For the classroom

Sophie Nicholls, from Ferncumbe CE Primary School, in Warwickshire, shares how the Forest School experience was used to help children in the reception class understand the festivities. They all made a team sculpture...

Matthew Priest teaches 7–8 year olds in Sandwell. He linked up English with RE to begin exploring the theme of dreams

Rachel Buckby teaches at St John’s CE Primary School in Leicester and is a member of the NATRE Executive. She wanted to begin to use sacred texts thoughtfully with her infants. Here’s how she did it: ideas you can...

RE seems to require teaching everything, alongside factual content of rituals and vocabulary. A pick from REtoday 35:1 includes promoting critical thinking1 and negotiating conflicting worldviews2 in a way that is...

Letter writing is often suggested by textbooks as a way to enable pupils to respond to an issue. In this example, we go further, and offer four ‘letter starts’ that address key issues in Islam and science, with...

Do you ever get the sense that your students come to school to watch you work? Jane Halsall at Southend High School for Boys wants to shift the responsibility of critical thinking from her to her students’...

Kerry Cooper ran some interesting lessons for Easter. Here’s how you could try them too. Having recently attended an RE Today CPD course I was inspired by a session on teaching Christianity to 4–9s, and especially by...

01Outdoor homework: night sky mysteriesFor a 14-minute homework task, pupils are asked to stand alone in the open air one night in the next week and look into the sky on a dark clear night for six minutes. They are asked...

When teaching about topics related to science and religion, it is so important to get the question right. Here, the REtoday Editorial Team consider good questions on this term’s theme for different age groups. What do...

For some people, meditation is most readily associated with ‘Eastern’ religions, or hippies from the 1960s rather than the ordinary daily routine, and indeed may be considered either religious (for those who are...

James Conwell, Head Teacher of St Patrick’s Primary School, Thornaby, shows you how to approach Easter learning this term. The ‘Stations of the Cross’ are artistic portrayals of 14 key moments in Jesus’ journey...

Ruth Gedalovitch teaches in Thurrock, and participated in a three-and-a-half-day CPD course called ‘Excellent RE’, aimed at transforming RE practice across a whole school in a bespoke way. It was run by Thurrock...

Julie Grove suggests RE work on Charles Darwin for the primary pupil

Have you ever looked at a beetle? I mean really closely? Have you seen its shiny back, iridescent with colour, when sometimes all you think...

A key concept for RE and science in the Reception class
In this invaluable article, Reception class teacher Penny Kite offers some challenging ways of introducing 4-year-olds to thinking about heaven and about...

Rachel Buckby teaches RE to Reception pupils at St John’s School in Leicester. She asked her 4–5s to think about why the world is like it is. If God made the world, then why did God make things just as they are?...

This powerful learning tool for pupils in moral education and RE was first devised in the mid-1990s. This version enables any teacher to work on the values agenda today.

A decade ago the RE department in my diverse inner London school won a grant from the Religious Education Council (REC) to highlight RE’s contribution to community cohesion. We decided to commission a film. We asked...

When I read the following in a BBC article ‘Teaching of Christianity “lacks intellectual development”’ (Judith Burns, BBC News online, 27 Nov 2012) it struck a chord with me. Almost two-thirds (64%) of adults...

Sikh values in action in Northampton

Bridget Knight, Headteacher of Eardisley CE Primary School, shares a Global Schools Case Study.