Articles by Lat Blaylock

Editorial

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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...

Published in: Volume 38, Number 2

Reviews

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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...

Published in: Volume 38, Number 3

Editorial

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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....

Published in: Volume 38, Number 3

For the staffroom

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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

Published in: Volume 38, Number 2

Instant RE

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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...

Published in: Volume 38, Number 2

For the classroom 5-11

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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...

Published in: Volume 38, Number 2

For the classroom 11-16

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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...

Published in: Volume 38, Number 1
Tagged: Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, Climate Change, activist, demonstration

For the staffroom 7-16

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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...

Published in: Volume 32, Number 1
Tagged: Christianity

For the classroom 11-16

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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...

Published in: Volume 32, Number 1

Events and resources

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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...

Published in: Volume 37, Number 3

For the classroom 14-16

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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...

Published in: Volume 37, Number 3
Tagged: RE GCSE

Instant RE

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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...

Published in: Volume 37, Number 2

Editorial

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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...

Published in: Volume 37, Number 3
Tagged: Visions

Opinion

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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...

Published in: Volume 37, Number 2
Tagged: Islam, Hinduism

Editorial

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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?...

Published in: Volume 37, Number 2

Theory and practice

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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...

Published in: Volume 36, Number 1
Tagged: Commission of RE

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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...

Published in: Volume 36, Number 1
Tagged: Christianity, Gospel

For the classroom 5-11

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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....

Published in: Volume 36, Number 1
Tagged: Christianity, Christmas

Events and resources

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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...

Published in: Volume 33, Number 3

Reviews

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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...

Published in: Volume 36, Number 2

Editorial

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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,...

Published in: Volume 32, Number 1

For the classroom 11-16

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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...

Published in: Volume 36, Number 2

For the classroom 7-14

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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....

Published in: Volume 36, Number 2

For the staffroom

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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)

Published in: Volume 33, Number 1
Tagged: Philosophy

Editorial

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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...

Published in: Volume 36, Number 2

Editorial

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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...

Published in: Volume 33, Number 3

Instant RE

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Clayton Fountain

Murderer to monk

Published in: Volume 33, Number 2
Tagged: Christianity

Instant RE

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Satan’s dozen

12 ideas about the Devil for classroom thinking

Published in: Volume 33, Number 2
Tagged: Evil

For the classroom 11-16

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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....

Published in: Volume 33, Number 2
Tagged: Evil, culture

For the classroom 11-16

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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...

Published in: Volume 33, Number 2
Tagged: Christianity, Evil, temptation

Editorial

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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...

Published in: Volume 33, Number 2

For the classroom 7-14

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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...

Published in: Volume 36, Number 3
Tagged: Hinduism, Judaism, Islam

Editorial

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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...

Published in: Volume 34, Number 2

Editorial

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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...

Published in: Volume 36, Number 3

Events and resources 5-14

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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...

Published in: Volume 34, Number 3
Tagged: RE teachers, Religions of the World

For the staffroom

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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....

Published in: Volume 34, Number 3
Tagged: governors, RE teachers

Policy pages

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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,...

Published in: Volume 37, Number 1

Instant RE

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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...

Published in: Volume 34, Number 3

Instant RE

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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...

Published in: Volume 34, Number 3
Tagged: RE GCSE

Editorial

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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,...

Published in: Volume 34, Number 3

Editorial

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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...

Published in: Volume 37, Number 1

For the classroom 7-16

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‘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...

Published in: Volume 35, Number 1
Tagged: Sikhism, Christianity, Reformation, church history, Revolutionaries, Radicals, history, Martin Luther

Editorial

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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...

Published in: Volume 35, Number 1

Theory and practice

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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...

Published in: Volume 35, Number 2
Tagged: history

Editorial

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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...

Published in: Volume 35, Number 2

Editorial

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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...

Published in: Volume 33, Number 1

Editorial

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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...

Published in: Volume 32, Number 3

For the staffroom 11-16

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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....

Published in: Volume 32, Number 2

Editorial

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Sing your own song

Everybody sang. The original musical instrument is the human voice.

Published in: Volume 34, Number 1
Tagged: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Atheist, Agnostic

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...

Published in: Volume 32, Number 2
Tagged: Christianity