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This article is for paying subscribers Investment from local authorities in RE: How much?
Paul Smalley, Edge Hill University, NASACRE Executive Assistant.
Articles by Lat Blaylock
This article is for paying subscribers
Editorial
This article is for paying subscribers Religion as research, RE as research
‘Taste and see that the Lord is good’ says the Psalmist in Psalm 34. Sacred words for 3,000 years to Jewish people, Christians and (slightly differently) Muslims. That might add up to 55 per cent of the world’s...
Editorial
This article is for paying subscribers Identities in RE
Martin Buber (1878–1965), a great Jewish philosopher of personhood, says in his book I and Thou (Touchstone 1970): ‘Inscrutably involved, we live in the currents of universal reciprocity.’ Perhaps a part of his...
Reviews
This article is for paying subscribers Reviews
In this issue we have reviews from two members of the RE Today team who have clearly made good use of lockdown time for some significant reading. Lat Blaylock’s review of James W. Sire’s book on philosophical...
Editorial
This article is for paying subscribers Religion and Justice: complicity, solidarity, liberation?
In April 1963 Martin Luther King wrote a ‘letter from Birmingham Jail’ that has become a landmark statement against racism in the USA and globally. Here we are, six decades later, still needing to talk about it....
For the staffroom
This article is for paying subscribers RE audit: 64 things that (can) happen in RE lessons
This is an RE audit tool for pupils aged 8–14. If you dare, copy the page of 64 ideas for your classes and ask them for their help in improving your school’s RE
Instant RE
This article is for paying subscribers Personal worldviews: who are we? Who is she? Who am I becoming?
Exploring identity questions with 11–14s is an important part of enabling pupils to develop their own understanding of their position in relation to the world, including the worlds of religion and belief. These two...
For the classroom 5-11
This article is for paying subscribers Identities: same and different, explored through an RE-day experience
Would you like to explore questions about community, values and respect with your 6–8s? Here are ideas for an RE day based upon the theme of this issue of REtoday: identities. Pupils often benefit from an intensive...
For the classroom 11-16
This article is for paying subscribers When Greta Thunberg met Pope Francis
This activity is simple, flexible and potentially profound. A part of good RE around green issues is to consider whether religions have a part to play in climate justice and responding to the climate crisis, and to...
For the staffroom 7-16
This article is for paying subscribers REWIEW: Postcard Sets by Leonie Marklew-Barrett
Postcard packs from www.christians-art- cards.co.uk, £4–£5 per set. Gallery at www.leonie-marklew.net These seven sets of postcards illustrate key scenes, symbols and ideas from the Christian scriptures and...
For the classroom 11-16
This article is for paying subscribers Writing on both sides of the coin: the value of opinions and ideas
Whether you are working with bright 12-year-olds who like learning to argue, or exam entrants of 16 who still need to grasp that RE is never just about their own opinions, this simple classroom strategy can deliver big...
Events and resources
This article is for paying subscribers Thanks to the REtoday magazine Editorial Team
New editorial arrangements for REtoday magazine: after many years, this excellent team of editorial assistants has been disbanded, and in coming issues REtoday will rely more on NATRE Executive members and RE Today...
For the classroom 14-16
This article is for paying subscribers A vision for revision: 20 fresh ideas for examination revision activities
At this time of year, secondary teachers are madly revising with their classes, and a set of fresh ideas may be welcome, so I asked a bunch of fine teachers of RE what their favourite revision strategy was, and how their...
Instant RE
This article is for paying subscribers A seriously thoughtful approach to Holy Week and Easter
The thinking skills structure called ‘Responsibility pies’ is useful for analysing any complex phenomenon where responsibility can be attributed to multiple parties. Who is responsible for the whales that die in...
Editorial
This article is for paying subscribers Visions and viruses
This term’s REtoday magazine will arrive on thousands of desks across the UK and the world in the most extraordinary times. As I write, schools are closing, examinations being cancelled, children worrying, young people...
Opinion
This article is for paying subscribers Discovering Sacred Text: an astonishing new resource from the British Library for school RE
Lat Blaylock commends a new resource for RE from one of our great institutions of cultural capital, the British Library. If inspectors want to see a rich knowledge curriculum, and pupils deserve to explore sources of...
Editorial
This article is for paying subscribers Intent, implement, impact in RE
The January 2020 issue of REtoday responds to the new Ofsted inspection framework for schools in England, which asks simple questions: what’s the intention of a school’s curriculum planning? How is it implemented?...
Theory and practice
This article is for paying subscribers Big Ideas for Religious Education by Barbara Wintersgill
A review article by Lat Blaylock, Editor, REtoday This slim but significant book, published in October 2017 (and available for free at bit.ly/2I9tTYW), about how RE curriculum decisions should be made has already had an...
This article is for paying subscribers The Gospel of Luke, chapter 10¾ Who is my neighbour and what do neighbours do?
The next day the Good Samaritan came down the Jericho Road again. There was another person lying in the road, who had been beaten up. The Good Samaritan picked her up, cared for her needs, took her to an inn and paid for...
For the classroom 5-11
This article is for paying subscribers Better Christmas learning
So what to do? Five examples for better Christmas learning Mobile phone messages from the angels Christmas in school is usually a thoroughly enjoyable celebration of a festival that (nearly) the whole community loves....
Events and resources
This article is for paying subscribers Resources
Edited by Jane Brooke RE in the Classroom Author: Helen JaegerAge range: 4–5Barnabas in School,BRF 2015, 63pp,softback, £7.99,ISBN: 978-1-84101-64-6 This book is subtitled 50 easy-to-use Bible based lesson plans for...
Reviews
This article is for paying subscribers Reviews
Both of the reviewers in this issue have urged us, as professionals involved in RE, to make time for our own reading, going beyond texts we are obliged to read to explore those that provoke us to think more widely and...
Editorial
This article is for paying subscribers Bill and Lat’s Excellent Adventure
Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure is a 1989 American science fiction comedy buddy film in which a pair of wild young men meet characters from history with, as they say, ‘hilarious results’. Switching contexts,...
For the classroom 11-16
This article is for paying subscribers Opposites and similars: a 14-word thinking skills structure for assessing conceptual clarity in RE
This strategy is perfect for exploring the ‘big concepts’ in RE GCSE or Scottish examinations, and also usable with much younger learners. The idea is derived from a strategy used by personal construct...
For the classroom 7-14
This article is for paying subscribers Big question: what is prayer like?
Read and discuss Anne Lewin’s poem with pupils. Many young people form the idea that prayer is like going shopping with a list: you ask God for things, and if they are in stock, you may be lucky enough to get them....
For the staffroom
This article is for paying subscribers Philosophy as a frame of reference for RE
Yonah Matemba (YM), RE teacher trainer at the University of the West of Scotland, addresses a big issue in the subject in an interview with the Editor, Lat Blaylock (LB)
Editorial
This article is for paying subscribers What size of question would you like?
My excellent former colleague at RE Today, infant teacher Paul Newbould, showed me how to help 6-year-olds to see that RE is about big ideas and big questions. He asked his class to think about a red plastic chair he was...
Editorial
This article is for paying subscribers Scriptures: wisdom for all?
Are the scriptures of different religions just for the members of each religion, or are they in some sense for humanity in total? The question gets near the heart of RE’s purposes. Many PhDs have been written by those...
Instant RE
This article is for paying subscribers Clayton Fountain
Murderer to monk
Instant RE
This article is for paying subscribers Satan’s dozen
12 ideas about the Devil for classroom thinking
For the classroom 11-16
This article is for paying subscribers Evil for real The Charlie Hebdo murders
One year ago, our media was dominated by news on attacks on cartoonists and magazine publishers in Paris. As the anniversary of this event is noted, teachers of RE will be asked questions, again, about Islam and terror....
For the classroom 11-16
This article is for paying subscribers Screwtape for today An old devil’s tips for tempting teenagers
In 1942, C.S. Lewis, an Oxford don, published a book which was to become a classic of popular theology, The Screwtape Letters. ‘I have no intention,’ said Lewis, ‘of explaining how the correspondence which I now...
Editorial
This article is for paying subscribers Would you like to be a glory, a jest or a riddle?
Alexander Pope’s ‘Essay on Man’ (1734) is a brilliant reflection on what it means to be human: Know then thyself, presume not God to scan The proper study of Mankind is Man. Placed on this isthmus of a middle...
For the classroom 7-14
This article is for paying subscribers Three stories of animals and religion – and what to do with them
Story is a key way in which religions communicate attitudes, virtues and ideas. So it is unsurprising that the great religions all tell stories with animals in them. Retell and work with these kinds of story in...
Editorial
This article is for paying subscribers Religion: all in the mind?
The opening sentence of my favourite Buddhist scripture, the Dhammapada, says: ‘All that we are is the result of what we have thought: we are formed and moulded by our thoughts.’ The emphasis on the place of the...
Editorial
This article is for paying subscribers A dog in a dog collar?
While we were preparing this issue I came across the story of a dog in a dog collar. A chaplain who every week visited a home for people living with dementia told how he made no contribution until one day from...
Events and resources 5-14
This article is for paying subscribers New RE programmes from the BBC for 5–7s and 11–14s
A BBC spokesperson said: ‘We have commissioned this new RE content to address a gap in our current teacher resource provision, but also [after] listening to teachers’ feedback about the type of resources they need to...
For the staffroom
This article is for paying subscribers Ten ways governors can help RE
Lat Blaylock, Editor of REtoday, writes here an article that you might like to copy to your governors. If governors want better RE in their school, then here are ten questions to think about at school leadership level....
Policy pages
This article is for paying subscribers What does the new Ofsted framework mean for RE? And should we weep or rejoice?
I wrote this short piece after a talk from the brilliant Mary Myatt about the new inspection framework. See what you think. The new Ofsted framework will use, from this year, three key ideas about the curriculum,...
Instant RE
This article is for paying subscribers The North Wind and the Sun: a fable of Aesop
Lat Blaylock The North Wind boasted of great strength. The Sun argued that there was great power in gentleness. Their argument raged. The North Wind was wild, and on the attack: ‘You, Sun, you are nothing but a great...
Instant RE
This article is for paying subscribers The RE GCSE four-piece jigsaw of success
One reason teachers of RE are struggling with the new GCSE specifications is because the longer essay-style answers required of students are taxing the skills students have gained in putting together their thoughts in...
Editorial
This article is for paying subscribers Take a stand. Defend RE. Defend religion and belief
Pope Francis spoke recently about: … the contradiction of those who want to defend Christianity in the West, and, on the other hand, are against refugees and other religions … The sickness or, you can say the sin,...
Editorial
This article is for paying subscribers Worldviews
Worldviews, said the recent English Commission on RE, are ubiquitous. Everyone has one, and like a thumbprint they all look very similar but are actually unique. Everyone sees the world from where they stand, and so we...
For the classroom 7-16
This article is for paying subscribers ‘Here I stand. I can do nothing else.’
REtoday Editor Lat Blaylock suggests that Martin Luther’s anniversary might prompt reflection in RE classrooms. Teachers are invited to send in pupils’ work on this theme. Pupils are invited to express their...
Editorial
This article is for paying subscribers Have we seen the best of religion?
Matthew Arnold (1822–88), poet, headmaster of Rugby and essayist, gave this idea to the educational world. Perhaps his best-known book is Culture and Anarchy (1869), in which he argues for the role of reading ‘the...
Theory and practice
This article is for paying subscribers State of the nation?
In writing this article, I wanted to try to sum up my – certainly personal – perspective on the recent history of RE in England. It is not always easy for teachers working in classrooms to observe and integrate...
Editorial
This article is for paying subscribers Faith in science? Faith in God?
Which subject of the curriculum does these kinds of things and sets these kinds of purposes and intentions? • The learning provides the foundations for understanding the world. • Pupils seek answers to questions...
Editorial
This article is for paying subscribers Kierkegaard’s questions
‘Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.’ Soren Kierkegaard, Danish existentialist philosopher, 1813–1855. If philosophers talked like that more often, would they be more popular? I...
Editorial
This article is for paying subscribers Values and RE
In the USA, it is impossible to get elected without praising religion. But in the UK, as the election is showing us, you are pretty well electorally doomed if you admit to being religious. Media crucifixion is a painful...
For the staffroom 11-16
This article is for paying subscribers Book review – Visiting Faiths
Produced by the Faith Encounter Programme, Consultant Ruth Tetlow, 60-minute DVD of Faith Guides from Birmingham, £15.00 inc VAT, p&p. Order from [email protected] com. Films can be viewed online at www....
Editorial
This article is for paying subscribers Sing your own song
Everybody sang. The original musical instrument is the human voice.
Editorial
Wisdom or vision?
Welcome to this issue of REtoday. The theme is wisdom. Scriptures from many traditions can be seen as collections of wisdom passed down the centuries, and if RE has an offer to pupils beyond the merely academic, then...