love, like this? If you have never heard of the Sikh Bhai Ghanaya, find out!

6 Do religions cause wars, or bring peace, or both? What makes the difference?

7 Holocaust Memorial Day needs a fresh focus every year. Why is this a good story to use when we remember the horrors of genocide?

8 Why do you think this co-operation is remarkable and unusual? Is it to do with how humans make tribes?

Visitors to and users of the stadium can also make use of an ecumenical chapel which was opened with a ceremonial blessing, led by Jewish, Muslim and Christian clergy, in January 2012.

In the Lion’s Shadow, published by The History Press


Classroom 11–16

Gold Award for RE!

Broughton High School in Preston, Lancashire, achieved a gold award in the RE Quality Mark. Joanne Harris answers some questions from Jane Brooke about RE in her school.

What do you like best about teaching RE?

What I love most about teaching RE is that it is never boring. I started teaching in 1994, worked at a few different schools before finally settling at Broughton, where I’ve been since 2003. In all this time the subject and the ideas raised by students continue to fascinate me and there are still moments that surprise me or make me stop and think. The great thing about being an RE teacher is that I feel I learn as much from my students as they do from me.

RE is a special subject as it allows you to really get to know your students as people. I love teaching the subject, but also appreciate the fact that it is a subject that allows me to teach the whole child.

RE is a subject that seems constantly able to adapt and evolve and it’s for this reason that I believe it will survive whatever challenges continue to be thrown at us. The way I teach now is not the same way that I was trained nearly 20 years ago – there are always new ideas to incorporate and I think this is one of the real positives about RE. I get bored quite easily and would not look forward to the prospect of teaching the same thing for the remainder of my career – instead I look forward to whatever new developments arise, confident that there will be a place for them in RE.

What do your students like best in RE?

I think they enjoy the fact that they are encouraged to question and allowed to think for themselves. There is also lots of variety in teaching and learning styles.

Whatever the reason, they do like RE – at Broughton GCSE RS is an optional subject with exactly the same time and status as all other options. Our school does not have blocks to choose from: students simply list the subjects they would like to continue with. RS has grown in popularity over the years. When I started eight years ago there was one small group of eight students (all girls); in autumn 2012 we will have 70 students starting GCSE RS – three classes – and nearly half of these are boys.

Pupils have said:

‘There is a Chinese proverb “Tell me – I forget, Show me – I remember, Involve me – I understand” – RE fits the bill!’

‘I’ve learned more in RE than any other subject, especially about things that matter like ethical issues’.

‘In RE everyone gets a say – no one is ignored – ever!’

‘RE is like an iceberg – as you unpack things you come to understand deeper meaning as in the parables or considering what truth means’.

Then there’s the quote that one of our students gave to Ofsted this year: ‘I like RE because it doesn’t tell you what to think, it helps you learn how to think’.

What was the most exciting aspect of RE in the last year?

We’ve had a very busy year. We were asked to put together an exhibition for Preston Forum of Faiths to celebrate Interfaith Week. This was a great opportunity to work with local faith communities and create an exhibition to educate the wider community about faiths in our city. We were invited to the launch of the exhibition and some of our students were very excited to be interviewed for the radio about their views of RE.

We have become involved in Face to Faith and launched this with Year 9 this year. Two of our students were chosen as winners in the blogging competition ‘My friend of a different faith’.

We have been part of the Lancashire Youth SACRE for the past few years and our work with this group continues to give us exciting opportunities. This year students have represented youth voice at a SACRE meeting – they were surprised to see how formal and serious this was and said they had not realised that such a group were interested in what goes on in the RE classroom. We are currently working on our final presentation for the Youth SACRE, putting together a unit of work co-written by students.

We work in cross-curricular strategy groups and so developments in teaching and learning or curriculum innovations are constantly being shared across the school.

Our students have been interested in making comparisons between their own experiences and those of other students around the world.

RE at Broughton intends to provoke deep and clear thought for all pupils. Collaborative learning is one route to this.


How do you work with other subjects and departments?

At Broughton RE is part of the Humanities Faculty (I am Head of Faculty). In Year 7 pupils follow an integrated Humanities curriculum. Hhowever, we have been very careful to ensure the separate identities of the subjects as we wanted to avoid the danger of them becoming a ‘mush’. Teaching in this way has allowed us to focus on teaching key skills such as team work, dialogue, independent research, literacy, and so on – but subject content is still distinct, although it does also mean that pupils can cross-reference where content overlaps (e.g. pupils now learn about the Reformation in History alongside learning about Christian denominations in RE).

We are currently working with Textiles, designing and creating banners to be used by a local church for its procession for the Preston Guild. In RE we have studied Christian teachings, beliefs, symbolism and historical use of processions/banners. Students have worked in teams to come up with their own designs and are now working with the Textiles teacher to make their designs a reality.

A few years ago we developed a Year 7 unit for RE based on Sue Phillips’ ‘The Island’ (for details see www.theatreoflearning.org). We wanted to include opportunities to develop creative and imaginative thinking and literacy skills so we worked with the English Department in planning the unit and creating resources.

Luckily our school encourages collaboration across departments. We work in cross-curricular strategy groups and so developments in teaching and learning or curriculum innovations are constantly being shared across the school.

How do you ensure good results in exams?

I think one of the reasons that our exam results are good in RS is because we are given the time and status of any other option subject. I hear of schools trying to teach GCSE in an hour a week and don’t know how they can possibly manage.

We do Philosophy and Ethics (OCR) which our pupils find to be an interesting syllabus. The (e) questions are difficult as they require extended writing skills – I know of some schools who enter students in Year 10 or even Year 9 – but I think it would be difficult for students to gain the higher grades if they sat it too early.

Our lessons are full of debate which I think is one of the best ways to prepare for this exam. Broughton is a ‘Kagan school’ – which means we use teaching structures that ensure that all students are engaged in dialogue and develop the skills to articulate personal opinion. We have found that Kagan supports the type of higher-level thinking that we want to encourage in RE and is really helpful for GCSE.

Last year our RS GCSE results were 45 per cent A*/A; 74 per cent A*–C (100 per cent A*–G). This year we expect even better!

What have you introduced this year that is new in RE? What relation does RE have with any schools internationally?

Face to Faith has been a new introduction this year – this has had a great impact on our Year 9s as it has allowed them the opportunity to carry their learning from RE out into the wider world and engage with global debate about the subject. Our students have been interested in making comparisons between their own experiences and those of other students around the world. They have also enjoyed getting feedback on their blogs from an international audience. This work has allowed them to see how RE fits into the wider world.

Our department are constantly trying out new ideas. This year we have looked at the use of labyrinths in contemporary Christianity/spiritual traditions. Pupils then designed their own versions of labyrinths.

Joanne Harris

In all this time the subject and the ideas raised by students continue to fascinate me and there are still moments that surprise me or make me stop and think.

RE is for everyone: mass involvement in this human peace symbol is the kind of RE set piece that is memorable, building a sense of the value of the subject

One aspect of excellence in RE is creative engagement. Another is teamwork.

Engagement in emotional depth enables pupils to grapple with issues about suffering and evil.


Classroom 11–16

The power of words: the F-word

Learning intentions: to encourage young people to reflect on the ways they use words in the light of the teachings of sacred writings. To encourage moral development by considering how words can harm or heal.

This lesson, adaptable for 11–16s, is about the F-word. It might fit well into a learning scheme about scripture and ethics, or about the impact of religion on life. In schools, if a pupil tells a teacher to F-off, then suspension will follow.

The negative impact of one speech act! It’s only a word! The lesson explores the power of words and investigates how religious texts and teaching can make a difference to people’s lives today. It’s supported by a PowerPoint sequence on the RE Today subscribers’ web area (the password is always inside the back cover).

Buddhist scripture says:

Good is restraint in speech . . . He who is controlled in tongue, who speaks wisely, sweet indeed is his speech. (Dhammapada 363)

Christian scripture says:

Rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander and filthy language from your lips. (Bible, Colossians 3:8)

Muslim Hadith say this about the behaviour of the Prophet:

The Prophet (peace and blessings upon him) was not one who would abuse others or say obscene words, or curse others. (Anas bin Malik, Bukhaari)

The believer is not a slanderer, one who curses a great deal, one who indulges in obscenity or who in engages in foul talk. (Al-Albani, Saheeh at-Tirmidhi)

You might begin the lesson like this: ‘There is usually at least one word which can get a pupil suspended or excluded from school.’ Tell the pupils that this lesson is about the F-word, but you won’t say it out loud in this lesson, and nor should anyone else!

Point out that in the room there will be four groups of people, including the teacher.

• In one group, there are all the people who never ever use the F-word. They just don’t say it.

• In the second group there are people who very occasionally, perhaps by accident, or when they’re really furious, or when they’ve suffered something awful, say the F-word.

• In the third group there are people who use the F-word when they decide that they will, as part of the way they talk, for emphasis or insult.

• In the fourth group are people who don’t realise when they say F---. It slips out all the time, peppering their conversation without them noticing.

Muslims, Christians and Buddhists want to follow the guidance and teaching of their holy books . . . in the way they speak.

The groups may not be clear at the borders, but almost everyone will fit themselves roughly into one of them. I actually guess the first two groups are most of us. Those who say F– to their granny are rare. Ask pupils to think about which group they are in, and why.

Why can you get suspended for just saying a word?

Well, it’s an ultimate bad word, implying contempt and hostility, rejection and hatred. If you have this attitude to any person in the school community, and express it, then you get suspended. That seems fair enough.

Muslims, Christians and Buddhists want to follow the guidance and teaching of their holy books, and so they might take note of the quotations given here in the way they speak. These three religions – and many other people – have a common concern about living kindly or lovingly or with compassion, so they reject words that hurt.

Discussion

Now ask the pupils to tackle these questions in groups of three. It’s a good idea to get each pupil to write an answer in turn, ready to read out for general class discussion. Give them 7 minutes, to keep it snappy and focus thinking.

1 Which group, out of the four described, do you think Muslims, Christians and Buddhists would want to be in?

2 Which of the four groups are you in?

3 What proportion of people do you think is in each group?

4 How do people feel when they are sworn at? Choose three words that describe the feelings.

5 Would it be a better world if no one said the F-word?

6 Do you agree with Christian, Muslim and Buddhist teaching on speaking?

7 Is it right that a pupil can be suspended for saying a word?

Take some feedback from the pupils around the whole class, and get them to vote on answers to Questions 2, 3, 5, 6 and 7.

Show pupils these prayers and meditations (one each is Buddhist, Muslim, Christian). Ask them to whisper them aloud all together. Point out we are not asking them to pray, just to get a feel of the words – it’s like reading someone else’s poetry. Shared whispering is a kind of voluntary liturgy here.

I intend to do no harm in my speech. I intend to speak words that express compassion. I intend to use my speech to spread the kindness of the Buddha. I intend to live without harm towards all living beings.

Allah, your Prophet spoke wise words and kind words. Guide me on the straight path, so that my words may be kind and generous, never false or cruel.

Amen

God above all, thank you for the power of speech. We can hurt, or help others with the words we use. We look for the kindness, the self control and the compassion to talk to those we care for in ways that help, and never hurt.

Amen.

Ask pupils to think about how spiritual practice works: by prayer or meditation, a person looks for the help of God, or of a power greater than themselves, to improve their life. Prayer and meditation may be focused on our own behaviour, or on the needs of others.

Ask pupils to write a short prayer or meditation of their own about how they speak. This can be private between pupil and teacher if they wish. Challenge pupils to write a short story for homework on the theme of the power of words. It might have the title ‘I wish I’d never said it’, or as a positive alternative the title could be ‘The word that saved my life’ or ‘The best word in the World.’

I think it’s good practice to provide a route for feedback from a lesson like this, so why not ask the students to come and tell you at break whether they liked the learning, or whether they agreed with the religious teaching? Or provide a ‘graffiti board’ for anonymous comment if you dare!



Classroom 11–16

Reflection diaries: how to promote profound writing in RE

It is important the pupils get their own diaries that are personal to them so they feel comfortable and confident to share their thoughts.

Rosie Bradberry teaches RE at Peterfield School in Hampshire. She wanted her pupils to think more carefully about their work, so she introduced reflection diaries of RE learning. Here’s the story.

What is a reflection diary?

A reflection diary is a tool which allows and encourages pupils to express their own thoughts and feelings on a variety of philosophical/ethical/religious and personal issues.

Why did you introduce reflection diaries in RE?

Lots of reasons!

First, I wanted my pupils to have the opportunity to continue thinking deeply outside the classroom. So often we discuss these big meaty questions in RE class lessons only to have them go away and either forget all about it till the next lesson or at best think about it in a purposeless fashion. I wanted to allow some room in their week for them to be allowed to just sit down and think, reflect, have no answers one week and all the answers the next week, and for that to be OK.

Second, I was tired of marking exam-style questions for homework where all my written feedback was about what they did well and what they can improve for next time. Obviously this is really important, but I felt bogged down by it and felt that it was getting in the way of a bigger conversation between me and the student. I wanted to start a dialogue that went beyond the classroom and beyond their exam. We have weekly homework, so now on an A week they have an exam question/research/revision to do and on a B week do their reflection diaries.

Third, I wanted them to have something to take away from the RE lesson other than their exam grade. I am hoping they will keep their diaries and read them in years to come to see how their lives and views have changed as they grow up and face different phases of their lives.

How did you put the idea in place initially?

I introduced the idea to them and asked them to buy themselves a diary – most of them liked the idea from the start because I told them it wouldn’t be marked in the normal way they are used to – I think they found this idea liberating. They brought in various kinds of diaries and some decorated them as well. There are two questions they need to answer in their diaries: What did you do in the RE lesson today? What did you think?

The result is that, as well as answering these questions, many pupils add other things they have been thinking about. Due to the nature of the diary, I don’t feel it is appropriate to mark it in the usual way of giving a ‘what went well’ and ‘even better if’: it’s their ideas, thoughts and feelings. Therefore I respond with what I think about the topic/issue they have been discussing and try to pose a question at the end to continue their thinking on the subject. With many pupils it has opened up individual conversations which otherwise wouldn’t have taken place.

What has pleased you about the innovation?

I find it has given the pupils freedom to take their thinking/reflections in a personal direction and extend reflection beyond what is covered in a lesson. It has also given me the freedom, as a teacher, to be part of conversations that otherwise would not have occurred.

If you did it again, how would you do it differently?

At the moment I wouldn’t change anything. I have just launched reflection diaries with my GCSE classes, having begun using them with younger pupils, so it will be interesting to see how they respond to it as they get used to doing them.

What aims in RE and SMSCD do the diaries achieve?

Reflection diaries allow pupils to explore their spirituality; many are encouraged to overturn the assumption that you have to believe in God to be spiritual. It also helps them explore their morality because of the ethical issues we explore, and many pupils are surprised when they realise how influenced they are by their families and society, which then challenges them to think about what they really think and why.

Structured thinking about respect and cohesion in the community caused lots of thoughtful personal evaluation


Reflection diaries: how to promote profound writing in RE

Many reflection diary entries start with ‘I think [such-and-such issue] is a complicated issue because . . .’ which is a great development for my pupils in view of the exam, where 50 per cent of the answers will be evaluation answers, requiring them to demonstrate insight into complicated issues. They are doing exam practice without realising it!

What do the pupils think and say?

‘Writing a reflection diary has allowed me to write about my thought and arguments, and I really enjoy it. I have found that I question myself and come to more sensible conclusions because I am thinking everything through. Therefore, it has developed my thinking. I also find I have more time to consider my point of view and sometimes my viewpoint completely changes after writing an entry in my diary.’

Emily, Year 10

‘The reflection diary had helped me understand my own beliefs because when you have to write them down, you have to think about it more and make sense of them.’

Megan, Year 10

‘The reflection diaries are really good because they get you thinking about what you have learnt in your lesson so you don’t just forget it when you get home.’

Susannah, Year 10

‘My reflection diary has given me the opportunity to talk about things I wouldn’t necessarily discuss in class.’

Jake, Year 10

‘These reflection diaries are a truly unique opportunity to have long conversations that allow us, the students, to develop our ideas and thinking. It really is good fun and allows our teacher to get to know our unique views on the fundamental ideas that we get taught.’

Alex, Year 10

‘I feel it helps me make progress in my thinking because I have time at home to think deeper into the classwork.’

Lily, Year 10

‘I enjoy writing my reflection diary, I can write openly without be judged or criticised.’

Rebecca, Year 10

‘I have really enjoyed doing my reflection diary. It’s allowed me to think more about what I have done in class and allowed me to achieve a greater understanding of the topics we have covered. It’s given me more time to expand my thinking.’

Matt, Year 10

What recommendation would you make to other RE teachers thinking of taking this initiative on board?

It is important the pupils get their own diaries that are personal to them so they feel comfortable and confident to share their thoughts. Reflection diaries are another thing to ‘mark’ along with their other homework and classwork and you have to think in a totally different way to normal marking which takes time (I am still feeling my way with it). You have to work out what is going to work for you in terms of marking. I set the reflection diary every other week, I ‘mark’ every other reflection entry with a comment and then every other entry is read and I sign and date it to check it has been done. Then when I hand them back I’ll give a little comment on what they wrote so they know I have read it and it opens up an oral as well as written conversation.

Choose which class/classes you are going to do it with. I only do it with my GCSE groups. If I did it with every class I would never get through all my marking!

Rosie Bradberry, Petersfield School

I was tired of marking exam-style questions for homework where all my written feedback was about what they did well and what they can improve for next time.

I wanted my pupils to have the opportunity to continue thinking deeply outside the classroom.

Reflection diaries have enabled pupils to keep thinking through RE over a term



Classroom 14–19

Who am I? Who am I becoming?

Ellie Ellis wanted to explore how pupils put their identity into words. Here’s what she did, building the activity from the concept of identity in learning from religion. Teachers, of all people, know about the fluidity of identity: everyone changes, especially teenagers. So the work focused on the question: Who am I becoming?

Our first unit of work for 13-year-olds is called ‘Looking for God’. We began with the game ‘Beyond Belief’ which is a structured discussion activity for a group of four in which 40 belief statements are sorted, selected, prioritised and argued over! We set some written tasks about how pupils give reasons for their beliefs as a sort of baseline to Year 9 work from the game.

This prepared our students for subject specialist RE as they had only studied it as part of a thematic curriculum in age groups 11–13. The classes then moved on to look at different worldviews. They explored concepts: atheist, agnostic, theist, polytheist. We challenged higher-ability students to consider the impact of being an atheist or agnostic in the modern world – what difference does it make to believe this?

In our next lesson we used three metaphors for religious truth: Elephants, Mountains and Maps. I wanted the pupils to understand the concepts of inclusivism, exclusivism and pluralism in relation to living in a religiously plural society. Higher-ability students considered opinions from Matthew Fox and Meister Eckhart.

We then explored the concept of the trinity in my ‘Mars Bar’ lesson (think about it – is it toffee, chocolate or nougat? Is it one bar, or three kinds of confectionary?). We did a ‘scientific dissection of Mars Bars’ (it was hilarious) to explore Christian understandings of God as trinity, as three in one.

Then we moved on to the questions ‘Who am I? Who am I becoming?’ Completed over two lessons and one piece of homework, the aim of this was to open the students up to considering themselves in a more reflective, spiritual and empowering way, having set them up with an understanding of different worldviews, considering where people who are theistic might find God and how they interact with God and others. Over the ‘Who am I, Who am I becoming’ lessons, we did the ‘If I were an animal I would be a . . . because . . .’ activity as a starter, introducing activities using the world cloud to describe ourselves and others.

Who am I? Going deeper

I set a reflective activity that asked young people to consider ourselves as having multiple identities, with an echo from the Mars Bar lesson. For a text, I used Jewish Psalm 139, some verses from the Buddhist Dhammapada and a quote from C S Lewis to start a reflective process. Pupils could choose one of three activities to explore identity, including spiritual identity, in greater depth. Would they like to write a poem, create a work of art with a commentary or develop the outline of a film of their life, with a spiritual dimension?

How did pupils respond to the work?

I was really pleased. Lydia asked if she could have the task early so that she could work on it at home. She took about three weeks to do her artwork and was so proud to hand it in. That was exceptional, but many students went the extra mile. It proved a really wonderful start to the year because the students got to know me as I did many of the activities with them. For example, I completed the ‘Who am I? Going Deeper’ activity about myself on the whiteboard while they did it on their tables to model the sort of engagement I expected from the activity.

Ellie Ellis used a picture of herself at another context to get her pupils thinking.

Some found it a challenge and at times uncomfortably introspective: working on it with them was an excellent emotional literacy task and really developed their understanding of themselves – although I’m not sure that they all ‘enjoyed it’ in the way we traditionally understand it! I think the thing they valued most was that the lessons were all about them, who they were, and starting to think about who they would like to become and whether they are doing enough at the moment to become that person.

What pleased you about this?

EVERYTHING! I was thoroughly delighted by the mature engagement of most students across the board and I taught this to top sets and mixed ability classes. All students were able to access the work and while some of them did not necessarily excel at the final activity, they demonstrated strengths in other areas like the ‘Who am I? Going deeper’ work or the multiple identities activity. I was also pleased because I was able to create a bond with the students and get to know them, as I hadn’t taught many of them before. I was surprised by their work every lesson, for example when one student said ‘I would change the way I started hanging around with older kids.’

’My old friends [have shaped me] by the way I sort of gave in to doing stuff I wouldn’t usually do’

‘I would like for people to look out for me when [I’m] in trouble’. . .‘My anger is uncontrollable but my loudness is self inflicted.’

This sparked a conversation about this student’s understanding of anger and his identity, thinking about who it might make him become and if he wants to be that person in the future. Perhaps some of the most pleasing things I read were the reflections on the public and private self which were often quite moving and mature for any 13–14 year olds, let alone those from a challenging school setting with many of the personal issues I have subsequently learned about.

Why do you think identity issues like this matter in RE?

Do young people have the time to spend with an adult reflecting on who they are now, who they want to become and what might or might not happen if they continue down their current trajectory? Some young people have nowhere and no one with whom to do this. But RE can be this kind of space. Where else do students get to safely, respectfully and openly discuss their questions about spirituality and have their misconceptions and misgivings addressed?

PSHE has a very important role to play here; however, RE can make a big contribution in making it socially acceptable to discuss sensitive issues of belief, spirituality, morality and implications of things like fear of judgement. I have found that many young people have expressed apprehension about their future and opted for the ostrich ‘head in the sand’ approach to who they are and who they are becoming, when actually they have a lot of deep-seated anxiety about being a ‘good’ person, doing the ‘right’ thing and about being judged by others. As a statutory subject with non-statutory content, we are perfectly poised to provide space to explore student ambitions, character, choices, attitudes, hopes, potential and growth, using religious text as a stimulus to reflection.

While the English Baccalaureate has had a significantly negative and incredibly worrying impact on RE provision in schools, from my perspective in a school with a supportive principal, we have the gift of time to develop these kind of conversations in our classes. RE can be a haven for personal development, growth and introspection which is enriching and valuable for all young people regardless of their vulnerability, socio-economic status or geography. If I did nothing but open my students up to their potential as powerful, thoughtful and reflective agents for change, I would consider my career a success.

Ellie Ellis


The class display of work on identity and diversity interested pupils deeply

Casey’s ‘Who am I?’ exhibit investigates her sense of becoming in spiritual terms



Classroom Story

The Prophet Muhammad and the Word of Allah

The first revelation of the Holy Qur’an to the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)The Night of Power in Ramadan, 1500 years ago

At last, the cave was quiet. He sat quite still for a while, then opened his eyes again. He stood up and went out into the sunlight. There were long morning shadows on the mountainside. He had been all night in the cave. If you’d been there, you’d have felt hungry, tired and hot, maybe faint.

If you had been watching from the desert, you would have seen the man lick his dry lips. He walked carefully up the rocky slope of Mount Hira. He seemed to know where he was going, but he did not rush. He walked like someone who had been there before. He was alone. Halfway up was the dark entrance to a cave. For a moment, he stood still, then he bent and stepped inside the cave's mouth.

But because of what had happened in the cave, he felt overwhelmed, amazed, puzzled and excited. The words the angel had given him were burning in his mind. He felt as if God had given him a perfect memory. He walked carefully down the stony mountain. He hurried across the three kilometres of rocky desert towards the city. As he slipped among the houses the morning bustle of the town was beginning.

Inside the cool, dark space, he sipped the water he was carrying. He sat quite still. It was completely dark. The man closed his eyes, and was lost in thought. For a long time, he felt nothing. Then suddenly a voice crashed into his ears: ‘In the Name of God!’ it shouted, 'Recite!' He was overwhelmed. He blinked his eyes wide open and saw a huge, bright figure, an angel. The voice commanded him again: ‘Recite!’

When he got home, he sat down to eat with his wife. When you tell a person a secret, you just don’t know what they will think. He sat quietly for a while. Then he told his wife all that had happened in the cave. She didn’t laugh. She didn’t seem surprised. She was interested, and she listened carefully. When he had finished, she touched his hand, and smiled.

He could not read, or speak! He felt as if he was crushed in a tight embrace. For the third time the huge voice said: ‘In the name of Allah, Recite!’ In his mind the words became clear. He understood what the angel showed him. He began to recite. The words told a story about God, and the way human beings were made. They were hard, shining words that told him the truth. It was the revelation of Allah by the Angel Jibril.

At first, he did not tell anyone else. But he did go back to the cave again. Each time he sat in the cool dark cave the huge angelic voice spoke. He never forgot the messages, which seemed to be burnt into his mind. The messages were about God, and about how people should live. They changed the history of the world. They were all written down in the Qur’an, the holy book of the Muslims.


The First Revelation: enquiring together

Every religion has foundational stories, and none is more significant in Islam than this one. Here are some ways of working with the story that might suit 9–13 year olds. The story has been written in seven sections, and for this activity it should be cut up into cards. Make 6 sets of the cards, and begin by giving each pupil one card, and asking them to get into groups of seven in which everyone has a different card.

All seven pupils should read out their cards to each other, and discuss the right order for the paragraphs, to make the whole story. Pupils might need to know a bit about the character: Muhammad (pbuh) is nowhere named in the text. Ask pupils what they can find out from the text, and what else they would like to know. Tell pupils a bit about him, and the place and times in which he lived. Information is available in all the school books on Islam, so pupils will learn:

• that he was an orphan, brought up by his uncle• that he worked as a trader, travelling all over

the desert• that his trustworthiness was legendary: his

‘nickname’ was that he was trusty• that he married Khadijah when he was 25

years old• that the experience described here took place

when he was 40.

Select seven pupils to prepare a ‘read aloud’ performance. Would it be good to make an audio file? Don’t dramatise this story – most Muslims never show the Prophet in drama. Be careful not to ask pupils to draw or act out the part of the Prophet, or the angel. Muslims might be unhappy about this because imaging humanity is forbidden by some Muslims.

Pupils might produce retellings of the story aimed at an audience two years younger than themselves, using simple calligraphy and few words. Pupils should not be asked to draw pictures of the characters in the story. Why not get pupils to plan and make a booklet like this:

• Fold an A4 sheet of coloured paper in half three times, then staple one edge, and guillotine the other edges to make a small 8-page paper book.

• Write one short sentence, or just one word, of the story of the revelation of the Holy Qur’an on each page, and use simple Islamic design, or a decorated initial letter on each page.

Nine- or ten-year-olds could pair up with a pupil from the infants to tell the story and share their book.

When pupils have learned the story, they may be ready to learn more about the Holy Qur’an. This could be done through the use of Muslim artefacts, such as a Qur’an stand, or an English interpretation of the Qur’an itself. It is good to wash hands as a sign of respect to Muslims before handling the book. If you don’t have access to artefacts, then photographs make a good substitute.

Ask pupils what questions that they would like to ask about the Prophet’s experience; they can research the answers. Could a Muslim visitor come in to answer these questions? Could the class write to a local Muslim? Pupils might talk over why the book is treasured and treated so respectfully, and discuss the significance of keeping it on a shelf higher than all other books. Pupils might also listen to some recitation of part of the Qur’an from a contemporary source.

The BBC Watch programme on Islam is also useful in this context, and the BBC RE Clipbank has several suitable items. http://www.bbc.co.uk/learning/subjects/religious_studies.shtml

Young Muslims speak about the Prophet

We asked some young Muslims at schools in Britain about the Prophet. Here are some of their replies:

The Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was the light which led the puzzled people of the world out of darkness: he was the best of the creations of Allah.

I will tell you about the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). He had lots of qualities. He never lied, everybody trusted him, he loved small children and he was very brave and strong. He would help people: he would serve his guests.

He was probably the bravest, the most loving and most honest man ever, and he caused millions and millions of people to become Muslim and to believe in Allah.

He was very open minded and never accepted an issue before understanding it fully. He was sensible, level headed, determined, just and humble.

The Prophet cares for young people, so we should care for him.

Our Prophet was a walking Qur’an, and a perfect example for all youngsters to follow.

Pupils could make a list of the qualities that the young Muslims admire in their Prophet, and a second list of people who they admire, with some of the qualities that they find attractive in them. Comparison of the lists in groups could lead to a discussion: Is it important that we have ‘role models’ to look up to?

Pupils could make a wall display, showing some paintings of Muslim children, and use the quotations above in speech bubbles to show what some Muslims think of the Prophet. They might make a parallel display about some of their own heroes and those whom they admire.

Lat Blaylock, Editor

The power of words in religion: the recitation of the Qur’an has the power to shape young Muslim lives and inspire their spirituality.


Here’s an open invitation to readers: send us details of an RE lesson that went really well, and the pictures to prove it. We include a couple of ‘emails from the classroom’ in every issue of REtoday.

Emails from the classroom

Being creative through the RE curriculum

Rachel Kemp is currently working in a three-form primary school, teaching RE full-time. She explains how, through creative RE, the children explore and are engaged in the subject.

Having spent a term off work with a broken back, I was given RE PPA cover by the head, as she knew it was a subject I was keen on teaching. From there RE has developed into a cross-curricular/creative subject in which all the children are engaged and learn from each other’s religions.

The remit given was ‘use your creative flair’ and ‘teach in a cross-curricular manner’. Simply, that’s just what I did. RE is now embedded into the curriculum and the children look forward their lessons.

I just thought I would share some of those moments. I had plenty of ideas and found the pace and rigour of Year 6 stifling for my creativity, so for me RE was not only a great opportunity for me to be creative but a chance to share, value and learn from and about each other’s views and religions. RE became a valued lesson, breaking down religious stereotypes and prejudice, and drawing pupils together peacefully, through respect, value and tolerance.

The Jewish Exodus

I gave the children the chance to go on a journey, to feel it, to act it, to experience it. We are fortunate to have a large playground, with football cages and a wooded area, for the children to work in. Grabbing blankets and a few bottles of water we set off. We imagined our journey beginning in Egypt, and our release. It was important to use first person in a constant barrage of questions. How do you feel? Are you cold/hungry? And so on. By doing this the children were feeling the journey.

Boredom, as planned – sooner rather than later for some children – set in. This then engaged the children in a different set of questions and thinking about the enormity of the journey and how it really felt to be there. The monotony of walking around the school grounds, using different routes, the squabbles over lack of water and food, helped prompt discussions about how people felt. Sitting in the wooded area, uncomfortable, made the children realise the discomfort and immenseness of the Exodus. The majority of the lesson was spent outside, leaving 10 minutes in the classroom for reactions on sticky notes. The camera proved a useful tool to record reactions, and of course made a brilliant display. Drama and the experience proved a powerful tool. Children who first encountered this lesson two years ago still talk about it now.

Reflection

Planning with reflection in mind has become an integrated part of my practice within school. Pupils have the opportunity to just ‘be’. Children’s reactions and responses often came freely and naturally when no constraints were put upon them.

Lighting a candle (during Christmas, Easter or Divali lessons) led the children to sit quietly, calmly watching the flame to quiet background music. Children were able to just let their minds wander and think. Slowly turning the music down and asking children to respond with one-word answers/use of whiteboards leaves the children’s answers open for discussion and sets a calm tone for working during the rest of the lesson.

The children’s thoughts are then turned to reflection on occasions when a candle is used: How does it makes us feel? What does it remind you of? This builds a learning bridge, bringing out thoughts in a focus on occasions where candles are used for religious meaning: What does it mean to say Jesus is the light of the world? What did the lights of Divali mean to Rama and Sita? After initial discussion the lesson develops for children to think about who, for them, is their light.

Year 2 here were given the opportunity to draw/record/write about the lights in their life. The responses were all valued and valid, and were all different. Some responded with family members, friends and teachers, while others chose the Qur’an and Bible: simple but effective responses. Activity like this is inclusive and can be made very quickly into a display for reflective evidence. I use the windows in the corridor, as space is always at a premium, and the windows ensure that the light shines through.

Literacy skills can be easily transferred and used in RE. Having themed Easter for this year, Year 6 accessed Easter and its story through poetry. Paul Cookson’s ‘I don’t believe in Easter’(www.paulcooksonpoet.co.uk) was the stimulus. Having unpacked the poem together, children used this as a scaffold to write and share their own beliefs and values.

Children enacted the story of the Exodus


Children know that within RE they can securely express both beliefs and values, together with opinions that are both discussed and respected. Children wrote poems that reflected both their personal opinion and their faith. The results from all the children were of a high standard and reflected their knowledge, thoughts about themselves and Easter. The response was so positive that poetry will be used in future lessons in order to scaffold and support children’s RE writing.

There are no constraints, apart from time, as to how I deliver the curriculum based on the new Manchester Agreed Framework. The benefits are simply shown through pupil voice. When a Year 6 boy was asked ‘How do you know how well you are doing in RE?’ the boy simply replied:

‘That’s a difficult one for me to answer because RE is about me, what I value and believe and how I show respect and understanding to those of other faiths. RE helps me question my beliefs and helps me make a personal opinion. It’s all about treating each other as you wish to be treated.

Is PPA cover good for RE?

I know it has been suggested by HMI that teaching RE as a PPA can be fragmented and can lack progression and depth, but I would argue the reverse. Quite the opposite can be said of leaving RE in the classroom curriculum. Some primary teachers will squeeze out RE when under pressure from other subjects. This creates little or no coverage, let alone the chance to show progression.

Having RE as a stand-alone subject and consistently taught by the same teacher creates instant stability for both the subject and the children. It creates progression throughout the school and shows the subject’s value for the children. Depth of knowledge is gained from year to year and children’s understanding of the value of RE is embedded through valuing others and treating each other as you wish to be treated. After all, this is the golden rule running through most world religions. It also enables children to develop trust and be able to speak in an open forum about their faith, without embarrassment, and know that their opinions and beliefs matter.

RE can complement many areas of the curriculum. It helps to develop reading and writing but it also has the unique opportunity to develop reflection. Giving children the chance to just sit and think about themselves and their learning is a very powerful tool. For example, during a Year 5 lesson about Easter one of the boys was sobbing, ‘Miss, I get it now! I can now feel the pain and the joy of Easter all at the same time. Easter really is a very big time for Christians, isn’t it?’

That’s the wonder of the power of a story in RE: knowledge, understanding and learning from religion, too. Children produce greater depth of writing through having time to reflect on their own beliefs.

Rachel Kemp

Children’s reflections on the symbol of candlelight




Plato’s Academy: In Pod we trust

Pupils from Beyton Middle School in Suffolk have been using philosophy methods to deepen their learning via a lunchtime club. Could your school do this? We always like to publish articles written by students in REtoday. Here, they tell you what they like.

In the beginning, there was nothing but darkness, then Mr Anstee-Parry turned the lights on Plato’s Academy – the philosophy club was born, lunchtimes were never to be the same again . . .

At Beyton Middle School, in Suffolk, a budding group of philosophers had an idea to make their lunchtimes more productive. The student-led group is supported by two of their teachers, Frank Anstee-Parry and Elaine Atkin. They have discussed issues such as justice, end of life ethics, origins of the universe and all life that it contains, the values of the Olympics and teleology, Plato’s Republic and even Chuck Norris.

The dynamic group felt that it would be selfish of them to keep it to themselves and set out to record their discussions in the form of a series of podcasts, entitled ‘The Philosopod’. Even though these students were only 12–13 at the time it did not stop them from achieving their goal.

‘The Philosopod’ started off as an amateur production, borrowing a dictaphone from music teachers to record with and perching it on a pile of books so as to record at the right volume. Editing started off taking hours upon hours, but, by the end of Series 1 it was a lot more professional, with their own equipment, fast editing and better-quality discussions.

In the future Plato’s Academy aims to discuss and debate much more: with more frequent meetings and planned topics the group hope to achieve many things. REtoday asked the pupils to tell us about the Philosopod.

What was the hardest thing about making the Philosopod?

The hardest thing was the co-ordination. Getting the correct people at the right place at the right time was incredibly difficult as we had to stick to a firm school timetable.

What did you learn from doing these podcasts?

How to handle a discussion; how to talk to people we may not personally know; how to accept others’ ideas that we may not necessarily agree with; how religions differentiate and their key concepts; how to edit and upload podcasts to the internet; and – last but not least – that if you persevere at something you may see as small and insignificant, you could change a lot and inspire many others to follow your ambition.

If other pupils asked you whether it was worth it, I guess you would say yes. What reasons would you give?

a It is a huge amount of fun and general enjoyment.

b You learn a lot in an interesting way.

c You interact with other people and create new bonds.

d Do a lot of philosophication (which is a word we may or may not have made up during a podcast) and finally you see yourself in a new light.

Natasha Penford, Joe Southwood and James Roberts

In the future Plato’s Academy aims to discuss and debate much more: with more frequent meetings and planned topics the group hope to achieve many things.


Adam and Eve and Rama and Sita



Stacey Archbold teaches all the RE at St Mary’s First School, Northchurch, Hertfordshire, for children aged 4–9. PPA time is often given to RE, and it’s a model that can works superbly. Here’s an example that exploits the possibilities.

Our school follows a creative curriculum with a new theme every half term. Last year our theme for the second half of the autumn term was ‘Celebrations’. I organised a Divali dance workshop for the whole school to take part in, which inspired the children to go on to learn about Hinduism and the festival of Light. We had a Celebrations display throughout the corridor which showed the progression of learning from ages 4 to 9. The children’s work was a combination of RE, Literacy, Maths, Art, Music and PSHE. This led nicely into Christmas celebrations and a comparison of similarities and differences between Hindu and Christian festivals.

This half term our theme is ‘The Stories People Tell’. Following on from an inspiring INSET on storytelling, our Literacy co-ordinator had arranged for a professional storyteller to visit the school in the first week. He worked with every class and then led a whole school assembly at the end of the day. The children absolutely loved it, and learned a lot about creating and performing their own stories.

One class had a visit from an author, who created a short story and illustrations with them. By the time I introduced the RE topic ‘Bible Stories’ to Year 3 they were expert storytellers!

I began by telling the story of Adam and Eve, using simple key pictures, which I left on display for the children to use as prompts later on. The children then had to retell the story to their partner. It was lovely to see and hear some great characterisation coming through in their retelling. Some children had added dialogue, with different voices and expression for each character.

Lots had added much more detail than I had used, while keeping the main points of the story intact. Some of the phrases included:

‘. . . how can you resist?’

‘. . . and as Eve reached out her hand towards the fruit . . .’

‘Adam! You’ve got to try this; it’s delicious!’

‘ . . . now you must leave this place and never come back . . .’

After engaging with the story in this way the children found it easy to discuss possible meanings Christians might take from it.

We moved on to imagining what we would ask the characters of the story if we had the chance to interview them. The children enjoyed this exercise, often writing quite impassioned questions like ‘How could you be so silly? You listened to that snake?’

I started the next lesson (a week later) by reading a version of the story from a children’s Bible, and then asked the children to tell the story to a different partner from last week, which brought it to life again. After reading their questions through, the children were very keen to have a go at hot-seating the characters. I hadn’t done this with them before, but after a quick go at being God (!) I was soon replaced by the children. They really enjoyed this – they would have carried on interviewing each other indefinitely. By this time the children understood the story on many different levels and had been challenged to think about it from all of the characters’ points of view. They were ready to start writing!

The task was to retell the events of the story as if they were one of the characters. I differentiated the task by giving those with lower levels of literacy skills a writing frame with questions to answer in character.

I displayed questions as prompts for writing for the others, and we created a word bank together as a class. This enabled the children to write more fluently, without worrying about spellings.

The whole process took longer than when I had taught it in previous years, but the standard of work was much higher. The writing was insightful and emotionally charged. The children enjoyed it and all were eager to start writing, having a wealth of ideas to draw on.

Across the school we have been telling stories whenever we have a spare few minutes, as well as in planned lessons. I have also been squeezing in stories from a variety of religions in the classes I have been teaching. In Year 2 I started by reading ‘Jonah and the Whale’. The children were very taken with the illustrations and we spent a long time going back through the book, discussing the character of Jonah and the meaning of the story.

The following week I brought in a different version of the story and we talked about the similarities and differences. The week after that, one of the children had found another version of the story in the book corner, this time taken from the Qur’an. This led to another great discussion comparing the Christian and Islamic stories: did they carry the same message? The next week a different child had found the story in the class Children’s Bible! Their enthusiasm to explore this story so many times has been amazing to me. Stories are a perfect starting point for any lesson. I plan to continue telling stories with my classes throughout the year.

Stacey Archbold’s pupils work together on the meaning of the Adam and Eve story




When life gives you lemons, make RE

Maureen McDevitt-Norman teaches at Ecclesfield School in South Yorkshire. Starting work on inspirational people, she began not with Mother Teresa or Aung San Suu Kyi, but by making fruitful use of a metaphor.

I took over a struggling RE department at the worst possible time! Our school had gone from ‘Satisfactory’ to ‘Notice to Improve’ and had a dramatic shake-up of SLT, concluding with the head stepping down. The pressure was intense. Meanwhile, the struggle to raise the profile of RE ploughed on with myself and three supply teachers!

One of my personal highlights was breaking through to the other side of ‘good’ with ‘outstanding’ to flat-out ‘outstanding’. I didn’t think it would ever be possible with a subject like RE. Everything is stacked against you: the kids may hate the idea of the subject. You only have an hour a week to dazzle and show the relevance. Other staff don’t value the subject much. As the teacher, you must show progression in an hour a week and hope the pupils remember what they have learned for the next lesson.

My lesson observation was after a long year of waiting for Ofsted to drop in for a visit. I started a unit on ‘Inspirational People’ with a plucky group of Year 8s. I wanted to produce a lesson that was personal to me and that allowed them to be open, creative and actually be inspired to help bring about change or even believe that it is possible. I started the lesson with giving everyone paper lemons to write their answer to ‘Can one person change the world?’

The students placed their lemons somewhere on the washing line continuum. I wanted a very active lesson: students could move their lemons on their washing line if their opinion shifted: they didn’t need to ask permission to get up and move their lemon. I don’t make a habit of this but I had a good relationship with this class so I could trust them with the freedom to express their learning at their own pace.

Once all of the lemons were on the line, I showed them a video clip telling the story of Alex’s Lemonade Stand which is a charity located where I am from, in Pennsylvania. Alex was a little girl who set up a lemonade stand to raise money for childhood cancer research. Alex’s cause caught on, and long after her death from cancer it continues to raise money for the cause she fought for when she was 8 years old.

The students were clearly moved and several students moved their lemon from no to yes. They were believing that it was possible for one person to change the world! Other students discussed why they did not believe Alex changed the world, just America. And cancer still exists. Some students discussed historical events that changed the world, noting that some change is negative. The class were superb at listening and expanding upon each other’s answers to get to the root of whether a person can change the world alone or whether help is needed and how long it takes for change.

Next I had the students roll dice to decide who would be lying on the floor to have their body traced. I asked them to think about how each part of an inspirational person is used. For example, I used Alex: she used her hands to squeeze her parents’ hands to give them hope. I wanted them to think creatively rather than write that ‘Alex used her hands to squeeze lemons’. Independent group work on different inspirational people was shared.

The plenary was to look at where they placed their lemon and whether or not their opinion has changed one way or another.

Every pupil moved their opinion. I was pleased with the lesson because there was movement, creativity, the concept of inspiration, pupils thinking about the world around them. The lesson was graded outstanding, which was a high.

What followed was one of the most powerful teaching moments I have had in a long time.The class was so inspired by the story of Alex’s Lemonade Stand that they worked together to create a stand in my classroom for Year 6 Open Evening. We made huge lemons out of foam board and proudly walked around as human-sized lemons that said ‘Life is Sour’ on the front and ‘RE is Sweet’ on the back. We sold cupcakes and drinks, sending a donation to the charity back in Pennsylvania. They were so pleased that we were featured on their website! I want RE always to be like this, and have to remind myself sometimes . . . ‘When life gives you lemons, make RE!’

Maureen McDevitt, Curriculum Leader for RE, Ecclesfield School, Sheffield

Enthusing pupils about RE is one way of fighting our corner in difficult times.

Life is sour, but RE is sweet. Making the mostof what we’ve got is an art form for RE teachers at the moment.

How do you show the vibrancy of RE on open evenings?




A kinaesthetic Holy Week

Val Hines wanted more physical activity in RE at her school in Swadlincote in Derbyshire, so she planned some journeys work that involved actual journeys for her 11-year-olds.

At The William Allitt School, in order to help Year 7 students settle into life at secondary school, we run an ‘Opening Minds’ course. Our students spend 10 lessons a week with the same teacher and RE forms a part of this course. As some of us spend the whole of Monday morning with the same students, this gives us a great opportunity to study topics in real depth. As part of our work on journeys and pathways, we used a visual learning approach to ‘Picturing Easter’ (see below). We wanted our students to reflect upon the events of Holy Week and Easter and to create their own work of art accompanied by a short entry for an art gallery catalogue.

Having studied some works of art on the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, we set to work on a kinaesthetic Holy Week. The students were given cards with different emotions on them: excitement, anxiety, fear, relief, puzzlement, sadness, despair, regret, amazement and exhilaration. They were asked to work in small groups and to give an example of one of these emotions in a dramatic freeze-frame. They were then given the challenge of tackling all the emotions and exploring the contrasts, the positives and the negatives.

These emotions were then linked to the events of Holy Week and Easter. The students were given a list of the emotions alongside the different events. For example, the disciples may have felt excitement as Jesus entered Jerusalem, anxiety when he turned the market traders out of the Temple, despair at the crucifixion and exhilaration at the resurrection. The students’ biggest challenge was to plan and perform a four-minute dramatic sequence which showed the events of Holy Week and Easter and the emotions accompanying them.

Our students responded to these activities with tremendous enthusiasm and made significant progress in their learning. They also made a lot of creative noise! Another member of our ‘Opening Minds’ team gave me sound advice about this – turn the lights on and off when you need everyone to be quiet. There were some very thoughtful performances. It made me smile to see a group of boys welcoming Jesus into Jerusalem by singing, as if at a premier league match, ‘We love you, Jesus, we do . . .’ One of the girls, upon seeing the risen Christ, stared at him for a few moments and then said, ‘OMG.’

The works of art and written work produced by the students were of a high standard. Rowan focused on Jesus walking to his death. She explained that she wanted to show that Jesus had been welcomed into Jerusalem but that everything had changed.

To show this, she drew dead palm branches under his feet. Lauren concentrated on the grief of Mary and wrote:

In this particular piece of art work I have tried to show the pain that was caused . . . I think it was an awful way for a man (who was only trying to help people) to be punished and killed. I also think that the art work I have produced reflects on life in the world today. In some countries people can get punished just for what they believe in.

Chrysta worked on the resurrection, and I particularly like the way in which her work reflects different reactions to this event.

All in all, our students found these activities engaging. They provoked some interesting philosophical and theological discussions in addition to some very thoughtful works of art.

Valerie Hines, Head of Humanities, The William Allitt School, Swadlincote, Derbyshire

Lat Blaylock and Victoria Ikwuemesi, Picturing Easter (pack of 8 picture cards, teacher’s book and CD-ROM) is available from RE Today, £26. http://shop.retoday.org.uk/9781905893041



Staffroom

Satanisation or sanitisation and the teaching of Islam

Joyce Miller wonders about how to balance the words we use about Islam. Some people may demonise Islam – but it’s a problem in the other direction if the only images we give are unrealistically sanitised.

In a research interview I conducted a couple of years ago, a highly articulate and well-qualified man of Pakistani heritage summed up what he saw as the development of the negative stereotyping that had beset him and his family over the years: ‘First, we were Asians. Then we were Pakis. Now we’re Muslims.’

The satanisation of Islam

The words ‘Muslim‘ and ‘Islam’ have become pejorative terms in some (perhaps many) sections of the population, not just in Britain but across the Western world. Evidence has been gathered about the treatment of Islam in the popular press (by the School of Journalism at Cardiff University, for example) showing that the majority of portrayals of Muslims and Islam are negative.1

There is a strong focus in news bulletins on groups such as the Taliban and on the denial by Muslims of equal rights for women. Islam is frequently portrayed as ‘fundamentalist’, violent and irrational. There is a view of Muslim communities in Britain as deliberately self-segregating, backward and sometimes corrupt. In short, there has been a satanisation of Islam in public discourse.

The sanitisation of Islam

Compare this with Islam in religious education: we teach about the dedication and discipline of daily prayers and fasting during Ramadan, we aim to inspire with the beauty of Islamic architecture, we applaud the determination required for the pilgrimage to Makkah, we present the religion of submission to Allah, the religion of peace. There is, in short, a sanitisation of Islam in RE.

I wonder just how many pupils, particularly those in secondary schools, are going to ‘buy’ the RE version when almost all other images of Islam, including those on the internet and their TV screens, give the opposite view. In his excellent book On the Road to Kandahar, the journalist Jason Burke wrote of his feelings after the London bombings of 2005:

I was angry at the ridiculous statements repeated again and again by politicians and ‘community leaders’ alike, that ‘Islam is a religion of peace’. In fact, as I had learned on the ground, any faith is what its believers make of it and Islam had resources that could be utilized to justify appalling brutality as well as to encourage mercy and tolerance. (2007, p.265)

And, given all the issues of underfunding alongside examination pressures, how many teachers have the time or energy to address these polarisations?

This question really matters because Islamophobia – or perhaps more accurately, anti-Muslimism – damages the lives and limits the opportunities of Muslims and it contributes to a hardening of attitudes towards ‘otherness’ that are extremely dangerous, not least because of the rise of right-wing extremism.

An invitation

I would love to hear from teachers about how they meet these challenges because I’m sure that there is a lot of valuable and effective work going on in schools, including work on the relationship between the media and religion, visiting local mosques and interviewing Muslims, all of which support the RE curriculum and help engage in myth-busting. It’s not as if any of this is new: more than 20 years ago research showed that pupils might ‘learn about’ Judaism but unless their existing preconceptions were addressed, anti-Semitic attitudes remained untouched.

Ways forward

But perhaps there is more that can be done, so I would like to suggest two ways forward and to raise some questions. The first suggestion is to avoid sanitising (or satanising) ‘Islam’ by not teaching it! Or, at least, not teaching it as if it were a homogeneous ‘whole’.

Instead of presenting an essentialised view of Islam, address instead its constituent parts through focusing on key areas of enquiry about religions and beliefs such as the spiritual; metaphysics; ethics; ritual; and social organisation. 2

Such learning has to be led by the students themselves and will focus on developing their conceptual understanding and their thinking skills, as well as SMSC. What questions and issues do they want to find the answers to? What do they want to try to understand? They don’t just need to focus on Islam for this, they may want to compare and contrast with other belief systems. But what matters is that they’re not being presented with a sanitised version of the whole religion. Rather, they are helped to explore some of the key questions that they have about what it means to be a Muslim today, in Britain. What is it like to be religious in a society that appears to be mainly secular? What does it mean to be part of the ummah? Are women equal to men in Islam, and what does equality mean?

Community and identity

The second, and closely linked, suggestion is to focus on two key concepts that underpin work on cohesion and citizenship, as well as RE. These are ‘community’ and ‘identity’, better presented in their plural forms, both needing to be deeply and carefully unpacked. We all belong to many communities and we all have plural identities. This is as true of Islam and Muslims as it is of everyone else.

Since the Salman Rushdie affair, almost 25 years ago, we have had a politicisation of ‘Muslim’ as an identity and, in RE, we need to be cognisant of that and its impact on pupil perceptions of the religion and its adherents. We have neglected the political and social dimensions of religions and beliefs for too long.

If religion becomes the key – or worse, the sole – identifier of swathes of the population, is there not a greater likelihood of oversimplification and stereotyping? Does ‘religion’ reinforce the so-called ‘clash of civilisations’? Are we guilty of reductionism in focusing on religion alone, when ethnicity, language, nationality, social class, educational attainment and other identifiers, such as football allegiance, are also –and in some contexts even more – important?

Perhaps well-intentioned initiatives, including the Equalities Act and interfaith dialogue are serving to perpetuate division when their real purpose is the opposite. Does RE, as it is currently conceived, fall into the same trap? In our attempts to offer a coherent portrayal of Islam as a belief system, are we in danger of unintentionally stereotyping its followers?

RE and ‘safe space’

Research across Europe has shown that pupils believe that schools and RE are the right places to address questions of difference and conflict. Classrooms are perceived as ‘safe spaces’ in which such matters can be discussed, though we know that such safe spaces are not easy to create.

None the less, there is opportunity for dialogue and learning that is relevant and rigorous, as long as the classroom is seen as a place for respectful, critical enquiry rather than for the delivery of narrowly specified content.

All the RE teachers I know are committed to promoting equalities and human rights. In our attempts to promote positive images of Islam in the face of attacks on it and its followers from many quarters, have we become guilty of an unconvincing form of sanitisation that leaves our pupils confused about where they stand in relation to one of the most powerful movements on earth? And, if we can find the answer to that question, how do we know it is true?

Notes1 Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and

Cultural Studies (2008) Images of Islam in the UK: The representation of British Muslims in the national print news media, 2000–2008.

2 These were some of the areas of enquiry developed as part of ‘A Third Perspective’, an alternative to the SCAA Model Syllabuses, developed by Vivienne Baumfield, Catherine Bowness, Denise Cush and Joyce Miller in 1994.

Joyce Miller [email protected]



Staffroom

Harmony Verity Bishop wanted her 13–14 year olds to think about one word: harmony. She linked the word to three religions, and to every pupil.

Core values, key beliefs

To start with, as a class we looked into our core values, the things that most of us believe in. I used a Values Game to get students sorting different concepts of what matters by discussion, and thinking about values. Over the next few lessons students looked into examples of codes for living from Muslims, Christians and Buddhists and selected the core values that were present in each of the religions.

To compare the religions in class we created a giant Venn diagram in which the values of each religion were placed in relation to each other. This helped students to focus on shared religious values for their assessed piece of work and provided them with the chance to explore some of the concepts that they could use in their final assessment.

Speech to the Island of Discord

As a piece of preparation for the assessed piece of work, students were given examples of religious teachings on peace from Buddhist, Christian and Muslim scripture and were asked to deliver a speech to the Island of Discord where Muslims, Christians and Buddhists live and conflict has broken out. This activity helped pupils to focus on interfaith dialogue, shared values and beliefs. It also helped to promote the use of religious teachings to support personal arguments against conflict.

Pupils really enjoyed the creativity of the task and they worked particularly hard on both selecting an image for their piece of work and also choosing what word to put where in their piece of work.

I was inspired by the Islamic artist Razwan Ul Haq (see his excellent website at www.ulhaqbrothers.com). Students explored his website, discovering the Islamic rules for art: use calligraphy and natural forms to represent beauty, but not human forms or faces; no images of God. The assessed piece of work is a reflective piece of art on the theme of harmony and how we can live in harmony with each other. The art piece could not contain human beings and should be drawn using only words. It was stressed to students that the image was as important as the words which provoked some serious philosophical thinking:

‘Why did you use the word “freedom” on the bird’s wings?’

‘Well I used it here because the wings help the bird to fly and we need freedom in our life so we can make choices which set us free.’

‘I chose circles to represent harmony as they represent never-ending emotions and feelings – things are changing but they stay the same.’

They were also asked to explain both the image and words chosen in a written piece of work to go alongside their image. Help was given to the lower-ability students by providing a word bank of words relating to values from which they selected their words.

Interfaith reflection: what can create harmony?

The main aim of the activity was to give students the opportunity to creatively reflect on what creates a harmonious society. Most of the media seems to portray the differences between people which simply reinforces chasms and separateness. This piece of work was a chance to really challenge these perceptions.

One of the aims was to show students that if you strip down religions to their core values, many of them have more in common than appears at first glance, particularly Christianity and Islam.

Fun – and depth

Pupils really enjoyed the creativity of the task and they worked particularly hard on both selecting an image for their piece of work and also choosing what word to put where in their piece of work. Simply, their work is a testimony to the dedication they had on the assessment. The explanations that accompanied the pieces of work showed great insight not only into the religions we studied but also into the idea of harmony and how to make a harmonious society.

I really wanted to tackle the misconception that many students had about religion, that it only ‘causes war’ or emphasises differences between groups of people.

To compare the religions in class we created a giant Venn diagram in which the values of each religion were placed in relation to each other.

The Herefordshire RE Agreed Syllabus asks the question ‘How can people with different views get on well together?’ This allowed me to open up my topic of harmony. The whole of the scheme of work has been built to allow students to create their reflective art piece.

I felt this was good RE as students were able to be reflective and create an individual piece of work which showcased their understanding of interfaith dialogue and the values of particular religions, but also taught students a great deal about the similarities between the faiths we studied. All went away with a deeper understanding of what religions teach about peace, and insight into the possibility that harmony can be achieved if we all work together. Above all it was fun!

Verity Bishop was working at Fairfield High School in Herefordshire when she did this work. She moved to Woking High School in September 2012.

See the book Questions: Values and Commitments, ed. Stephen Pett, RE Today 2013, for more related ideas and work plans.


Images: Using only the words of values they hold to be significant, the pupils created works of art from their own calligraphic skill.


Staffroom

The word ‘justice’: how do we learn its meaning?

Jo Hopper teaches RE at St John’s Catholic and Sixth Form College, Bishop Auckland. She went to Slovenia as NATRE’s delegate to the International Conference on Social Justice.

The conference was the culmination of three years’ work by schools, local authorities and national governments in six European countries: Estonia, Bulgaria, Latvia, Portugal, Slovenia and the UK. Funded by the European Union, and co-ordinated by Leeds Development Education Centre, the project had aimed to explore ways in which social justice could be incorporated into curricula on an international scale. Schools were given the freedom to explore ways in which this could be done creatively, many of the projects focusing upon such issues as fair trade, human rights and conflict.

The participating schools, all at different stages of embedding social justice themes into their schools and curricula, presented their own ways of doing this, drawing upon materials used in RE, Language, Literature, Citizenship, History and Geography, as well as whole-school activities such as school council.

Subsequent panel discussions on a European vision of education for social justice considered the issue of whether social justice is a moral question, and therefore has the potential to be marginalised, or a structural problem, which has the potential to be radicalised. Nevertheless, Rodrigo Lozano, from the University of Leeds, highlighted that social justice is necessary for sustainability, and therefore the education system should explore such issues if we are to expect future generations to find solutions and live appropriately.

Indeed, if issues of social justice are structural as much as moral, then both the sciences and the arts are required to engage with them.

The student presentations at the end of the conference gave practical examples of how to incorporate social justice themes into the curriculum: the use of round tables, presentations, ‘real’ conversations and the exploration of literature that promotes conservation of life on this planet.

The skills of leadership which had visibly been developed were evident in their dynamic participation at the conference and in their own communities

Oscar Kary, an A-level student from Devon, highlighted the importance of encouraging a love of nature in students, from a very young age, so that they, in his words, ‘fall in love with the world’, recognising that they are global heirs who have a right to inherit a healthy earth, and which can be the basis for effective education for social justice.

Jaber Elmasry’s emotive and first-hand account of the situation in Palestine highlighted that while relief and aid may make things temporarily better in the short term, they do not tackle the root problems or create capacity-building initiatives, instead making people dependent.

He highlighted that charity – the creation of empathy and the inspiration for self-denial – though an essential part of the educative process with regard to social justice, should not be an end in itself, but rather should lead to a more in-depth questioning of the structures which perpetuate situations of injustice globally and an exploration of the possibilities for change. This was to be the conclusion of the project as a whole.

The nature of social justice education has much in common with RE, and links can often be made quite naturally with RE curricula. And while this particular project has come to an end, it has clearly had a lasting impact on all who were fortunate enough to be part of it. Liam Spencer, an RE teacher from the Morley Academy in Leeds commented:

My teaching has been dramatically affected . . . I now seek out opportunities for students to take political action where possible and try to help them develop the skills to be able to challenge misconceptions and global issues. I have also found new ways to adapt religious teachings and make them current by discussing global issues through the perspective of religion.

Representatives from governments, teachers and local authorities worked together to look at the impact social justice education can have on skills, achievements and competencies valued by businesses and other employers, and the possibilities for formally including social justice education in an exam- and data-driven system.

The formal inclusion of social justice education in a system which is geared towards competition can be seen as somewhat of a contradiction and, as yet, no such policies have been implemented. Yet to see the culmination of three years’ work on such significant issues, and by so many people throughout Europe, challenged such an apparent contradiction. The young people involved had clearly been inspired to be agents of change, the incorporation of social justice education into the curricula in their respective schools and countries having undoubtedly had a significant impact upon them. The skills of leadership which had visibly been developed were evident in their dynamic participation at the conference and in their own communities, highlighting the positive effects that international educational programmes which explore issues of social justice can generate among participants and upon the education system as a whole.

Jo Hopper is Co-ordinator of Citizenship Education and a teacher of Religious Education in St John’s Catholic School and Sixth Form Centre, Bishop Auckland, Co. Durham. For more information, please contact [email protected]

What can you build through collaborative effort? Young delegates to the conference learned a lot from each other’s perspectives on justice.


Staffroom

‘Peace is more than the absence of war’

Lots of people choose ‘peace’ as their favourite word! These PGCE RE trainees put it into action.

This quote served as our starting point for the development of a day of workshops where Gifted & Talented students from Year 9 would discover what peace meant to them. As PGCE students at Manchester Metropolitan University, in the 2011–12 year group, we were inspired by the ‘Peace One Day’ campaign and felt that we wanted to impassion students on this project.

We invited 70 Year 9 students from a variety of schools across Manchester to participate in different workshops. These workshops were developed with three perspectives of peace: personal, community, and global.

Within the personal workshop the aims were to develop personal peace as a foundation on which we can build world peace, inspired by the story of Sadako Sasaki and how she used her inner peace to promote global peace through making peace cranes.

In order to achieve this, students were led through meditative practice and invited to reflect and share their feelings from this experience. From this, students created origami peace cranes inscribed with personal hopes for peace. Students responded well to this and described it as a moving and thought-provoking experience.

The community workshops focused on promotion of peace campaigns, specifically cyber bullying and religious and racial cohesion. Students worked in a Dragons Den format to present a campaign against cyber bullying which could be fed back to their schools.

Alternatively students created a Peace Mala bracelet through co-operative group work, and then developed a campaign for the use of the mala to promote peace within schools. Students felt empowered to make a difference in their school communities as a result of these two workshops.

Finally the workshops on global peace were about looking to the past to gain inspiration from famous pacifists and looking to the future about promoting global peace. Students used fact files to identify key points of the pacifist’s life which they translated into icing on biscuits. This strategy employed peer teaching, using only their biscuits. This got students enthused in the learning about historical pacifists.

The other global peace workshop looked to promote peace in the future by allowing students to design their own ‘Peace One Day’ campaign. Students felt excited to implement their campaigns within their school communities.

The day culminated in students sharing what they had learnt and bringing it all together through a reflection activity. They created a ‘Peace Tree’ which signified the coming together of personal, community and global peace, planting the roots for future development.

This day grew from the ideas of Janet Spurrell who was passionate about Citizenship and wanted to inspire keen young minds. Shortly after the successful completion of the day, Janet passed away peacefully in her sleep.

PGCE RE trainees at Manchester Metropolitan University, 2012

In loving memory of Janet Spurrell, a great teacher who planted seeds and let them grow.

Staffroom

Beginner RE teachers and the future of RE

This study explored the views and experiences of beginner teachers about the current practice and future of RE. In view of changes in education, it aimed to enable students to reflect on their own experiences of, and thoughts about, RE to date and to gain their thoughts regarding the future of RE.

Trainees completed a questionnaire, which revealed that they were eight females and a male, four Pakistanis, two Bangladeshis, a Mauritian and two white British. All had their teaching practice in state schools.

They had chosen an RE module because of its intrinsic value, which they personally recognised for themselves and for society. Some ‘had studied RS and liked learning about different religions’. Alternatively, a ‘lack of subject knowledge’ and the ‘need to experience RE’ prompted others. A student was attracted by professional attributes: ‘it is important to teach children about different cultures and religions in a non-judgmental and thorough way’.

Those enjoying RE are sometimes inspired to continue its study; therefore, RE teachers in schools who make the subject enjoyable will be more likely to maintain learners’ long-term interest.

Their responses suggest that their own experiences of RE as pupils affected their choice. Three respondents enjoyed RE at college because their ‘teachers would always try and engage pupils and make lessons exciting’. Others enjoyed RS as it provided depth to understanding the world. The resources used captivated Saiqa whose teachers ‘taught R.E. in a fun way’. In contrast, three chose RE due to their experience of unsatisfactory pedagogy and insufficient breadth, depth and challenge. Noreen declared ‘We were always taught through books and videos which I found quite boring’.

Amanda claimed she didn’t learn ‘enough about each religion’ and, although Uzma achieved an A, she felt ‘it involved learning knowledge more than understanding’.

The perception of changing approaches to RE in schools as a result of government proposals was mixed. A couple were unsure about any changes; Elizabeth felt there were no changes while Amanda observed schools were already operating a creative curriculum. However, Helen noted RE was ‘often over looked to allow time for other subjects’.

About the future of RE, they appear to be convinced about its retention because ‘children need to have a basic understanding of different religions’. Elizabeth considered it ‘an essential subject’ as children need to understand the world around them.

Haroon sensed a decreasing importance given to RE and Fatimah believed it depended on the teacher, but optimistically declared ‘I would say things can only get better, but it will probably stay the same with text books and videos. Teachers who are not confident in the teaching of RE should be made aware of the different resources available to them to make it more interesting.’

As regards the future of RE in universities, Saiqa sensed a decreasing importance attributed to RE. However, some posited ‘it should definitely stay in the curriculum and be taught to trainees so they know its importance and it should be part of the QTS course’; and Ruth argued ‘it is a subject that will always be taught in some form in schools’, and therefore ‘trainees should be taught about how to teach various religions’. Moreover, others reasoned that it needs to be taught to fill the gaps in their knowledge.

From these findings certain issues emerge for furthering the cause of RE. Trainees’ prior experiences seem linked to their decisions to study RE.

Those enjoying RE are sometimes inspired to continue its study; therefore, RE teachers in schools who make the subject enjoyable will be more likely to maintain learners’ long-term interest. That student choice is affected by their previous experiences suggests the importance for RE practitioners to continue making RE learning challenging, engaging and enjoyable through using a repertoire of teaching methods.

The trainees had chosen an RE module because of its intrinsic value, which they personally recognised for themselves and for society.

These trainees advocate RE in schools. This suggests that RE teachers, in particular, need to support and encourage RE, where applicable, when trainees visit their schools. In this way, trainees will be in a position to develop educational thought that is broad and balanced. In turn, it may begin to break the cycle of the absence of RE from their experiences.

The full impact that government policy changes will have for schools is unclear to these respondents. Nevertheless, the delegation of RE to support staff remains a feature. This continues to have implications for the status of the subject.

In turn, teacher training courses should provide trainees with a holistic programme which prepares them to deliver, confidently, a relevant and meaningful curriculum in contemporary Britain.

Imran Mogra Birmingham City University



Staffroom

‘Be the change you want to see’: Boteler pupils help the blind

Since 2008 Sir Thomas Boteler C of E High School in Cheshire has been involved in the Archbishop of York (AOY) Award as part of their Religious Studies programme.

A key event in the school’s journey as an emerging Anglican school was when our Chaplain, Revd John Harries, devised an idea to transform children’s learning experiences. Revd Harries proposed the idea to Bishop Keith of Birkenhead, who had been taking a keen interest in the school’s progress. He in turn approached the Archbishop of York, who agreed to become the scheme’s patron.

John Harries worked with RE teachers Wendy Kelly and Kate Coleclough to develop the concept into a viable scheme of work. The programme was based on courses run by the Church Pastoral Aid Society (CPAS), a number of community-based charity activities and an awards programme modelled on the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme structure. The aim was to establish distinct Christian values in young people’s lives by giving them an in-depth understanding of Jesus’ teachings, then encouraging them to put those teachings into practice.

Now the school has become a ‘Beacon of Excellence’, sharing their expertise with teachers of RE at the first National Society Conference held in Warwick (2010). At a Wigan RS forum of teachers (2011) Jean Hensey-Reynard (Advanced Skills Teacher in RS and now Head of RS at Sir Thomas Boteler) and John Harries gave a seminar on the AOY scheme and its benefits for young people. In 2012, the AOY scheme has further developed into a very successful programme under the direction of Kate Coleclough (Head of PSHE/Citizenship) which has involved a full day of workshops for Year 7 pupils based around the charity Guide Dogs for the Blind.

Mr Derek Heyes (himself a retired teacher) brought his Guide Dog – Greg – to show how ‘he puts his faith in his dog, much the same as a religious believer trusts in God to be the constant in their life’. In a workshop Mr Heyes explained to the pupils how he tells the time with the aid of a special watch. Mr Heyes also taught the pupils how to read Braille during his session. Emma Fellows, aged 11, said:

Mr Heyes told us how to de-code texts using Braille. We worked in pairs and having mastered the braille alphabet we were able to translate a sentence. It was harder than we expected. Mr. Heyes also showed his braille type-writer and common adapted appliances like a phone, a computer and his watch.

Chloe Evans and Molly McDonnell (pictured) also enjoyed making their special Guide Dog collection boxes. Molly commented: ‘First we went into an ICT room to do some research on a Guide Dog`s career. We had to print this information off before going into the D&T room with our teacher’. Chloe added: ‘In the D&T workshop we made bold, colourful labels to stick on our donation boxes. The best boxes had to be strong so we could take them out with us when selling our cakes to raise as much money as we could for the Guide Dog charity.’

In Emily Dimeloe’s team they raised a lot of money for the Guide Dog charity and decided to make it fun as well as drawing the public’s attention to what they were doing. This involved all five girls dressing up as bananas when they went out selling cakes in the streets near where they live in Warrington!

Emily was spokesperson for her team:

The first thing we did to raise money was a sponsored silence for a whole day! As we are all ‘chatter-boxes’, this was a difficult challenge in itself! Second we baked cakes and sold them to people we knew in our street. Dressing up [as] yellow bananas brought us lots of attention – even from passing cars – who also stopped and put their loose change into our money boxes! Our third activity involved us making key-rings and bracelets. One of our team member’s mum works in a school so a lot of these items were sold there during a lunchtime. We all felt we had fun doing these activities but more importantly we know we were all following in the footsteps of Jesus by giving our time/talents to raise money to make a difference to a blind person’s life.

At present the school has raised just over £600 for the Guide Dog Appeal. Instead of handing over the cash, the school plans to add to this when the 2012/13 Year 7s do a similar day so that the pupils can have a guide dog which they can name in honour of the school. The names Thomas and Boteler are favourites so far.

To find out more about the AOY scheme, contact the school through our website www.boteler.org.uk. Our internal work can be found under ‘Welcome’. There is also a link to Archbishop of York Youth Trust Young Leaders Award:

http://www.boteler.org.uk/?page_id=1209

Jean Reynard, RE AST and Head of RE, Sir Thomas Boteler Church of England High School

Archbishop John Sentamu rewarding young leaders at Sir Thomas Boteler School


A new Chief Executive for the charity

Zoë Keens will be taking over the Chief Executive role at Christian Education in February from present incumbent Peter Fishpool. Christian Education is the legal and charitable body which owns RE Today Services, publisher of this magazine. Christian Education also owns the British Journal of Religious Education and sponsors the National Association of Teachers of RE. It also owns the International Bible Reading Association and is a partner in ROOTS for Churches Ltd.

Zoë says ‘I feel that religious education is foundational to our lives in this country. It is a fantastic opportunity to be asked to lead a key deliverer of high quality advice, resources and training in multi-faith RE. It is vital that teachers, education managers, politicians and other advocates are well informed and thus able to support an inclusive and well-rounded education service for all our children. The charity and its staff team will continue to network, innovate and lead in religious education.’

Previously Zoë worked as joint CEO and Director (Development) at the Birmingham and Black Country Community Foundation, based at Nechells in inner-city Birmingham.

Her experience there was in leading an organisation, working with the breadth of community from those at the grassroots to wealth creators, strategists and policy-makers, including the Cabinet Office advisers. Zoë spent eight years working in the Community Foundation movement.

Zoë has a varied background in the voluntary, charitable and arts sectors, including working at a London opera theatre and at Premier, the first commercial Christian radio station in the UK. She has also run a consultancy service specialising in fundraising and marketing.

Zoë is an ardent believer in community and feels that religious education, learning about different faiths and appreciating different cultures, is vital in developing a sense of self within an understanding of our pluralist society. She says ‘RE is not just about educating, it is about inspiring people, opening up minds and hearts to possibilities.’

A professional passion for Zoë is effective marketing and communications. She is looking forward to building the vision and representing the work of Christian Education, RE Today, NATRE and the BJRE to the wider world. She professes a ‘can do’ attitude and has innovative ideas, believing that nothing is impossible, so why not try!

‘I believe that creating networks, relationship building and working collaboratively has enriched my work and is the underpinning for my previous success. Working positively with partners, I believe, is the way forward.

‘My faith is foundational in my life. I seek to honour what God has given me by working with transparency, honesty and integrity. I seek God’s inspiration daily and use biblical principles as the bedrock of my thinking.

‘It is a privilege to be asked to bring my knowledge, skills and experience to Christian Education. I look forward to helping renew the charity’s vision of serving the religious education community in the UK and lead the staff team into the next decade.’

Announcement from RE today and Christian Education

Zoë Keens will be taking over the Chief Executive role at Christian Education in February


NATRE News: Contents

50 From the Chair: On being reflective50 National RE Subject Review 51 RE Council news51 The Three Faiths Forum mentors scheme52 Innovative RE: Hockerill Foundation Awards52 RE Quality Mark: update52 AREAIC news52 REBOOting secondary school collective worship53 Art in Heaven 201353 Tony Blair Faith Foundation: Face to Faith53 Inspiring RE: The North of England RE53 Arsenal Sunderland and Wembley: good venues

for learning!54 The Westhill Endowment Trust Seminars linking

RE research and practice54 Conference days for new secondary RE teachers

NATRE noticeboard

54 Journeys with Miriam: Jewish visitor workshops55 Curiosity, Enquiry and Creativity: the

Bournemouth Annual RE Conference 2013 55 The image of religion: Spirited Photography

PowerPoints from RE Today55 GSUS Live: a new mobile classroom on

Christianity55 dare2engage: 16–19 RE resources project to run

until 201555 An online index of learning from religions: great

new asset for RE teachers55 Farmington Fellowships 2013–14

National RE Subject Review

News

One of my science colleagues tells me that enabling students to become more reflective learners must have something to do with them wearing high-visibility jackets in the classroom. I’m sure she’s not being serious!

My most recent reflective moment came in a much more profound context, sitting with my dying uncle, in his last hours, as his life inexorably ebbed away. As feelings of sadness, loss, pity, numbness swirled through my mind in the hushed, almost reverential atmosphere, I became conscious of the transitory nature of life, the apparent futility of our existence.

The Prophet Isaiah likens us to grass, our glories to the flowers of the field, emphasising the temporary, insignificant nature of our lives: ‘the grass withers and the flowers fall’. Insights like this remind me that, almost more than any other aspect, teaching RE is about creating opportunities for young people to look beyond their immediate needs and interests, outside their own personal and social contexts, to ponder on some of life’s ineffable mysteries, where (to quote Star Trek) ‘it’s life, Jim, but not as we know it’.

The Importance Statement for RE in the National Framework talks of provoking questions of ultimate meaning and purpose, and there can be no greater test than to consider one’s own mortality. The contemplation of our own short span in this human condition plays a key role in all the world’s religious traditions, and it is a tool available to each of us in our own teaching context.

Creating time and space for reflection can be one of our most significant gifts to the young people in our care, so whether it is in awe and wonder or quiet meditation, allow a moment to stop and notice what 1 Kings calls Elijah’s ‘still small voice’ within (the reflective jackets are an optional extra!).

Ed Pawson, NATRE chair

On being reflective From the Chair

Progress report from the project manager

A big thank you to REtoday for offering me this opportunity to share good news about the progress that has been made on the RE Review since the Religious Education Council (REC) for England and Wales

initiated this work in the early summer of 2012. Phase One of the Review is now complete. The Expert Panel (Chair Bill Gent; other panel members Lat Blaylock, Julian Stern and Karen Walshe) met twice as planned and prepared a report during September and October to provide the sound foundations and clear direction needed for the RE Review to progress successfully.

The Steering Group of the project received the report at the end of October and in early November it was circulated among a wider Reference Group including faith community groups and professional groups of religious educators working in schools, colleges, local areas and universities. A list of those organisations involved may be found on the REC website http://www.religiouseducationcouncil.org/component/option,com_contact/catid,36/Itemid,49/

The draft report was published on the REC website to open up opportunities for the RE subject community at large to comment on the panel’s findings and recommendations. These were received over a consultation period lasting until early December. Activities in which people engaged included local group discussions, SACRE working parties and participation in an online survey.

Looking forwardWhile we cannot prejudge the precise findings of the Expert Panel, or wider public response to their recommendations, the REC has been working hard over the autumn of 2012 to set up working groups

for Phase Two of the Review. Two working groups will start in mid February, reporting back about three months later. Two further working groups will be set up to address the two further foci of the review from mid-May onwards. We expect their work to be finished by mid-July so that the final Review document can be compiled over the next summer holidays.

There will be plenty of further opportunities for REtoday readers to get involved actively in the RE Review’s work, including further opportunities for wider consultation in which teachers’ contributions will be greatly valued. For further, more detailed, information on the RE Review and other exciting initiatives for the subject being led by the REC, please follow this link to our website http://www.religiouseducationcouncil.org

And for fans of social media, to follow the Review, just search for #REReview

Twitter: https://twitter.com/RECouncil

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/religiouseducationcouncil

Ed Pawson, NATRE chair

Janet Orchard


RE Council: latest news

The Three Faiths Forum mentors scheme

News

The Religious Education Council (REC) is an umbrella organisation with almost 60 member bodies, including NATRE and RE Today Services. Its members are committed to working together to support and strengthen RE. The range of bodies joining in the last few months is a good indication of its diversity: they include the Accord Coalition, All Faiths and None, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Hindu Forum of Britain, the Methodist Church and the St Luke’s College Foundation.

A very important development is the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on RE. Its first task will be to carry out an inquiry into the supply of and support for teachers of RE, including local arrangements. It will take oral and written evidence and NATRE will be a key source for this. The inquiry will be managed by Barbara Wintersgill, with a practising teacher as an associate researcher, and will aim to publish a report in March. This should generate publicity about issues relating to teacher training, recruitment and professional development in all types of schools.

Stephen Lloyd, MP for Eastbourne and Willingdon, is Chair of the APPG and his ambition is for the RE APPG to have one of the largest memberships of any such group at Westminster, but this will depend in part on MPs being encouraged to join by their constituents.

A key issue for the world of RE is the ongoing confusion in some quarters about the nature and value of the subject. In June the REC’s survey on public attitudes to RE, carried out by YouGov, showed that 53 per cent of adults agreed that RE should remain a compulsory subject of study. Encouragingly, this rose to 63 per cent of young people (18–24),who could be assumed to have studied the subject recently. The REC is initiating a major PR exercise, ReThink RE, which will have its own website and campaign identity and will try to build on the interest and awareness generated by the E Bacc campaign and other recent initiatives. It will aim to reach politicians but also groups such as parents and even headteachers who still do not always have an up-to-date understanding of what good RE can offer.

Find out about RE CPD courses more easilyDuring the spring and summer terms the REC will be developing a portal for professional development. This will bring together, in an easily accessed online form, information about courses and other training organised by local authorities and SACREs, dioceses, independent consultants, specialist RE providers, higher education establishments and online professional development (PD) for RE.

This will make it easier for teachers to find opportunities which are relevant to their needs and interests and accessible in terms of time and money. The portal will be launched in June in readiness for next academic year.

The general fragmentation of the education system means it is now harder than ever for teachers to find out about PD opportunities whether in their own area or nationally and the REC hopes this portal will help to address the problem.

Last but not least, the REC is launching a ‘Young Ambassadors for RE’ scheme to engage school students from Year 5 to Year 13 in communicating their enthusiasm for the subject to a wider audience (see the REC website for details of how to put forward a young person for this role). The aim is not only to generate positive publicity for RE, but also to give school students a chance to shape the future of the subject.

Finally, the REC cannot maintain this level of activity without fundraising since it does not receive any government funding and relies on member subscriptions and grants from trusts for its income. A 40th anniversary sponsored walk will take place in May across England and Wales in 20 towns, cities and areas, and the REC hopes that many teachers of RE will be among the participants. For details of how to organise a local walk, how to obtain an organiser’s pack and how to register online, email: [email protected].

Sarah Smalley

This year 45 students of different faiths and non-religious beliefs are looking to change the face of politics by taking part in the Undergraduate ParliaMentors programme, a 3FF (Three Faiths Forum) initiative to develop a new generation of leaders. University students from around the UK received extensive leadership training during a three-day induction at Pax Lodge in North London. They will work in trios to develop and deliver social action projects in their university cities.

One trio of Muslim, Catholic and Agnostic students in London, who met for the first time on the 3FF programme, decided they want to apply their new leadership skills by raising awareness of the contribution and experiences of homeless people in London through mixed media.

Another group (Sikh, Christian and Buddhist) is planning a visual campaign to demonstrate the religious and ethnic diversity of Cardiff. The participants will also be mentored by MPs and Peers from across the political spectrum, gaining an insider’s look into politics through debates, committee meetings and networking with policymakers. Former mentors on the programme include Dominic Grieve QC MP, John Bercow MP, Iain Duncan Smith MP, Baroness Susan Kramer, Simon Hughes MP, Hazel Blears MP, Stephen Twigg MP, and Margaret Hodge MP.

Arif, a Muslim student at the University of Leeds, said: ‘The programme for me is a chance to work with people of other faiths on a deep, practical level. It’s a chance to build something sustainable together.’

Students are receiving training in teamwork, media skills, project management and dialogue skills – and visiting the Houses of Parliament. Rebecca, a Christian student at the University of Birmingham, found the dialogue training useful: ‘Because I have very clear ideas of my own faith, I have always shied away from asking people questions for fear of offending them. The teaching here – talking about ways to frame questions, and even answers – has been really helpful for me.’

Undergraduate ParliaMentors is winner of the United Nations Award for Intercultural Innovation. The programme is now in its sixth year. It has over 200 alumni who have gone on to work in politics, media and for non-governmental organisations. Why not tell your 14–19s about this project, showing off one of RE’s ways of equipping young people for adult life and the world of work? A good GCSE homework task on community relations would ask them to rough out their application form for one of these internships.

More details from Philip Ybring www.3ff.org.uk/

Yusuf Islam meeting the 3FF young leaders

REBOOting secondary school collective worship

REBOO is an interactive, online assembly site which encourages young people to rethink issues of morality, and spiritually REBOOT in this wonderful 21st-century world. Teachers don’t find assembly and school worship easy: we think of extra preparation and being alone on stage. If you talk to a student they think of a cold floor and pins and needles.

The intention of starting the day off on the right foot and providing food for thought for our students is clearly valuable and still relevant, but maybe we can rethink our delivery – maybe our assemblies need a REBOOt.

REBOO rethinks this ‘assembly space’ and has created a platform where young people can be inspired, engaged and importantly respond to challenging themes. A REBOO subscription gives a whole school access to weekly assemblies for £299 for a whole year, making it an ideal resource for form times (and could be a useful resource for RE lessons). REBOO can be projected on a whiteboard and, along with their teacher, students can easily navigate the site’s content which ranges from Bible scriptures and prayers to activities and videos.

Content is all linked to Christianity. We believe this material, rated ‘outstanding’ by SIAS and endorsed by the Bishop of Oxford, could well benefit other schools.

For more information please visit www.reboo.co.uk or contact the team at [email protected]


News

Innovative RE: Hockerill Foundation Awards

Emma Lamb, Head of Religious Studies at King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Boys in Birmingham, is pictured here receiving Second Prize in the Hockerill/NATRE Innovation in RE Teaching Awards from Peter Fishpool, CEO Christian Education.

Emma wrote a scheme of work for transition between KS3 and KS4 on ethics, in which students explore how beliefs affect actions.

Judges called it ‘rigorous and accessible’. Alongside more classical RS content, students complete a learning journal, encouraging them to notice details, record meaningful questions and think through gut reactions as well as intellectual responses.

NATRE is working with the Hockerill Foundation on a third round of these awards: should your school enter the competition? The first prize is £700 for the school and a £400 bursary for the teacher. If you have questions about the competition, see the advert on p.56 or email Rosemary Rivett: [email protected]

The RE Quality Mark:update

The RE Quality Mark has completed the first pilot and the criteria have been revised. The second pilot takes place in the Autumn Term of 2012.

The purpose is to revise the criteria after feedback and to test out the application processes using the website www.reqm.org.

The criteria are under five headings: Learners and Learning, Teachers and Teaching, Curriculum, Subject Leadership and CPD.

There is also a questionnaire for learners for use by schools and to inform the assessor visit. Schools can apply whenever they wish.

Jane Brooke and Mary Myatt

Do your school assemblies need a reboot? Try this.

AREIAC news

This term has been a busy but exhilarating time for the Association of Religious Education Inspectors, Advisers and Consultants (AREIAC). We have rocked and reeled from news regarding the increased promotion of the E Bacc (without RE!) and lack of training grants for teachers of RE, but have considered it important to pursue other projects in addition to our constant campaigning. Three in particular have made significant progress this term.

The first is the work of the attainment group. We were very grateful to have received a grant from Culham St Gabriel’s Trust which has allowed a small group of advisers and inspectors to meet and discuss (fervently!) the nature, purpose and future of assessment and attainment in religious education.

A full report will be available soon but, as you can imagine, the debates in themselves will be a rich resource for future thinking and action.

The second focus this term has been continued pressure to seek the withdrawal of Circular 1/94’s guidance on collective worship. Dilwyn Hunt has worked, with the backing of NASACRE and AREIAC, and in a series of correspondence the DfE’s position appears to be that they are not willing to rescind 1/94, but they are also not willing to give any grounds to justify retaining it. The DfE have also been unwilling to say that the Circular is a ruling on how the law on collective worship should be interpreted. Instead, the DfE have conceded that schools ‘can use it or not as they see fit’.

This, we believe, will be of some help to schools that wish to provide collective worship that protects and affirms the integrity of all those taking part, and do not wish to be encumbered by contentious statements that appear in the Circular. There, for a while at least, the matter rests.

The third project has been a very successful one-day conference focusing on developing enquiry-based learning in religious education. It was an inspiring day with the workshop leaders Professor David Leat (Newcastle University), Alan Brine (HMI), Mark Chater (Culham and St Gabriel’s) and Helen Hallas (AST Kirklees), leading teachers, researchers, lecturers, advisers, inspectors, representatives from SACRE and Farmington Research Fellows to discuss what is effective enquiry-based learning in RE and the pragmatic considerations for classroom practice.

These discussions (and many others!) will be continued at the AREIAC Conference held on 1 and 2 July in Liverpool. For further details of the work of AREIAC or details about the conference please contact Joy Schmack on [email protected]


News

Art in Heaven 2013NATRE has once again raised the funds needed for the annual Art in Heaven competition, part of NATRE’s Spirited Arts strategy for more imaginative and creative RE. We have five themes and sponsorship for next year from the Westhill Endowment.

The 2012 Art in Heaven competition attracted about 18,000 participants, and some amazing winners. The web gallery now holds about 700 artworks in all, and is still expanding. Take a look at www.natre.org.uk/spiritedarts.

NATRE also created two travelling exhibitions of the winners and commended entries, which are available for loan to schools. The 14–19 exhibition has now been seen by over 10,000 young people. We have created a new exhibition of work from younger pupils in association with the NATRE’s Pupil Teacher Conference Project, and this has begun to be used. Gill Tewkesbury, from Devon, is an early user: ‘Using the NATRE Spirited Arts pictures in a recent Gifted and Talented RE day provoked a real depth of questioning in the children.

‘This led to some wonderful work of their own, having discussed and mulled over “Big Questions”. I really recommend the exhibition to anyone who wants to inspire their pupils in RE and to develop thinking and questioning skills.’

Please enter your pupils’ creative and artistic RE work for 2013. Art in Heaven also generates international interest in UK RE – e.g. from Poland, Australia, South Africa, Ireland and New Zealand.

The themes for 2013 are:

•Prayer:Howandwhy?•WindowsontheSoul•God:Whatif...?•Openmind!•‘Jerusalem’byWilliamBlake

Full details of the themes and how to enter are on the NATRE website at www.natre.org.uk/spiritedarts

2012’s Art in Heaven competition commended a number of entries from South Africa very highly, including this beautiful ‘Hope for the World’ image by Amends.

A nice hotel, 150 RE teachers and a chance to be inspired in May 2013

Tony Blair Faith Foundation: Face to Faith

Arsenal, Sunderland and Wembley: good venues for learning!

The Tony Blair Faith Foundation’s (TBFF) global schools programme, Face to Faith, is thriving among UK schools. Teachers are finding the programme an excellent resource to develop religious literacy. Students from 19 countries around the world from Bolton to Beirut connect using video conferences and a secure website. They discuss global issues from different religious and cultural perspectives. This interactive experience helps break down stereotypes and prejudice and build understanding. So far, UK students have taken part in 165 video conferences since the programme launched in 2009.

‘It was a great opportunity to get to know their religion through a real conversation. It was very insightful and gave us the opportunity to voice our opinion in a safe environment,’ said one student from Northern Ireland after a video conference with a school in

Jordan. The Face to Faith curriculum materials equip students with active listening, dialogue and mediation skills, allowing them to converse in a respectful way. In an increasingly interconnected world these communication skills are crucial.

Face to Faith also encourages students to take part in social campaigns. Recently Hollins Technology College in Accrington raised £400 to combat malaria, a disease which despite being completely preventable still kills up to 750,000 people each year. The students ran a Citizenship Ethical Enterprise Day, to raise awareness about ethical issues around the world. And Face to Faith recently mobilised 60,000 people worldwide to celebrate UN Peace Day – 48 schools took part including St James’ CE High in Bolton. Anyone, anywhere, can take part in TBFF’s social action campaigns: you don’t have to be a registered school. Find out more details about our Ribbon and SolidariTea campaigns at www.faithsact.org/act

Due to the success of Face to Faith there is a waiting list in the UK, but a distance version of the programme will be available soon. For more information please contact [email protected]

Helen Harrison, Consultant, Face to Faith UK

Inspiring RE: The North of England RE Conference 18–19 May 2013

This conference for 150 teachers in May 2013 will be a flagship project for NATRE in 2013. We have booked the Last Drop Hotel in Bolton (not only because of its infinity pool). A great line-up of speakers and seminar leaders is in place, and the event promises to be even bigger and better than the Burn Hall Conference at York two years ago. As it is likely to be oversubscribed, we recommend you complete your booking form and apply for a place at once.

NATRE is working with the Culham St Gabriel’s Trust on this project, which will give primary, secondary and special school teachers of RE two days packed with energy and ideas for the classroom.

NATRE is running six RE conferences for up to 100 pupils and up to 20 teachers, in partnership with the Culham St Gabriel’s Trust and SACREs. At least three of these are planned to take place at football grounds – Wembley, Arsenal and Sunderland, where we are linking with the ‘Kick it Out’ work done by the Premier League clubs.

This way of working has been inspiring teachers through participation in excellent practice. Run by Deborah Weston and Lat Blaylock, the conferences last year in Kirklees, Thurrock, Barking & Dagenham, Sandwell with Walsall, Redbridge and Durham enabled well over 100 teachers and about 600 pupils to energise their RE back in their own schools.

NATRE is working with ‘hard to reach’ schools, where RE may be struggling: sometimes heads will let a teacher out to accompany pupils where they are not offered any subject INSET, so these days do both. NATRE would like to thank Culham St Gabriel’s for their generous support.

Creative work at the Durham Pupil Teacher RE and Respect conference last term


News

NATRE Noticeboard

Schools around the UK can now benefit from tailor-made workshops on Judaism which complement the National RE Curriculum for Key Stages 1–3.

‘Journeys with Miriam’ has been specifically designed to bring Judaism to areas where there are no Jewish communities or buildings. Miriam (the sister of Moses) visits schools and talks about all aspects of Judaism. She speaks in assemblies, attends RE events and plans individual, whole-day or twilight INSET sessions.

‘Journeys with Miriam’ was set up two years ago when its founder, Nina Leigh, an RE teacher from St Albans in Hertfordshire, realised that it would be easier and cheaper for schools to invite a guest speaker on Judaism rather than find a local synagogue. She also felt that it would help with the learning of and empathy for the religion if the pupils were to meet first hand a modern-day Jewish woman rather than learn about the religion from a book, online or a DVD.

‘As an RE teacher, I am keen for Judaism to be taught accurately, I feel it is important to combat the religion’s stereotypical image in the hope that children grow up free from ignorance and prejudice,’ says Nina. ‘My workshops involve storytelling, show and tell, drama, music, cookery or art – in fact I can design a programme to suit every need whilst ensuring that the Jewish aspect of the RE curriculum is met.’

‘Journeys With Miriam’ will travel anywhere in the UK. For more information and prices, email: [email protected] or telephone: 07866 480599

Journeys with Miriam: Jewish visitor workshops

The Westhill Endowment Trust Seminars: linking RE research and practice

A fifth series of NATRE/BJRE Westhill Seminars is now being actively planned, thanks to a generous grant from the Westhill Endowment Trust. This enables the series of residential 48-hour seminars to go ahead, each for 25 participants, at the cost of only £100 to delegates.

The British Journal of RE Research Committee has worked with NATRE on the new grant, and the series is intended to make further deep links between researchers and classroom teachers around three key topics for RE in 2013. These three new seminar possibilities have been developed for ‘Series 5’, with their likely dates and venues:

• Seminar 1: Knowledge in RE (London, summer 2013)

• Seminar 2: Achievement in RE (Leicester, autumn 2013)

• Seminar 3: Effective learning methods for spiritual development for 4–11s (Liverpool, spring 2014)

Watch the RE Today website and the next issue of the magazine for details and to apply for your place.

Conference days for new secondary RE teachers

NATRE is running five day-conferences for PGCE secondary RE students and others entering the profession, in partnership with 14 university providers during the next six months.

We hope to meet and support over half of the new entrants to the RE profession in their secondary training year.

This initiative has run in 2007–12, and is helped this year with support from the St Luke’s College Foundation (Belfast and Exeter) and the Hockerill Trust (London). In Leeds and Birmingham, the universities are putting together the conferences from their own resources.

The events provide new RE teachers with a sense of the national needs and resources of the RE community and also give them some great ideas to use in interview lessons! Last year’s participants rated the days over 70 per cent excellent.

One commented: ‘This day has come at the right time for me because my enthusiasm was flagging, but I’ve remembered why I really want to be an RE teacher. Great to meet all the other people coming into RE from around the North East.’

Bringing teachers and researchers together is a huge benefit from the Westhill Seminars Series

NATRE and the university PGCE courses are bringing new RE teachers together again in 2013

Talking about PesachMiriam demonstrates how to make matzah at an RE Food Festival held to celebrate RE Month.


NATRE Noticeboard

The RE Today website includes new indexing materials for RE Today booklets. If you have these booklets but want to get everything about Muslims from them, or see what you already have about Easter, this indexing can really help you.

We wanted to help subscribers be aware of the resources we sell that are relevant to teaching specific religions. These indexes are found at the back of the booklets, and now also online.

On the RE Today Services home page there is a link to ‘Publications’ and on this page there is a prominent sentence ‘Download the overviews of our publications by religion.’ Click on this and you go to a page where you can download the lists as a pdf. There is also a link to the shop: http://www.retoday.org.uk/benefit/publications-by-religion/

We hope this will help you access all RE Today’s learning materials simply. Feedback welcome, of course!

An online index of learning from religions: great new asset for RE teachers

Thousands of schoolchildren in the UK will benefit from a new and all-improved mobile classroom which teaches them about Jesus. A £62,000 makeover of the 10-year-old classroom pod has been completed, meaning secondary school children visiting the ‘GSUS Live’ exhibition will enjoy a more up-to-date experience with a renewed wow factor. The GSUS Live mobile classroom, from Christian charity Counties, visits secondary schools across the UK providing lessons for Key Stage 3 pupils. Volunteers from local churches present teachings on fear, forgiveness and rejection to help children discover how Jesus is relevant today. Since it was launched in September 2000, more than 365,000 schoolchildren have visited the unit.

Steve Parry, GSUS Live project co-ordinator, said: ‘We wanted the refurbishment to not only update the pod and provide routine maintenance but to keep the wow factor for visiting pupils. The new touch screens which rise and fall out of the benches are a great talking point. The response so far has been very encouraging.’

One church volunteer who helped out on the new and improved GSUS Live classroom said: ‘The opportunity to be involved in local mission with such a fantastic programme was awesome. The children were amazed at the technology and it was great to show them Christianity is not boring but very much relevant today.’ More details: www.gsuslive.co.uk/

RE Today has published 12 Photo Stories in PowerPoint sequences for schools to use with pupils aged 6–12.

Over a period of work with David Rose and other photographers we have created these interactive visual learning resources about the six principal religions in the UK, and are selling them for just £5.00 each as downloads.

They all show children practising the faith from each of the six religious traditions. To buy these, visit: http://shop.natre.org.uk/find/photo+stories/1

The Jerusalem Trust has made a new grant for 2013–15 to this independent project promoting more and better RE and spiritual development work in 16–19 education.

dare2engage is in the 12th year of its support from Jerusalem Trust.

A multifunction disc of our new student course on ‘Rage and Despair’ is now published at £15, providing for engaging learning in RE about existentialism and hope in sacred texts, including the Book of Job and the ‘more gloomy’ Psalms.

A recent dare2engage day conference at Bridgnorth in Shropshire attracted about 70 students from three different local schools. Hosted by a local Christian School Support charity, the Job exhibition was a highlight, open to the public and introduced by the town Mayor.

‘Rage Despair Hope’ will be exhibited at Bradford Cathedral in the summer – could you bring your A level students or other 16–19s to an event there? Details from Rachel Warwick [email protected]

GSUS Live: a new mobile classroom on Christianity

The image of religion:Spirited Photography PowerPoints for sale from RE Today

Farmington Fellowships 2013–14

The closing date for applications to take a Farmington Fellowship is soon: 28 January 2013. If you don’t know about Farmington, then you should do – a way of taking a time out of the classroom, with tutorial support, all paid for, to think deeply about your RE.

The Farmington Institute gives you 30 days, spaced over a year or taken in a block of eight weeks to pursue an RE-related study of your own devising. If you are thinking about it, or are intrigued by this news item, then check out the application process: www.farmington.ac.uk

Curiosity, Enquiry and Creativity: the Bournmouth Annual RE Conference 2013

This one-day professional development conference on Monday 25 February 2013 will explore practical ways of making RE more investigative and creative. Participants will receive 12 ready-to-use ideas for RE 5–14 which show different aspects of excellent practice in rigorous, reflective and imaginative RE.

Many examples of pupils’ work will be used to demonstrate effective strategies for enabling progression for pupils across the 5–14 age range in RE. Practical ways of developing learning from religion in both primary and secondary settings will be explored.

To book a place on this event please visit our online booking system at: www.bournemouthcpd.co.uk. Venue: Bournemouth Learning Centre. Cost: £150 for Bournemouth teachers, others £180.

Students aged 16–19 from three Bridgnorth schools took part in this recent conference on rage, despair and hope.

The GSUSlive truck arrives

Shivam, aged 8, is a young Hindu whose story is told in one of the new presentations from RE Today.

dare2engage: 16–19 RE resources project to run until 2015


Kathy Bagley Teacher at Lee-on-the-Solent Junior School and Primary AST for RE in Hampshire

Lat Blaylock RE Today Services, Editor of REtoday

Catriona Card Nursery Lead Teacher, Berkeley Infant School, Scunthorpe; North Lancashire SACRE Task Group

Lisa Kassapian: RE Consultant, Breathe RE

Sally McCamley: Deputy Director/Schools’ Officer, Diocese of Hereford

Lizzie McWhirter REtoday Editorial Team

Jackie Metcalfe Postgraduate pastoral theology student, Anglia Ruskin University

Rosemary Rivett Director of Education, RE Today Services

Stuart Scott Minister and Training Officer, United Reformed Church

Olivia Seymour Education Adviser, Diocese of York

This Issue’s Contributors:

RE today Reviews Contents:

57 Talking Pictures57 Story Assemblies for the School Year, Volume 257 More Bible Storybags58 Where in the World?58 Bible Detective: A Puzzle Search Book58 Poetry Emotion59 The Candle Classic Bible59 Quotations: a Game to Stimulate Thought and Action

Regarding Human Values59 Lives of the Great Spiritual Leaders: 20 Inspirational Tales60 The History of Islam and Islam in Europe:

World of Islam series60 The Lady (DVD)60 Science & Belief (YouTube resource)61 A Sense of Place (DVD & CD-ROM)61 Primary Religious Education: A New Approach

Please note that RE Today Services does not supply the resources reviewed here except for those published by RE Today or where RE Today Services is stated as supplier. Books can be ordered from any good bookshop, educational supplier or from various bookselling websites by quoting the International Standard Book Number (ISBN). We always endeavour to cite addresses or websites of less-well-known publishers.

The opinions of reviewers are their personal views and if they are quoted in subsequent publicity material for a product reviewed here they should be identified in the following way: ‘[Name of Reviewer] in REtoday Reviews’. Care should be taken to avoid any implication that the views are those of the RE Today professional staff team or RE Today Services as an organisation.

REtodayReviews

Reviews

Acknowledgement: RE Today would like to thank Dave Francis for permission to use of one of his ideas in the secondary curriculum book, Questions: Buddhists. The introductory activities, found on page 6, of asking students to come up with three wishes and then rank them 1–5 for being likely/unlikely and for being selfish/unselfish was originally published in Dave’s book, Just A Thought – Workbook, Hodder & Stoughton 1996, p.58.

RE TodayServices


Reviews

Talking Pictures

Fiona Moss and Stephen Pett, RE Today 2012, ISBN 978-1-905893-58-4, 24pp, pbk, CD and 16 A4 cards, £30 inc. VAT.

This pack provides 31 full-colour images related to Christianity, Islam, Judaism and big questions in RE and a booklet full of creative and thoughtful strategies for visual learning in RE.

Each Talking Picture card provides a series of questions starting with ‘finding out’ questions, encouraging children to look closely at the picture, and ‘exploring questions’, encouraging children to extend their understanding and finally ‘wondering questions’ that encourage pupils to reflect on big ideas in the RE classroom. Each card has the very helpful addition of an information box for teachers introducing the key beliefs and practices shown in the image.

The CD-ROM includes a valuable tool to enable children to compare images from the pack and make connections within and between religions.

The pictures are high quality and engaging, encouraging children to look closely, question and reflect. The resource is very useful for supporting creative ways of balancing learning about and learning from activities. The strategies in the teacher’s book are generic and set out clearly, allowing the teacher to apply the ideas beyond the pictures in the pack.

I would highly recommend this rich and creative resource for 4–7s in the RE classroom, It brings RE alive and is fantastic value.

Olivia Seymour

Story Assemblies for the School Year Volume 2

Edward J Carter, with ideas for classroom follow up by Jo Fageant, Bible Reading Fellowship 2012, ISBN 978-0-85746-059-2, 213pp, pbk, £8.99.

This book provides a further year of material for collective worship following Story Assemblies for the School Year volume 1. Pupils learn about and learn from a range of Bible stories through active and engaging assemblies. The stories are also connected to the classroom experience with suggestions for cross-curricular follow-up work.

Throughout the year, six Bible themes are explored: the exodus, the promised land, the disciples of Jesus, the judgment parables, the first Christians and Paul’s letters. These themes are further divided into six weekly story episodes covering a wide range of contemporary values and topics. At the end of each half term there is a special assembly to mark that part of the school year: Harvest, Christmas, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, and a leavers’ farewell.

Each weekly assembly provides an imaginative short story related to a specific Bible link, giving participants a clear key theme, message or concept. The stories build up over each half-term sequence developing continuity and often finishing on a cliff-hanger. Visual focal points are recommended for each theme. Collective worship leaders are required to make a range of props, but these are are relatively simple to make and reusable.

The book provides clear suggestions for possible prayers and music which will enhance the atmosphere of reflection. Curriculum links for follow-up work are available on the Barnabas website: www.barnabasinschools.org.uk.

This book provides engaging assemblies to explore Bible themes. Schools without a religious character might select ideas from these ‘broadly Christian’ themes to suit their collective worship programmes.

Lisa Kassapian

More Bible Storybags

Margaret Cooling, Barnabas in Schools (Bible Reading Fellowship) 2012, ISBN 9781841 018362, 120pp, pbk, £12.99.

This book, as the title suggests, is a companion volume to Bible Storybags, also by Margaret Cooling. It comprises reflective storytelling ideas, suitable for primary age children, which can be used in either RE or class collective worship.

More Bible Storybags has a particular focus on learning from religion and contains 16 units covering key stories from The Old Testament, such as Creation, Moses, David, Jonah and Esther. Each unit contains two scripts, differentiated for younger pupils (4–7 year olds) and older pupils (7–11 year olds).

Here the busy teacher will find ideas for using the material which includes a retelling of the biblical story, together with a range of follow-up activities as well as useful background information. For example, there are tips on ways of telling the story, patterns to make the knitted characters in the stories, instructions as to how to make the storybags as well as useful websites. The book also includes appropriate questions to stimulate discussion and thinking skills around the stories, such as ‘What is puzzling or surprising?’

There are prescriptive ‘stage directions’ and manual actions to accompany each biblical story. However, the resourceful teacher will use these frameworks as a tool on which to build their own creative ideas. Practical advice includes suggestions for colours for the respective storybags, such as a brick-coloured bag for the story of Joshua and a velvet or rich-looking bag for the King Solomon narrative.

I would recommend this book for the primary classroom. It contains a wealth of creative ideas to support storytelling in RE from the Judaeo- Christian tradition.

Lizzie McWhirter

Suitable for:

Ages: 4–7, teachers Suitable for:

Ages: 4–11Suitable for:

Ages: 4–11


Reviews

Where in the World?

Martyn Payne, Bible Reading Fellowship 2012 (Barnabas in Schools), ISBN: 9780857461551, 96pp, pbk, £9.99. www.brf.org.uk

‘Where in the World?’ is a book with great potential! Between its covers are pages of information and inspiration supporting the teaching of Christianity. It contains material for assemblies and leading worship in primary schools. There is clarity in the content, text and layout.

Throughout the book, as you would expect from an RE resource, there are questions and discussion starters. The following questions might help you decide if this is a book for you: Is the teaching of Christianity, as a worldwide religion, taught with confidence in your school? In your teaching of Christianity, do you look for guidance, facts and background information? Do you need a resource which provides ideas to engage your pupils and enhance learning in RE?

If the answer to any or all is ‘Yes’, then this handbook is for you, for the staffroom and professional development! It is packed with practical activities and advice, clearly explaining Christianity in terms of core beliefs and practice, as a worldwide faith, in a global context. It will deepen understanding, offering a wide variety of cross-curricular learning experiences and strategies, easily adapted for different age-groups and abilities.

Through the eyes of a migrating swallow named Sparkle and photographs on the Barnabas’ website, the story unfolds of a culturally diverse faith found in seven countries. Churches become Sparkle’s stop-overs, from Britain to Austria to South Africa, via Romania, Israel, Sudan and Uganda. There are stories, songs, poems and prayers; from different people, places, times and traditions. There are many references and internet links and a useful list of worldwide festivals and anniversaries. There is a five week scheme of work – but there is much more to use, choose and make your own.

Excellent value for money and highly recommended! I know more about Christianity worldwide and have new things to do and share in RE and collective worship. I’m also buying myself a cuddly ‘Sparkle’, as suggested! A useful resource.

Sally McCamley

Bible Detective: A Puzzle Search Book

Peter Martin, illus. Peter Kent, Lion Hudson 2012, ISBN 97807459 62764, 17pp, hbk, £8.99.

This is an entertaining picture-search puzzle book. It contains 17 action-packed double-page spreads of busy scenes that bring to life the lands, religion and culture of the Bible. The illustrations by Peter Kent are excellent and consist of a host of appealing, colourful figures, dressed authentically and engaged in a variety of pursuits.

The book provides a good overview of the Bible and encourages the reader to find out more about these stories. It begins with Noah, described as the good herdsman, and Abraham’s nomadic encampment, and then reviews several prophets and kings before focusing upon the life of Jesus and the preaching of Peter and Paul. It culminates with Paul’s final journey to Rome.

Each double page includes a clear heading, the relevant Bible reference and an approximate date for the picture. There is also a short paragraph that introduces each character or event. In the surrounding border there are small pictures of people, animals or objects to find in the main picture. Concise and easy-to-access information about the everyday customs of the time is presented alongside.

This is a fun way to encourage children, either with an adult, in a group or on their own, to learn about the Bible while developing their observational and questioning skills. To stimulate them further to become immersed in each page as ‘Bible detectives’, there is the added challenge to find the ‘wily fox’ carefully hidden in each scene.

At the back of the book there is a comprehensive index as well as 17 pictures marked with the answers to the puzzles. The price of the book is competitive and I can see it having a place on both the school and home bookshelf. I highly recommend it.

This is a well thought out, entertaining book that uses the ‘Where’s Wally?’ format to encourage children, especially reluctant readers, to scrutinise pictures of biblical scenes and to find out more about some well-known Bible stories.

Jackie Metcalfe

Poetry Emotion

Stewart Henderson, Barnabas in Schools (Bible Reading Fellowship) 2012, ISBN 9781841018935, 95pp, pbk, £6.99

This book, intended for use with Key Stage 2 children, contains poems on a variety of themes linked to social and emotional values. The first theme is entitled ‘Barnabas RE Day Themes’ and these take up about a third of the book. These are followed by what are called ‘General Themes’ and ‘Emotional Skills’ in the remainder of the book.

The poems in the first part of the book would not, however, be limited to use in RE lessons or collective worship, let alone to a Barnabas RE Day, as this section contains poems such as ‘I’ve Got to Look Right’, a poem about the perceived importance of fitting in and how this feels when not being true to oneself. This is surely a theme which is as relevant to PSHCE as RE.

Each section is split into topics. In ‘Barnabas RE Day Themes’ these include ‘Whose world?’, ‘Who am I?’ and ‘What’s so special about the Bible?’ The ‘General Themes’ include ‘Going for goals!’, ‘Saying “no” to bullying’ and ‘Changes’; and the ‘Emotional Skills’ include ‘Self-awareness’ and ‘Motivation’. There is a general introduction to each theme, which explains the personal skills the poems are designed to help develop, and then a more specific introduction to each topic, giving some background to the poems and suggestions as to how they might be used. In his introductions Stewart Henderson makes it clear that the teacher will know how best to use each poem with any particular set of children and their particular context.

This book contains poems about the death of a pet, visits, general school life and friendship, all of which are themes which the majority of children will relate to. There are also poems around the things adults say which don’t quite make sense to children – these may cause as much reflection from the teacher as the children!

The wide range of poems in this book, and the fact that it could be used in a variety of contexts, would make it a valuable addition to any Key Stage 2 teacher’s bookshelf.

Catriona Card

Suitable for:

Ages: 4–11, Teachers Suitable for:

Ages: 5–11Suitable for:

Ages 7–11, Teachers


Suitable for:

Ages 7–11

Reviews

The Candle Classic Bible

Ed. Alan Parry, Lion Hudson 2012, ISBN 9781850858677, 256pp, hbk, £9.99.

The special appeal of the Candle Classic Bible lies in its exquisite, stylised illustrations and the ease with which the Bible narrative is broken down into 365 easy-to-read short stories, each with a number, clear heading and the relevant Bible reference. This layout should certainly encourage children, either alone or with an adult, to become involved with the book and to read something new every day.

The helpful Contents list divides the book into two parts: the Old and New Testaments. Each part is then broken down into sections which are highlighted in bold and subdivided into the numbered individual stories, with the relevant page numbers. All this makes the book straightforward to use.

The Old Testament starts with the story of Creation and then looks at the lives of the patriarchs, prophets and kings. In the New Testament we read about John the Baptist, the life of Jesus and the story of the Apostles, ending with John’s vision of heaven in the book of Revelation.

The stories are written in elegant, engaging prose and grounded in a traditional Christian interpretation of the Bible. This can be seen in the story of Jesus being anointed by a woman who was deemed to be a sinner (as told in Luke’s version of the story), Jesus’ death being understood as propitiation for sin, and the Roman soldier confessing that Jesus was really ‘God’s Son’.

At the front there is a presentation page which suggests that this book might be given to a child as a gift on a special occasion.

Despite some reservations about its theological interpretation, I certainly consider this to be a lovely book and would recommend it as a present for a child at any time. It would also be a useful addition to a school library or classroom shelf.

The exquisite illustrations and engaging prose of this book which retell the Bible narrative in 365 short stories make it a very special gift for a child and one to be read and treasured.

Jackie Metcalfe

Quotations: a game to stimulate thought and action regarding human values

Good Values Games, Sathya Sai Education in Human Values Programme, £14.99, available from Dipak Fakey: [email protected], telephone: 0116 222 3658.

This simple game to play in a small group comes in a box with a board and set of quotation cards. It aims to enable groups of children aged 7+ to encourage skills of patient co-operation, listening and decision making.

Pupils play a dice and counter game around a board: it is well made and looks professional, but the use of coIour is too garish for my taste.

The game asks them to pick up a card and respond to a values-based quote. They go forward or backwards depending on their choices. It’s a practical and interesting way to get pupils to reflect on what matters most in life, with a good focus on spiritual ideas – quotations include things like ‘Talk is Silver, Silence is Gold’ or ‘Eat Less Junk Food’ or ‘Honesty is the Best Policy.’ The approach recognises that clarifying values is not the simplistic activity of ‘learning right from wrong’: there are no right or wrong answers, but each choice of wise words can be justified from an individual’s perspective. It’s not a visibly religious game.

Dipak Fakey has also created two other games in similar style, one about Choices and one called ‘Share it, Drop it’, about which values matter most, priced similarly.

Buying games like this for class use may not appear economical, though you can buy five or more games at a discount. But the ways in which this sort of work might enhance RE are obvious: good speaking and listening activities that use teamwork and focus on values are hard to come by.

Recommended!

Lat Blaylock

Lives of the Great Spiritual Leaders: 20 Inspirational Tales

Henry Whitbread, Thames & Hudson, 2011, ISBN 978-0500515785, 96pp, hardback, £12.95. www.thamesandhudson.com

I thought I knew what to expect from this book. After all, the lives of Moses, the Buddha and Mother Teresa, to name just a few of its subjects, have all been told many times before. However, I was wrong, and indeed I found the approach of the author to be innovative and fascinating.

The contents page sets the individuals in a chronological framework. The author then leads readers on a journey helping them to recognise the innate spirituality that lies within us all. He suggests that this sense of wonder and otherness, and a strong desire for meaning, was what motivated these leaders. One particular event from each leader’s life is selected and written in story form. Through this imaginative reconstruction human feelings and the essence of their spirituality are explored. The reader is given much to reflect on and encouraged to ponder its true meaning and application.

Each chapter starts with a fact file that gives brief biographical details about the leader, setting the story in context. This is supported with superb images of paintings, people and other artefacts. The key concepts of the leader’s religion or philosophy are also explained. The book has a useful index as well as information as to where to find out more about the leaders from a variety of sources, including an occasional website.

I have enjoyed reading this book but have two slight criticisms. Only two women featured in the book and I can think of some others the author might have used. Secondly, the parable of the Good Samaritan as key to Jesus’ teaching is perhaps a too familiar example. Another less well-known story might have provided greater interest.

At £12.95 this book is an excellent buy, bringing life to religious leaders across the generations in an innovative and informative way. It deserves a place in the classroom, the school library and the home bookshelf.

Jackie Metcalfe

Suitable for:

Ages 7–14Suitable for:

Ages 7–11


Reviews

Suitable for:


Teachers

The History of Islam

Barry Rubin, Mason Crest 2010, ISBN 978142205310, 64pp, hbk, £9.99.

Islam in Europe

Michael Radu, Mason Crest 2011, ISBN 9781422213636, 64pp, hbk, £9.99. ISBN 9781422213667, 64pp, pbk (2010) £8.95.

This series originates in the USA, produced by the Foreign Policy Research Institute, an American thinktank, and claims to provide a balanced explanation of the religion of Islam and its people. Each volume, set out clearly, contains photos, a chronology and a small bibliography.

The publishers pronounce the series to be a success. However, others have found the books disturbingly anti-Islamic, both in tone and message. In the main Muslims are portrayed as being inherently violent; Islam is regarded as a second-rate religion and the underlying warning is that one should be wary of Muslims in any society.

Having looked at several books in the series, I am in agreement with this latter view. None of these books is written by Muslims and they are often prejudicial. There are many places where the language is misleading, the rhetoric inflammatory and the information inaccurate. Some examples of this may be found in the very negative portrayal of the prophet Muhammad, the assumption that the majority of Muslims understand jihad as a struggle against non-Muslims to increase Islamic territorial control, and a very limited acknowledgement of the contribution of Muslims to European culture and knowledge.

There is no sense of joy or celebration displayed by any of the Muslims in the photographs. The text and page colouring reinforces the gloom of the message portrayed in the narrative.

These books are prejudicial and ideological and therefore unsuitable for use in the classroom.

Jackie Metcalfe

The Lady

A film by Luc Besson with Michelle Yeoh and David Thewlis, DVD 2011, 127 mins, £9.00.

For about a dozen years I’ve been urging RE teachers of Buddhism to get their pupils to learn the story of Aung San Suu Kyi, Burmese democratic leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner, because her astounding moral courage and exemplary determination in the struggle for freedom in her land are an inspiration.

This moving and detailed film of her life begins in 1947, jumps to 1999 and then returns to follow her emergence as Burma’s pro-democratic leader, and her long imprisonment. Dramatic licence – but not too much for me – makes the story flow, and the contrast between an often grey and rainy Oxford and Rangoon, by turns exotic and menacing, gives the story energy, pace and drama. The film score is outstanding, ranging from U2 via Pachelbel’s Canon to the music of Burma itself.

The brutal regime of the Burmese military, which ran from 1962, is shown rather simplistically, led as much by superstition as by economic self-interest. The occasional brutality of the images in the film is a brooding presence whenever the military appear, and explodes occasionally in brief scenes of violent death or torture, so a ‘12’ certificate is justified.

The central dilemmas of Aung San Suu Kyi’s life are to do with the practice of non-violence and the tension between the struggle for national freedom in Burma and the love of family. These are presented with great clarity. It is the latter of the two that is most dramatically presented here, as Aung San demonstrates her willingness to suffer with her people as she waits for the freedom in which she believes.

It is not surprising, but perhaps a regret, that the film does not explore any of the religious influences on Burmese life and culture, apart from occasional non-specific references to monks and monasteries, but the movie as a whole offers an opportunity for students to build their understanding of Buddhist teaching and practice in an inspiring way.

This is a superb resource for religious education – I recommend that you buy it, watch it, teach it and clip it for your classes.

Lat Blaylock

Science & Belief: The Big Issues An online resource

Videos available on YouTube (http://tiny.cc/rh0jlw) and teachers’ notes (40pp) free from RE Today: http://www.retoday.org.uk/news/science-belief

Videos filmed by Two Cats Can: www.twocatscan.co.uk

There are 12 videos in this series, each lasting about 10 minutes. A sequence of three ‘information’ programmes introduce topics leading to questions for debate, followed by a video of round-table discussion of the topics.

After the initial comments from young people, the setting of the videos promotes interest. Russell Stannard sits at an antique desk. On and around the desk there are curious and interesting items – a grandfather clock, a telescope, a crucifix, models demonstrating evolution, a model of DNA, books, a menorah. These vary to some extent from video to video. From the drawers of the desk, he takes out items from time to time to illustrate the discussion – a clock, a model of ET, and so on.

On the desk, there is a computer screen where film and still images appear to illustrate and develop the discussion. As well as the effective use of image in the discussion and development of the issues, Russell Stannard also refers to sources and other expertise. The conversational style makes the argument and discussion easy to follow. He also refers back to the comments made by the young people. At the end of each video there are two questions which appear in text on the screen.

The round-table discussion is also well handled. Questions appear on the screen. Discussion is filmed, sometimes with the screen divided, to show different participants, which I found effective. The video ends with the discussion still continuing, which indicates clearly that this material is not presenting tidy answers but is raising questions. Nevertheless there is clarity and lucidity.

This style of learning might be particularly appropriate for young people, but could equally well be used with adult groups, encouraging them to be more open to question and debate, to offer their own views, opinions and experience in a more open way.

Stuart Scott

Suitable for:

Ages: 7–14


Reviews

Suitable for:


Teachers

A Sense of Place: Peace Justice Reconciliation

DVD and CD-ROM. Emma Jardine, RE Consultant (Staffordshire LA), produced by QLS, Staffordshire, 2012, £15 inc VAT.

A Sense of Place: Peace Justice Reconciliation is an exploration on DVD and CD-ROM into the National Memorial Arboretum (NMA) by a group of GCSE Religious Studies students from two high schools in Staffordshire.

The students’ experience of visiting the NMA and their thoughts and reflections on the concepts of remembrance, peace, justice and reconciliation are presented through seven short films. The films can be used singly, or in sequence interspersed with opportunities for discussion and creative work. They are also an ideal preparation for a visit to the NMA, which is to be recommended.

‘Music Video’ shows the students being shown round the NMA against a background of the song ‘Where We Come From’ sung by Wolverhampton-based singer/songwriter Sam Draisey. This helps create a reflective and respectful atmosphere, with the lyrics providing food for thought about the meaning and power of the key concepts at the heart of the resource.

The other films (Initial Thoughts; What Causes War?; Remembrance; Symbols; Reflections; Final Thoughts) focus on the students sharing their personal thoughts and questions as a result of their visit, and articulating simply and powerfully the impact of their visit. These films are all the more powerful for being presented by the young people themselves, and are also accessible to 7–11s, for example as stimulus to classwork or assemblies related to Remembrance Day.

The CD-ROM contains lesson plans and accompanying resources for four lessons exploring the themes of the resource. There is also a bank of 91 high-resolution photographs from the NMA which provide additional stimulus material for RS lessons, and can also be used in other areas of the school curriculum, for example assembly.

A Sense of Place is a powerful learning resource for RE, all the more so for being presented by young people and rooted in their own learning journey. It is a flexible and cost-effective resource, packed with excellent stimulus material.

Rosemary Rivett

Primary Religious Education: A New Approach

Clive Erricker, Judith Lowndes and Elaine Bellchambers, Routledge 2010, ISBN 9780415480673, 224pp, pbk, £22.99.

In Primary Religious Education: A New Approach, you can trace the history of the many different pedagogies of recent decades which have come and gone since old-style RE and its confessional approach was abandoned. We have had the easy, ‘going-nowhere’ road of the factual approach with its inevitable content-overload; swing the pendulum and you have a rather wishy-washy ‘spiritual’ approach which optimistically assumes that if you present children with the stimulus of ‘a religious element charged with the sacred beauty of faith . . . something numinous’ then awe and wonder will ensue.

This book challenges the twin attainment targets ‘Learning about Religion’ and ‘Learning from Religion’ so often trotted out as a rationale for RE. Once this two-pronged approach seemed to make sense, but somehow the two ideals never met – and while the former could be merely pointless, doesn’t the latter sound just a bit smug, with too many assumptions being made?

Judith Lowndes and Clive Erricker wrote (with the support of a working party including Elaine Bellchambers) and launched Living Difference, the 2004 Agreed Syllabus for Hampshire, Portsmouth and Southampton (later adopted by Westminster and Camden) in which there is just one single attainment target: ‘Interpreting religion in relation to human experience’. In this approach, religious content in RE is reduced, and concepts drive the learning instead – concepts which extend beyond RE into children’s own lives and make the learning meaningful. In a chapter about the evaluation of Living Difference undertaken in 2008/9, one teacher explains: ‘The skills in LD are frankly functional skills in today’s world. I want them [pupils] to be able to think for themselves, to justify what they think.’

This accessible book tackles such matters as ‘What is good RE?’ (‘Good RE should enable pupils to engage with the issues which arise out of religion, both positive and negative’), ‘Why conceptual enquiry?’ (‘educational development is not essentially dependent on the subject content, rather the subject is a vehicle used for the larger educational development of the learner’) and How can we make RE meaningful?

One teacher who has seen the value of the conceptual approach says: ‘[It] helps teachers to deliver interesting RE – it’s got variety and point and it’s linked to kids’ lives . . . how those particular concepts affect children’s lives.’

There are case studies and sound practical advice on how to transform your own practice as well as a very helpful perspective on harnessing the strengths of non-specialist teachers. Other issues explored are the danger of promoting stereotypes by ignoring the diversity and conflicts within religion, the immense value of cross-curricular links and, crucially, the challenge of achieving the right atmosphere and ethos in which ‘teachers are required to link what goes on in the classroom with home and the wider communities. They need to have established good, appropriate relationships, value the pupil as a human being rather than on an academic level and respect pupils’ ideas and expressions of belief.’ (p40)

Anyone who strives to find ways to make the subject relevant and challenging to pupils will find that this book not only provokes thought but also provides clear insight into a well-founded but ultimately commonsense approach to RE.

Kathy Bagley

In the last issue of REtoday (Autumn 2012) we published a review of this resource with incorrect publication details. We offer our apologies to the publisher and the reviewer, and now repeat the review, this time with the correct details.


More thorough, more ambitiousDilwyn Hunt

Stab in the back

The article, ‘Are you there, God? It’s me, Marcus’ published in the Autumn edition of REtoday leaves me wondering – is there not something more we should be doing to help pupils do better? I like the idea of pupils being asked to engage with the views of a celebrity writing about religion and beliefs.

The choice of the material is good. But the examples of work produced by pupils – were they really up to the mark as examples of good RE? We are told the pupils were ‘wise and witty’. But some of the work reveals pupils misrepresenting the views of others, providing dubious and rather fanciful depictions of the nature of God, using rhetorical language which is not appropriately courteous and engaging in inconsistent thinking.

RE has to lift its game. We need to put a lot more effort into helping pupils understand what they have to do to make progress in RE.

This is no great surprise. The pupils were after all only aged between 11–13. However, the impression conveyed is that as teachers of RE we should be happy with results of this kind, good job done, move on. Whereas for teachers of RE who want their pupils to make progress and who want RE to stand for something which is educationally credible – for teachers of RE who are ambitious for the subject and who want religious education to deliver what potentially it can and often claims to deliver, I think we need to be demanding more of ourselves. We have here, I think, a job only half done.

The real work begins with a close scrutiny of what pupils do when they are invited to express their views. As teachers of RE we are charged with the responsibility to challenge pupils in order to deepen and improve the way pupils think.

By all means let’s commend pupils for having a go at expressing their opinion, but let’s also make sure that RE is in the business of offering pupils sound advice so that they don’t just imagine all expressions of opinion are equally valid.

Let’s not fall short of this and end up encouraging pupils to think, ‘It’s my opinion and everyone is entitled to their opinion,’ even if what is being said is inaccurate nonsense. Let’s not just praise pupils for having a point of view or suggest to them that there is nothing they have to do in order to improve the quality of their thought or the way in which they arrive at or express their opinions, views or beliefs.

Marcus Brigstocke is no fool – there is nothing in what he writes which suggests he does not believe in God because he thinks of God as an ‘old man fluttering about the clouds’. If a pupil makes a ‘Straw Dummy’ argument which misrepresents Marcus’ views about God in this way, where is the integrity RE should be encouraging? Pupils need help so that they learn to appreciate that claims made about the views of another person can’t just be made up to suit your argument.

Let’s also not turn a blind eye when pupils use language like ‘mind puddle of insecure questions’ or ‘sarcastic imagination’ when writing about an atheist. If a pupil were to use similar language writing about a Muslim, a Sikh or a Christian talking honestly about their beliefs, would we let such language pass without comment? Pupils should be trained to spot when they slip into discourteous language and helped to develop a self-regulating mechanism so that, as best they can, they eliminate put downs and personal abuse from their work.

Another pupil imagines how the Angel Gabriel might reply to Marcus. I’m sure the pupil had a lot of fun writing this. As a piece of English this might be judged to be a good piece of work. The trouble is that if the work is to be a good piece of RE it should have merit on RE grounds. We shouldn’t be claiming the work is good RE if it really has only literary merit. God is represented in this piece as a lazy, frequently absent boss, who doesn’t care about humanity and who leaves all the work to his office staff of angels and cherubs.

Marcus Brigstocke is no fool – there is nothing in what he writes which suggests he does not believe in God because he thinks of God as an ‘old man fluttering about the clouds’.

Do we not need to help this pupil to develop a deeper knowledge and understanding of what a Christian, or a Jew or a Muslim or what any person of faith seriously believes about God? The pupil’s work is inventive and playful, but no person who claims to believe in God would recognise this account of what God is like. It is good, knockabout literary fun, but RE on this basis doesn’t require pupils to show an increasingly sophisticated knowledge about religion – they can just make it up. If this work passes as good RE I fear RE detaches itself from information and knowledge and so robs itself of educational credibility.

RE has to lift its game. We need to put a lot more effort into helping pupils understand what they have to do to make progress in RE. Too often we seem happy if pupils simply respond to religious material or share with us their views. If we are to earn our place in the curriculum we need to expect more than that. We need an approach to RE which is more thorough, more rigorous and more ambitious.

Dilwyn Hunt, author and independent RE adviser [email protected]

Editor: REtoday publishes some pupils’ work in almost every issue, and showcases different aspects of RE in this way. We like publishing what pupils do because it keeps our RE real, and gives a platform to interesting pupil ideas. We also welcome this set of ideas from Dilwyn. The quest for excellence goes on.


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REtoday - cpb-eu-w2.wpmucdn.com · 4 Teaching students gifted in studying religions Jane Simpson ... Stab in the back ... as to whether critical thinking alone made a student Gifted