Why RE (RVE) is relevant throughout our lives: new webinar for 14- to 16-year-old learners

Core RE webinar

The St Giles’ Centre is pleased to offer teachers and learners a new thought-provoking webinar designed to promote discussion and subject interest in statutory RE (RVE) lessons. The webinar has been created for the St Giles’ Centre by Dr Greg Barker and is part of a wider resource project to support RE (RVE) and Religious Studies at key stages 4 and 5.

This latest pre-recorded webinar resource shows how learning about religion, beliefs and values and a variety of ethical theories can be really valuable to learners throughout their lives, whatever path they follow. Therefore, RE lessons (which in the future will be called Religion, Values and Ethics lessons) are not only promoted as vital, but also interesting and worthwhile.

Watch a short 8-minute excerpt of this resource on our webinar page. Wrexham teachers can contact us for the link to the full-length video (28 minutes).

Welsh Government consultation on guidance for Religion, Values and Ethics now open

On Friday, 21 May 2021, the Welsh Government’s public consultation on the draft Religion, Values and Ethics (RVE) guidance opened. Everyone who has an interest in Religious Education (now renamed Religion, Values and Ethics) is being encouraged to engage with the consultation and to submit their responses.

The consultation forms an important part of the final stages of an extensive co-construction process intended to create additional support for schools, settings and SACREs with regard to Religion, Values and Ethics.

The St Giles’ Centre has put together a short 20-minute video which summarises what is in the Religion, Values and Ethic’s guidance and why it is there. You can access the video here. You can access the link to the consultation here.

If you are a practitioner working in Wrexham and would like to share your views directly with the St Giles’, please contact us and we will help your voice to be heard.

The deadline for consultation responses is: 16 July, 2021.

Celebrating the Welsh Bible translators: a special service for schools

St Asaph Translators Service for Schools

The Diocese of St Asaph has released a special bilingual service for schools to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the translation of the Bible into Welsh, an achievement that has had such a significant impact for society and culture in Wales.

The film makes many natural links with local place (cynefin). Seven of the eight translators came from the Diocese of St Asaph, and learners from local church schools offer key contributions to the film, alongside Bishop Gregory and the Very Revd Nigel Williams, among others.

Although structured as a ‘service’ (36 minutes in length), there are helpful section breaks that allow schools to incorporate specific aspects of the film into broader teaching and learning activities for RE (RVE) in the Humanities.

You can access the film here.

Wrexham SACRE response: Qualifications Wales Consultation

Thank you to all of you who shared with us views about the future of qualifications in Wales. Your voice matters and the St Giles’ Centre is committed to sharing Wrexham experiences and opinions at local and national levels.

You may be interested to read the Wrexham SACRE response to the recent Qualifications Wales consultation here. The consultation focused on three main questions:

  1. How far do you agree or disagree with our proposals to review and reform GCSEs in Business, Geography, History and Religious Studies?
  2. How far do you agree or disagree with our proposal to create a new GCSE in Social Studies, if feasible?
  3. How far do you agree or disagree with our proposal to create a new integrated GCSE in Humanities, if feasible?

The next stage in the process of developing qualifications for the future in Wales is the designing of the qualifications themselves. You can find the timeline here.

More learner webinars to support GCSE and A-level Religious Studies!

Learners and teachers in Wrexham now have access to another set of pre-recorded webinar material, led by Dr Greg Barker and provided by the St Giles’ Centre.

In this latest suite of learner resources, the focus is on:

  • GCSE Religious Studies Unit 2 (Part 1 – general issues, part a questions and key terms, sources of wisdom and part b questions. Part 2 – Influence of religion and part c questions. Evaluative d questions);
  • AS-level content and AO1 / AO2 exercises (Otto’s Concept of the Numinous, Stirner’s Ethical Egoism);
  • A2 content and AO1 / AO2 exercises (Ayer’s Criticisms of Religious Language, Finnis’s Views of Natural Law);
  • AS / A2 AO1 and AO2 assessment qualities overview.

All these materials are in response to the live teacher webinars hosted by the St Giles’ Centre in February 2021 and are available until 30 September 2021.

Find out more about our learner webinars series here.

Hate Hurts Wales Campaign

The Welsh Government has recently launched a social media campaign against hate crime called ‘Hate Hurts Wales’.

The campaign material includes five very short video clips portraying hate crime relating to:

• Religion
• Race
• Sexual orientation
• Disability
• Transgender

There is also a British Sign Language general video clip.

Teachers and schools may find some of this material helpful as a stimulus for aspects of religious education such as prejudice and discrimination, for example.

You can access the campaign materials here.

Learner webinars for GCSE Religious Studies (Unit 1)

News for teachers in Wrexham! Over two hours of pre-recorded webinar material is now available for GCSE learners. Led by Dr Greg Barker and provided by the St Giles’ Centre, the Religious Studies webinars focus on skills and content relevant to Unit 1.

  • Part 1 (approx. 1 hour) can be used in two parts and includes: (1) general revision issues, part (a) questions and the importance of key terms for all questions; (2) sources of wisdom and part (b) questions.
  • Part 2 (approx. 1 hour) can also be used in two parts and includes: (1) influence of religion, part (c) questions; (2) Evaluative (d) questions and revision insights.

Unit 2 webinar material for learners in Wrexham will be available very soon. Both the Unit 1 and Units 2 resources can be accessed until 30 September 2021. The learner webinars complement the teachers’ professional learning webinar for GCSE that was delivered at the beginning of February this year.

The St Giles’ Centre hopes that these webinars will be helpful to both teachers and learners during this very challenging time.

Deadline approaches for Qualifications Wales consultation

The deadline for submitting your response to the Qualifications Wales consultation is 5pm, 9 April 2021. In this blog item, we revisit the main purpose of the consultation and raise some important questions to think about.

Purpose of the consultation

The consultation forms part of a process to ensure that GCSE qualifications in Wales are fit for purpose within the new Curriculum for Wales context.

This guides the three consultation questions, which are:

  1. How far do you agree or disagree with our proposals to review and reform GCSEs in Business, Geography, History and Religious Studies?
  2. How far do you agree or disagree with our proposal to create a new GCSE in Social Studies, if feasible?
  3. How far do you agree or disagree with our proposal to create a new integrated GCSE in Humanities, if feasible?

In responding to these questions, you may find helpful a Qualification Wales webinar recording which raises some of the considerations here.

Some questions to think about

You might also find some of the following questions helpful when considering your responses:

  • Is a review of the current Religious Studies (RS) GCSE required?
  • Would a new name/title for the new RS qualification be appropriate?
  • Is a short-course version of the new RS qualification important/necessary?
  • How will the requirements of the agreed syllabus for RVE be met by this new qualification?
  • How will the requirements of different local approaches i.e. denominational syllabi be met by this new qualification?
  • What might be the unintended consequences of a new social studies GCSE (including the impact on the new RS qualification and the impact on mandatory RVE at KS4)?
  • What might be the unintended consequences of a new Humanities GCSE (including the impact on the new RS qualification and the impact on mandatory RVE at KS4)?

If you want to talk to us about your views and/or want to offer any information to support your local authority’s response (Wrexham), please contact us by 8 April 2021.

Here is the documentation and consultation link.

Religion and non-religious world views in intercultural education seminar

The European Forum of Teachers of RE (EFTRE) is inviting people working in the field of religious education to a free Zoom seminar on ‘dealing with religion and non-religious world views in intercultural education’, which is being held on Friday, 19 March 2021 from 3pm to 7pm.

This is part of the major European ‘Signposts’ project. The original Signposts (edited by Robert Jackson) is a Council of Europe publication focusing on how the study of religions and non-religious world views can contribute to intercultural education in schools in Europe. It provides advice on tackling issues arising from the Council of Europe Recommendation CM/Rec(2008)12 on the dimension of religions and non-religious convictions within intercultural education.

Since its publication, a teacher training module has been developed which builds on the key elements of the publication in a practical and engaging way and this seminar opportunity offers an introduction to that module.

Both the Signposts publication and the teacher training module can be downloaded from the ‘What’s happening in Europe?’ section of our ‘Curriculum matters’ webpage.

If any teachers in Wrexham are interested in attending this event, please contact us for the Zoom details. Please note: the Zoom venue can only accommodate a maximum of 100 participants, so priority will be given to the first 100 people who log in.

Bill ‘made in Wales for Wales’: Curriculum and Assessment (Wales) Bill approved by Senedd

Last night the Curriculum and Assessment (Wales) Bill was approved by the Senedd with 32 votes in favour, 18 votes against, and one abstention.

You can watch here the presentation of the Bill to the Senedd by the Minister for Education, Kirsty Williams, and other Members of the Senedd speaking for and against the Bill – Laura Jones, Siân Gwenllian, Lynne Neagle and Gareth Bennett. (The relevant section in the recording is 4hrs 53mins – 5hrs 19mins.)

Read our previous blog news reports, which have documented the progress of this Bill through the Senedd and its implications for Religion, values and ethics (RVE) as well as schools of a religious character.

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