Opinion

It is easy for us educationalists to fetishise books. In and out of our conscious lives, books get everywhere: books for marking, books for research, books to write and – I hope – books for simple recreation. Since...

Stephen T. Asma offers a vision of a role for religion from a perspective of psychological health. ‘The Indian elephant is known sometimes to weep,’ Charles Darwin wrote Charles Darwin in 1872. ‘In the Zoological...

It used to be prophets who had visions. Nowadays, vision means a little less. When we are asked what our ‘vision’ is for RE, we know that we are supposed to say what our intention is when teaching the subject. In...

In this interview Professor Richard Swinburne defends his cumulative argument for the existence of God. We sourced some questions from A-level RS students and are so grateful to Richard for his profound engagement with...

It was amazing in the summer that tens of thousands of young poets from hundreds of schools entered our Spirited Poetry competition. NATRE felt that in order to properly judge the poems we needed a ‘real poet’ on...

Professor Alec Ryrie presented the Gresham Lectures. Here he explores some issues about the representation of religion in the UK for the benefit of teachers of RE.

Kathryn Wright has been appointed CEO for the Culham St Gabriel’s Trust, a major national sponsor and grant maker in the field of RE. We wanted to ask her about her life in RE.

Mark Quinn and Mark Evans September 2019 saw the introduction of Ofsted’s new Education Inspection Framework (EIF). This focuses on the real substance of education: the curriculum. Through its ‘quality of...

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...

I made an uncritical start. I was a third-generation priest. I went to a Church of England primary school before starting at the age of 10 at a religious foundation public school. The given was that everything to do with...

What did broadcaster and atheist Melvyn Bragg mean last year when he announced that it’s a disgrace that children don’t read the Bible anymore? He was, of course, talking about reading the 1611 King James Version! I...

do these words always mean the same? Suhaiymah is in her 20s. A third-generation Pakistani Muslim born in Bradford and schooled in Leeds, she studied History at Cambridge University and Postcolonial Studies at SOAS. She...

Professor David Wilkinson of the University of Durham shares a perspective on the difference between you, dear reader, and a cauliflower.

Geoff Teece, RE teacher trainer at the University of Exeter, explores religions through the accounts they give of the flaws and failings of human nature. Are faiths best understood as prescriptions for ailing...

The Right Reverend James Jones, former Anglican Bishop of Liverpool, explores our moral and spiritual instincts, our need to love and our spontaneous expressions of reverence.

This term’s theme for REtoday is: ‘What’s the problem?’ We interviewed award winning comic Al Murray, who noticed that at least eleven different religions and philosophies say humanity would be better for...

Here Ed Pawson, Assistant to the Chair of NATRE (the National Association of Teachers of RE), explores why religious literacy has never been more important, and how it is being thwarted by a lack of teacher confidence....

RE is often valued by teachers and pupils for the ‘big questions’ it addresses. The place of ‘big ideas’ in the subject goes beyond what each particular religion has to say, and in some ways makes RE a subject...

The Shi’a represent 10–15 per cent of Muslims worldwide. They are the majority in Iraq, Iran and Bahrain, and significant minorities in Afghanistan, India/Pakistan, Lebanon, the north-eastern part of Saudi Arabia,...

Every morning straight after the register is taken, the children are taken out to experience a ‘nature walk’. Gerry Winnall teaches in Bolton. Her fresh idea for wise learning with her 5-6-year-olds will challenge...