It was a busy weekend for over 200 RE teachers, including a number of Edge Hill mentors and former students Paul Jones, Ben Davies, Nichola Rodden and Kerril Casey. They gathered for a weekend of inspiring workshops and seminars led by some of the country’s leading figures in RE, including our own Paul Smalley, and friends of the department such as Lat Blaylock, Alan Brine, Helen Harrison and Emma McVittie. The event was the 11th RE Teacher Weekend organised by the newly merged Culham St. Gabriel’s Trust.
The Weekend focussed on five themes:
- Assessment and Pupil Progress: access and respond to the latest thinking on robust, humane and authentic assessment for learning.
- Classroom and Community: world class ideas for stimulating RE in, through, and beyond the four walls.
- Attitudes, Values, and Impact: prepare to make the case for RE providing key evidence for the new Ofsted framework.
- School Improvement: RE has the potential to be a key driver for school improvement with the focus on higher order thinking, speaking and listening, and the wider achievement indicators for learners.
- Innovative Curriculum: How can we push the boundaries? What are learners saying? What can we learn from other curriculum areas? What would a first class curriculum look and feel like?
Delegates were given the opportunity to attend four of the seminars and a ‘National Updates’ session, as well as having some fine food and wine on the Saturday night. Paul’s seminars were on ‘Risky, Edgy RE’ and ‘Concept Led Lessons’ and he also presented a joint session with Emma McVittie on ‘Cross-curricular Visualisations’ which you can see below.