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Having heard so many promising comments about Strictly RE through social media, I was delighted to attend this year as an NQT. I was looking forward to experiencing the spirit of comradery and receiving some fresh inspiration and practical ideas to take back to my school.

In the first keynote Dr. Kathryn Wright opened our eyes to see the treasures that exist in our local school communities and challenged us to consider whether we are offering treasure in our curricula or something more like plastic.

I will certainly be implementing the ‘Summariser, Questioner and Clarifier’ roles, advocated by Angela Hill, when it comes to engaging with sources of wisdom and authority in the classroom. This activity acts as a natural differentiator and encourages curiosity which helps implement a curriculum which is “ambitious for all” (OFSTED, 2019).

Dr. Greg Barker’s session reminded us that we ARE philosophers and our students are too! I will be implementing the ABCD skills building exercise in my classroom. Rather than practising full essays, students can also build these exam skills through regular low-pressure paragraph tasks. In one paragraph they can demonstrate the skills required for a full essay: answer the question, back it up with evidence, challenge it, decide.

The session on using meta-ethical language at KS5 by Dr Rachael Jackson-Royal equipped me with a clear and concise overview of the content, fantastic lesson activities and a sense of confidence as I plan this unit for my own students.

There were, of course, freebies! The Bible Society provided card sorts which were a great time-saver. I collected a couple more Examining Religion and Belief magazines as well as a highly recommended book entitled More Than 101 Great Ideas which offers a wide range of practical strategies to get students acting, creating, enquiring, reflecting, talking, thinking and writing.

I left Strictly 2020 refreshed and ready to take these precious jewels out of the treasure chest and into my classroom.

2020 is one of the most crucial years of my life regarding my teaching career, as I will be graduating in July from Edge Hill University having completed my undergraduate degree, Secondary Religious Education with QTS, and begin teaching as an NQT in September. I could not think of a better way of starting this year than being surrounded by such inspirational and passionate RE professionals at NATRE’s Strictly RE Conference.

‘What is the point in RE?’ A question I myself have all heard a thousand times over; I feel for those who have been in the profession for several years. A question I find myself speculating how I should respond; how I can get a fourteen-year-old to fathom something that they have such trivial perspectives on. The ideas presented by Greg Barker, who delivered a session on the ‘Top 10 media to connect students to theory at GCSE and A Level’ really highlighted the idea that religion can be taught in diverse ways.

Presenting an image to a class that shows an image of a celebrity – they are hooked. A screenshot from a Marvel film – they are hooked. It invites for discussion amongst pupils, allowing their views to be expressed and promotes a passion or at least an understanding of why the study of RE is beneficial to their understanding of the world. Greg presented 10 images which he faced us with the challenge of identifying the relation to religion; the images were from a range of media outlets such as the news, advertisements, films, and art. One example that I really appreciated, was the painting “Poppy Field in a Valley near Giverny” by Claude Monet. We were asked ‘how many flowers are there?’ If you are not familiar with this painting, see here: https://www.claude-monet.com/poppy-field-in-a-hollow-near-giverny.jsp Monet can be used when teaching the Biblical creation story; a literalistic approach to Genesis, where one can ‘count’ the flowers.  In comparison, a metaphorical approach, a non-literalistic approach, whereby Genesis gives solely an impression of the truth and shows the goodness of the material world. I would have never linked these ideas together; maybe I am naïve, nevertheless I was very impressed by this idea presented to us by Greg. Another example I was impressed by, was a Diet Coke advert which raises issues about cultural images of perfection, the questionable benefits of dieting and the oppression that comes with it. You can see this advert here: http://propproject2k14.weebly.com/commercial.html. Taylor Swift is pictured, with the slogan ‘stay extraordinary’ next to her. This slogan was identified by Greg to be a religious connotation calling to Durkheim’s definition of religion as the movement from the profane, the ordinary, to the sacred, the extraordinary, and then back to profane. However, the advertisement promotes the idea that one stays forever in the sacred sphere.

The first thing that struck me when I arrived at Strictly RE was the buzz of genuine excitement and enthusiasm. It was lovely – and felt empowering- to be part of a community of people with obvious commitment and passion for RE.

We were warmly welcomed by the inspirational Fiona Moss who introduced the guest speaker, Kathryn Wright, CEO from Culham St Gabriel’s. Kathryn spoke to us about ‘opening up the treasure box’ and looking at the various jewels we had available to us: our own world views, our childrens’ world views, context, the intent of our school curriculum, our subject and our curriculum content. She really made me consider my school’s context, something I’ve often thought about in a negative way due to the lack of diversity. However Kathryn made me reconsider and appreciate all the ‘jewels’ our community has to offer and how I can use them to benefit our children. She talked about ‘falling in love with our subject again’; the love for RE was certainly transparent throughout the day in everybody I met.

Julia Diamond-Conway’s Workshop: ‘Big World, Big Ideas: Religion and Science’ was a great workshop where I felt my subject knowledge was deepened and I found lots of practical activities that our children would love to use and share with colleagues. It also made me consider opportunities for our Year Three pupils to begin to think about how science and religion can work together in their Stone Age lessons on Mary Anning, ahead of looking at this in greater detail in Year Six.

Stephen Pett lead an informative workshop on ‘helping pupils to remember what they have learnt in RE’. This session really made me think about the opportunities our children have to retrieve and commit learning to their long-term memory. I loved the activity we did ‘Will Amir go on Hajj next year’ which would give pupils four opportunities to process information about Hajj through active learning which embeds this theory. I have passed this activity on to our Year Five teacher to teach during the unit on what it means to be a Muslim in Britain today. As coordinator I will look forward to seeing how this impacts on their understanding of Hajj and its importance to Muslim people.

My final session was again with Julia Diamond-Conway on ‘Implementing Effective RE for 5-7s:Sticky RE.’ Again, this workshop gave me lots of practical ideas to use in my teaching and share with colleagues.

Ben Wood was our final key note speaker who talked about impact and RE and how we see the impact of this subject in our classrooms and young people. This gave me chance to consider what the impact of RE is for pupils in our school, how successful this is and how I can demonstrate this for OFSTED and SIAMs.

So was the day worth giving up a Saturday for? Well for me a massive, resounding YES! I had spent a day with dedicated teachers and other RE professionals sharing their passion for the subject; been given lots of excellent ideas and resources to support our children’s learning and aid teaching in our school; had space and time to consider the bigger picture for RE in school through the inspiring key note speakers and had been regularly feed. I certainly don’t get given mid-morning and afternoon cakes during my usual Saturday cleaning frenzy.

Planning to teach about Hinduism, Gandhi, sacred texts and their authority and influence, ethics or British imperial history? Let’s look at some very recent research by Karline McLain of Bucknell University, USA that spans all of these areas.

We’re first reminded how the Bhagavad Gita is a scripture in which the god Krishna imparts lessons to the warrior prince Arjuna about sacred duty (dharma) and the path to spiritual liberation (moksha). By the 19th century it had come to be regarded as a core text, even the core text, of Hinduism. Under British rule, it was sometimes interpreted as a call for armed resistance, but Gandhi read a nonviolent message into it. The research then shows how there is more to know about Gandhi and the Gita.

Here are some of the main findings.

• Firstly, it is clear that Gandhi sought to find the meaning of the Gita in practice, and through life in a community.
• For Gandhi, the battlefield scene of the Gita was an allegory of the duel between good and evil in the heart.
• For good to win, the heart should be disciplined; people must be prepared to sacrifice themselves for what is true and right.
• For over 40 years, when Gandhi was not in prisons, he was living on back-to-the-land communities (ashrams) that he founded in South Africa and India. They tried to live out the Gita’s message.
• In 1906 Gandhi took a vow of celibacy, to practice the Gita’s principle of self-sacrifice; he would lessen his attachments to his possession of a wife and four sons and treat all ashram members as co-equals.
• On the morning of the Salt March in 1930, Gandhi insisted that only ashram members prepared to be killed, and who had taken vows of celibacy, should join him. They were allowed to take no food or drink, only a copy each of the Gita.

Do read the research (it’s free and very rich; access details are given at the end). You can certainly use it in classroom teaching. Different ways to do so will present themselves, but here are some suggestions.

1.Introduce the Gita to the class. Focus down on some of the most read verses, e.g. 47: “Set thy heart upon thy work, but never on its reward. Work not for a reward, but never cease to do thy work.” (The Bhagavad Gita [trans. Juan Mascaro] Penguin 1962, p.52.) With this verse – arguably the essence of the Gita – organise students in small groups, to come up with examples of people who deliberately work without seeking rewards. When some of these examples are fed back in plenary, discuss why these people do this, whether it can even be possible to do so, why it is held up to be good and whether it is a good rule.

2.Tell the story of the Salt March to the class. The relevant clip from Richard Attenborough’s 1982 film ‘Gandhi’ may help. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WW3uk95VGes

3.The film clip adds a visual element to the research, but the research adds depth and detail to the film clip. Draw on it to set up a follow-up role play task. Back in their groups, students act out the meeting on the morning of the Salt March. One plays Gandhi, insisting that only those ready to be killed should join him, only those who have taken vows of celibacy, none are allowed to bring food or drink, and all are required to bring a copy of the Gita. The others play ashram members, asking questions they imagine would have been asked at the time. As the role play is debriefed, students can be asked about how the ashram members would have felt and why they chose the questions they asked in role. Finally, the class as a whole can discuss whether the Salt March case counts as an example of working without reward.

4.Different homework or extension tasks could follow. Students could carry out their own research into life and ethics in Gandhian ashrams, drawing comparisons with communities of which they are members themselves and evaluating how people benefit from different kinds of community membership. This research could be presented at the start of the next lesson.

5.Alternatively, students could follow up the Salt March investigation made in class, by writing a newspaper article for (say) American readers at the time – they could imagine themselves as the American journalist shown in the YouTube clip, accompanying Gandhi on the Salt March. They could use the knowledge and understanding gained through the various classroom activities to report what happened, why it did, how Gandhi prepared the ashram members, the motivations and emotions of all involved and to explain how the events were linked to the Gita’s teaching of work without reward.

The original article is Karline McLain, Living the Bhagavad Gita at Gandhi’s Ashrams, Religions 2019: 10 (11), 619. Religions is a freely available online research journal. The article is available there, open-access at doi:10.3390/rel10110619

We’ve reported the research in RE:ONLINE at Living the Bhagavad Gita at Gandhi’s Ashrams

The purpose for my departmental staff attending the NATRE Strictly RE Conference initially was to find an alternative/supplementary organisation to the ISRSA (Independent Schools Religious Studies Association), where the provision has become less relevant to us as time has progressed.  In addition, we have been very successful in their National Essay Competitions since entering two years ago and were disheartened to note that this would not be occurring this academic year. Thus, we were looking for an alternative enrichment opportunity and competition when I noticed the advert for the Strictly event and the Spirited Arts Competition in RE Today. I was also looking for further resources on Humanism and Philosophy to enhance the extra-curricular groups that we run too.

I, as Head of Department, really liked the way the day was structured and the excellent quality of provision, which was accessible for specialists and non-specialists alike. The relevance of the content of the seminars, run by familiar names and faces, was also a positive feature. No one ever minds free resources from some brilliant exhibitors either! Many of these have already been shared with colleagues and used in lessons.

I have been keen to develop departmental staff’s awareness of the national scene and attendance at this conference enabled us to do this and attend age specific seminars, relevant to what we as a school are aiming to provide.

The seminars attended were really well organised, structured appropriately and allowed us to view our planning and provision from differing angles.  It also provided opportunities to share our school experiences with colleagues and we came away with lots of ideas and enthused to review our current practice.

Two areas in particular which we will now be looking to review are

• the development of the inclusion of a non-religious viewpoint and
• a comprehensive review and rewrite the Year 4 provision.

The impact of this will be to develop our RS schemes of work to include the latest developments and continue to give our students the chance to think critically about other worldviews.

In addition, the ability to apply practical activities and exercises immediately from all three of the seminars attended was really motivating. So, our teachers of RS will continue to be passionate about the subject and their teaching will be further enriched by coming to the event.

The opportunity to attend what is essentially three INSET/CPD training sessions in one day, as a whole department – with no impact on ‘cover’ requirements at school – is great value for money.

We have now registered as a member of the organisation at a Gold level member. This will allow all staff to access resources and ideas for implementation, discounted future CPD, attendance at the annual conference and RE today subscription continuation.

We will also now be interested in exploring the application for an RE Quality Mark.

A really positive experience and an organisation that I would highly recommend joining.

I recently had the opportunity to travel from Copenhagen, Denmark to attend my first NATRE conference Strictly RE 2020.  I attended the conference with 2 other colleagues from the same school as myself.  Since we were all first time attendees, anticipation was high and curiosity about what to expect was niggling away at all of us.

At the conference I was lucky enough to attend seminars by Julia Diamond-Conway and Lat Blaylock.  It was such a refreshing experience given the quality and attention all of the presenters gave to their topics.  What caught me even more though was something I feel is so important in this day and age and that’s the focus on both creativity and providing an experience for our students.  This can be an experience either within or outside the classroom to broaden their thoughts and ideas on different subject areas of RE.  As we know in our own lives, this is what creates memories that we cherish and hold on to.  In these times where screen time tends to be the norm along with a ‘quick fix’ lesson it was nice to see excitement and thought given to providing a quality lesson without ‘taking the easy way out’.

When I left the sessions I participated in, I came out with a pack of ideas that could realistically be applied in the classroom within the framework of what we are actually doing.  This is so important because it doesn’t mean massive changes but simple practical ideas such as Julia Diamond-Conway’s Guided Visualizations or Lat Blaylock’s Creation Story with play dough.  I left the conference feeling armed and excited (about a subject that is often not given the priority it should be) and ready to guide our children towards being the informed Global Citizens we hope they will become.

As I am sure you can understand from what I have written I, for one, have found this particular experience a memorable one that I hope will also help to challenge my own creativity!

I took a workshop called ”Helping pupils to remember what they have learnt in RE”, presented by Stephen Pett at the NATRE conference.

It started with Stephen giving a brief overview on the most recent developments in research on how the brain makes connections and stores information. He then went on to having the teachers do some activities for pupils.  These were all interactive, and many had elements of drawing or art in them. I’m looking forward to trying them all with my students.

One which I’ve already tried has worked really well, called ‘Interpreting the man in the well’. This could be adapted in many ways. It involved Stephen telling us to draw pictures of certain characters or events as he read a story involving them.  We’d have a short time to draw, as he paused telling the story. When the story was finished, we would have to try to interpret what the meaning of those characters might be, and explain that to a partner. We then went back and looked at the images we’d drawn, and heard the actual interpretation in its religious context.

This was valuable learning on many levels. Listening to a story and drawing elements of it keeps the listener directly involved.  No room to be passive! Then interpreting what each character or element of the story might represent was definitely a higher level thinking skill, along with communicating that to a partner. It actually had to do with what life is all about, so a connection was made from quick, simple drawings all the way to discussing the meaning of life, but with symbols the children would have already drawn and related to. This is a perfect example of a ‘brain smart’ lesson.  These were the elements involved:  listening, drawing, retelling, interpreting, discussing, and theorising. And all at KS2 level. I think this is an elegant way to make lessons in religion relevant, accessible, and importantly, memorable.

I am an Early Years and Key Stage 1 Phase Leader at a Primary School in Surrey. I have a real passion for RE and this year was my first experience of Strictly RE. I am currently not the RE subject leader, however things might change having had the most inspirational CPD I have had in a long time at Strictly RE.

There were so many things that I have taken away from the whole day but I especially want to share the knowledge of Katie Freeman. The title of her session was ‘Implementing effective RE for EYFS: understanding depth and creativity’. As a current Reception teacher and a part of school where we teach RE from our Nursery upwards, I felt like I needed some more ideas of how to get our youngest children having a passion for RE.

Katie spoke about how she had approached changing the teaching and learning of RE in her school and the benefits of this to create deep understanding and creativity to all her lesson. I want to share with you three gems from her approach and explain how I have used these to enhance the RE learning.

The first of these was directly linked to the curriculum Intent. What skills and knowledge do I want my children to learn? What is it, that we are expecting our children to learn and how does this differentiate from themes that are taught in later years? Katie spoke about the way in which she had set out a spiral curriculum in her school, where as a school staff they had looked at the building on the prior knowledge. Coming back to school I have revised what it is we are teaching in Nursery and Reception and now made a direct link from prior skills and knowledge to what is being taught further up the school. Making sure at all times that I wasn’t just ‘dumbing down’ the curriculum because the children are younger but actually making sure that the further up the school they are raising the expectations of skills and knowledge that is taught.

The second, was that she has implemented a benchmark assessment for the beginning of every unit taught in RE. The assessment is designed to capture what the children know already, what they want to know and what they have learnt at the end of the unit. When planning the units of RE for my phase, I have made sure that this assessment activity has been built in. It is important to show what our children have learnt not just through the content of work but also by the way in which they question and debate RE.

The third gem, was the way in which key questions were planned to ask the children during the time where children are carrying out their task. I really felt that this was something that I was missing in my RE lessons. I had always planned for key questions and used these during inputs, but why was I not thinking up key questions to ask when the children were carrying out their directed task? Part of what I am now using in my lessons is to direct key questions to the children during this time and using their responses in our class big book as evidence of the amazing responses that they have to such big questions.

I am really grateful to Strictly RE for giving me the time and space away from my busy life in school to reflect on the way in which RE is taught in my school and how I can improve it. I look forward to returning next year to meet some more inspirational people and find more creative ways to enhance to subject I love.

It was a delight to attend and give the keynote at NATRE’s Strictly RE Conference on Saturday. I enjoyed talking about the various jewels in our treasure boxes – our own worldviews, our pupils’ worldviews, our context, the intent of our school curriculum, our subject of religion and worldviews, and our curriculum content. I talked about falling in love with our subject all over again! If you are interested, you can find a link to my keynote at the end of this blog.

It was wonderful to be with so many dedicated teachers and other RE professionals all sharing their love for our great subject. The enthusiasm of so many teachers to develop their expertise and subject knowledge was evident throughout the day, and it was a pleasure to chat with so many. A few stand-out conversations for me included…. One with a Primary teacher who was so thrilled to be undertaking action research in her classroom with the University of Huddersfield, a Secondary PGCE student who wanted to immerse herself in the RE community from the beginning of her career, a secondary teacher who was now leading RE across a large MAT of over 30 primary and secondary schools, and a University tutor who is passionate about teachers undertaking their own research through Masters study.

Something I noticed this year was teachers’ desire to engage more with and in research i.e. finding out about and applying research and/or doing their own research. The presentations by Emma Raven (MSc), Anne Moseley (PhD) and Jennifer Juniper (Action research) highlighted this. We have recently published an introduction to Theologies of Reading which I spoke about in my keynote https://www.reonline.org.uk/resources/theologies-of-reading-new-perspectives-on-pupil-engagement-with-texts-an-introduction/ and some examples of application of this by Jennifer which she used in her seminar https://www.reonline.org.uk/teaching-resources/theologies-of-reading/

We are also delighted to be partnering with all the main RE Organisations and with Templeton World Charity Foundation to host a conference on Saturday 3^rd October which will bring together researchers and teachers in an exchange of knowledge and expertise. The booking for RExChange 2020 is now open https://www.cstg.org.uk/programmes/rexchange/

We look forward to continuing to resource and reimagine RE by opening up our treasure boxes together.

If you teach about Jainism, the research included in this blog will be useful to you; if you teach about religion and the environment, or environmental ethics in general, it gives a good case study. It’s by Michael Reading of Mt. St. Mary’s University, Los Angeles.

The research summarises how Jainism has been pointed to for its eco-friendly example. Jainism proclaims the equality of all life forms, emphasises nonviolent behaviour (ahimsa), and encourages limiting one’s possessions (aparigraha). Within this setting, the research looks at the Jain-inspired Anuvrat Movement, founded in 1949 by Acharya Sri Tulsi.
The main findings are these.

• Jain beliefs and practices, e.g. ahimsa (non-violence to all beings) are highly relevant to ecological problems.
• A further ideal, aparigraha, refers both to the physical limiting of one’s possessions, as well as one’s achieving a general state of spiritual detachment, also a highly eco-friendly stance.
• The Anuvrat Movement, launched in 1949 by Acharya Sri Tulsi, revolved around what he perceived to be a moral deterioration within Indian society. To remedy this, he encouraged all people to take a set of vows (not only Jains but also Hindus, Muslims, Christians and Sikhs have participated).
• The vows are based on traditional Jain and Yoga vows, and also include one (the eleventh) of particular ecological relevance: I will do my best to refrain from such acts as are likely to cause pollution and harm the environment. I will not cut down trees. I will not waste water.
• There are others of relevance, e.g. the seventh enjoins limiting one’s possessions – and 42% of greenhouse gas emissions is caused by consumer goods production.

The full article is fascinating and freely available (access details are at the end), and you can use it to develop your knowledge of Jainism. As for teaching, it offers useful, challenging discussion questions. You could:

1.Begin by watching the short clip at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWhZN9fiLSM , then asking the class what they noticed most, which is likely to prompt discussion of the gauze face masks and thin white robes worn by the Svetambara monks. This can lead into explanation of ahimsa and aparigraha.

2. You could then introduce a power-point presentation based on the other three key research findings above, checking that students understand and can themselves explain such points as the link between aparigraha, greenhouse gas emissions and consumer goods production.

3.Underline how Tulsi placed emphasis on individual conduct. Ask students to discuss in pairs: to what extent are we responsible for environmental problems? How important or difficult are the lifestyle changes needed? How effective can vows be, and to whom or what might a non-religious person vow?

4.Finally, ask the students to write individual summary statements for brief plenary sharing. The researcher says that Jainism gives a solution to environmental problems. Do you agree or disagree? The task is to write as much as you can with as many reasons as you can in ten minutes.

The original article is Michael Reading, The Anuvrat Movement: A Case Study of Jain-inspired Ethical and Eco-conscious Living, Religions 2019: 10 (11), 636, available open-access at https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10110636

We’ve reported the research on RE:ONLINE at Do Jain teachings solve the ecological crisis?