• Merseyside Buddhism

    Merseyside Buddhism

    Year 2 QTS undergraduates spent a day looking at two forms of Buddhism in Merseyside. Our first visit was to the Triratna Buddhist Centre in Liverpool. Sumnadipa and Janet welcomed us and  offered us a drink. Sumnadipa explained her name meant graciousness and lamp, and she was given it when she was ordained. She reminded…

  • A Hopeful school experience

    A Hopeful school experience

    Year 1 Undergraduates QTS students gained their first experience of school with a day at Hope Academy.  We were met in the foyer by Rachael Critchley (Head of RE), Catha Seddon (Assistant Head of RE) and Jayne Cantwell (A very experienced RE Curriculum Mentor) and given a tour of the school. We met the Head…

  • Back to the Sixth Form

    Back to the Sixth Form

    Final Year Undergraduate QTS students visited Carmel  College to discover how it is different to teach in a Sixth form college.  We were met by Sarah Daley, who is in charge of 10:10 RE, the general RE provision for all students, and a Glenn Skelhorn, who is in charge of the A Level Philosophy and…

  • GCSE Expertise

    GCSE Expertise

    Year 3 undergraduates visited Lowton CE High school to spend a day looking at teaching GCSE. Having battled through the traffic, we were met by Heather Clare, a very experienced RE teacher and Senior Teacher at the school. Our first task was to look at the Specification (From AQA) and decide what religions and themes…

  • Fieldwork in Religion: Going Out and Finding Out

    Fieldwork in Religion: Going Out and Finding Out

    This last week has been very busy for our undergraduate students, who have benefitted from meeting and engaging with local faith communities. Year 2 Ethnography students are currently engaged in their own fieldwork projects, exploring a range of topics including witchcraft, perspectives on the after life in a care home, life in a convent, challenges…

  • A Level Experience

    A Level Experience

    Year 3 undergraduate RE with QTS students spent a day at Haslingden High school, looking at how to teach A Level RS in a school with a sixth form.  Ben Wood the Head of RE and the Chair of NATRE welcomed us and offered us pastries and coffee! We then were able to observe a…

  • RE ITT Conference @ Stretford High

    RE ITT Conference @ Stretford High

    For another year the RE PGCE trainees were able to attend the ITT conference at one of our outstanding partnership schools, Stretford High  in Manchester. Trainees were involved in a range of sessions such as developing their teaching persona (led by Faisal Ahmed, Professional Mentor and Head of Humanities/Social Sciences Faculty),  interview hints and tips…

  • “Speaker’s Corner” in Jerusalem during the Second Temple Era

    “Speaker’s Corner” in Jerusalem during the Second Temple Era

    Today, as part of the new “Abrahamic Traditions” module, the first year students from both Secondary Religious Education + QTS and Education and Religion programmes participated in a roleplaying game reenacting different major religious groups that were current during the Second Temple period (roughly around 0 C.E.). The students were stunningly dressed in makeshift costumes…

  • Visit to Tübingen

    This summer I spent around ten days as a visiting lecturer at Centre for Islamic Theology the University of Tübingen, located on the edge of the beautiful and mysterious Black Forest in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. The University of Tübingen, now also known as Eberhard Karls University, was founded in 1477, and has a long-standing…

  • As part of a research project which Francis Farrell has been leading on, we have commissioned this video which shows some of the schools linking work we have been doing. https://youtu.be/8WfDkS6osuI