For the classroom

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.

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...

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...

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.

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.

Shannon Clemo, Rhiannon Chandler and Gemma Hathaway teach RE in Coventry. Their department prioritises justice. Could or should you do the same?

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...

Alice Sarbicki teaches in Bristol. Here she describes how using local examples has energised her RE on this topic. Could you do the same?

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...

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...

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.

Are place, space and pilgrimage important in Jewish life? Rabbi Jonathan Romain responds.

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...

Elaine Arundell

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...

KarenTurnerteaches RE in Nottinghamshire. She wanted her pupils to explore values, rules and fairness through a unit of RE. Here is what happened.

‘Anti-racism’ seems to be the trendy phrase of the moment. For some, this is
all rooted in a well-meaning passion for change, and for others it’s a phrase
that brings division, politics and uproar....

God says: ‘I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth’ – Genesis 9:13 (NIV).

In this issue of REtoday, themed around identities, we are very glad to have some thoughtful reflections from transgender Christians, considering what it means to identify differently from your birth gender and to do...

Hannah Tomlinson is Head of RE at Hindley High School, Wigan. Her Year 8 pupils worked on the BBC resource ‘V is for Virtue’ during the lockdown. Evie, 13, one of her young thinkers, wrote this after considering...