For the classroom
Investigations in RE: can our lessons model good research practice for all students?
Gemma Hathaway shares some key ideas for building a more investigative RE.
Interfaith marriages: an intimate frontier between religions
Willow Sivyer interviews two people enjoying an interfaith marriage. Read the article with your students and get them to list the issues John and Khadija faced and overcame.
White poppies: a way into teaching global citizenship
Andrew Bolton and Saffron Gallup share ideas about peace and the remembrance of war.
Designing a better RE curriculum for 11–16s
Wayne Buisst, who teaches in Suffolk, describes how he created a refreshed RE curriculum alert to current research issues.
Theologies of reading: Ten examples of RE alert to hermeneutics
Jennifer Jenkins is a teacher and the RE and Spirituality Officer at Coventry Diocesan Board of Education. She has ten ways to help your pupils read and think like theologians
Encouragement: the example of St Barnabas made relevant to today’s school needs
Using a biblical story and a song to explore the value of encouragement across your whole school might help your pupils to find the positive in tough times. RE with a strong values connection.
The Prince of Egypt: from London stage to Year 3 classrooms
Katie Freeman, a primary teacher and the new Chair of NATRE, has been teaching the Moses narrative, and organised a trip for her pupils to see the London stage show ThePrinceofEgypt. We thought her pupils might like...
Trinity: a big idea and some simple ways to promote deepening understanding
Katie Gooch, who teaches in East Anglia, wanted to enable her 7–8s to understand the importance of the idea of Trinity in relation to Christianity. Her learning ideas, in which children work as researchers, could be...
Football, ice cream, trolleys and God: philosophical RE for 7– 1s
John Semmens teaches at Old Catton School in Norfolk, where pupils do a lot of philosophy in RE. Here he explains why this contributes so much to great RE.
Stories of forgiveness: an Islamic exmaple
Karen Turner teaches RE in Nottinghamshire, and supports REtodayas a member of the Editor’s Panel. She found some fresh insights into forgiveness among her pupils when she studied an Islamic story with them.
What does an RE curriculum contribute to justice?
Shannon Clemo, Rhiannon Chandler and Gemma Hathaway teach RE in Coventry. Their department prioritises justice. Could or should you do the same?
How should RE represent issues about caste in the classroom?
Professor Eleanor Nesbitt of the University of Warwick and Lat Blaylock, REtoday Editor, have some research-based suggestions for teaching about caste. The challenge is for teachers to recognise the place of caste in...
Teaching justice using local examples in RE
Alice Sarbicki teaches in Bristol. Here she describes how using local examples has energised her RE on this topic. Could you do the same?
BAPS and social justice: a Hindu community
Secondary RE teacher Steven Humphrys explores how RE teachers can locate Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS) in Swaminarayan Hinduism. Teachers of RE have come to love the Neasden Temple...
Justice: extending the Golden Rule to animals
Barbara Gardner argues that we should treat other animals as we would like to be treated. An extended version of this article, which references even more religions, and gives references for all the ideas discussed, is...
Justice in Judaism
Lisa Shames is the Senior Learning Manager at the Jewish Museum in London. She shares some ways you can teach about diversity and justice using examples from our Jewish communities.
‘“Love your neighbour as yourself” All the rest of Judaism is detail’
Are place, space and pilgrimage important in Jewish life? Rabbi Jonathan Romain responds.
Teaching Trinity: big concept, creative approach
Liz Johnson teaches RE at Our Lady of Pity, a Catholic primary school on the Wirral, where there is a unique behaviour policy of no rewards, no sanctions. It is a policy which mirrors the school’s mission statement...
Songwriting in RE: a top-ten of ideas
Elaine Arundell
How talking to children can inspire teaching about justice for 7–9s in RE
Kate Bruning teaches RE in Cleethorpes. She found that teaching justice in RE to 7–9s certainly needed to include a discussion about ‘It’s not fair!’ The children’s strong sense of justice and injustice...