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Brooke J (2014)  The RE Teacher’s Survival Guide: A practical guide to teaching RE in primary schools Abingdon: Bible Reading Fellowship

ISBN 978 0 85746 220 6  £6.99

(Covers the basics although the section on Assessment is already dated)

David Hampshire has drafted two documents to illustrate how Christmas and Easter might be taught in a way that supports progression
Christmas Y1 – Y6 Objectives
Easter Y1-9 Objectives

Philosophy 4 Children: creating a community of enquiry from efpawson


Teaching Judaism: Some Common Misconceptions
by David Hampshire

Judaism: the Essentials by David Hampshire

Jim’s Journey

Gill Tewkesbury won the Hockerill / NATRE prize for innovate teaching in RE for 2014 for her work in primary school. She has kindly shared her Scheme of Work, the details of which are from the Hockerill website

This SOW follows the life of Jim, an 18 year old student who has just finished his A-levels and is planning to work as a Gap year student for a charity in Africa. Each week Jim sends a letter, e-mail or text to the class telling the children what he is doing as well as asking for help and advice. The children follow Jim on his journey as he learns more about the Christian faith. The materials have also been developed to work alongside a geography topic, namely Africa. The materials draw together the Key Stage 2 “Beliefs in Action in the World”, “Sacred Writings” and the “Inspirational People”, parts of the previous curriculum supported by Devon and Exeter Diocese and is easily transferrable to the new scheme looking at “How do we make moral choices?” (Beliefs in Action) and “How should we live?”. It is currently being used for Year 4 children but can be adapted easily for other year groups

The judges commented that this is a creative, innovative way of opening up and applying Christian belief and teaching. The entry makes excellent use of following fictional 18 year old Jim on his Gap year journey and showed very deep learning from religion. Uganda is chosen because there is an excellent link with a local Barnstaple charity working there. In short this entry ticked all the boxes for the judges including transferability to other schools and adaptability to other religions.


ICT in the RE Classroom
: An Introduction by Ian Hartley


Making RE Memorable, Meaningful and Motivating:

This year Gill Tewkesbury   undertook some funded research as a Farmington Fellow exploring how RE can be memorable, meaningful and motivating.

She concluded that the using the following approaches can help:

  • Through the use of weekly recaps, varied stimuli and experiences.
  • Through opportunities for the children to engage with deep concepts, such as prayer and life after death and starting to apply their thinking to their own contexts.
  • Through the chance to question people of faith and hear ideas they had never encountered, stretch their knowledge and use of new vocabulary.
  • Through use of thinking skills
  • Through collaboration, creating a classroom community where learning is at the heart.
  • Through starting to consider their own role in the learning process and looking for how to contribute to the planning.

RE: Memorable, Meaningful, Motivating… a methodology! her Farmington Fellowship Report 2014-2015 can be read here