Innovative practice in religious education vol 1 1

INNOVATIVE PRACTICE IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

University of Cambridge Faculty of Education Volume 1, No. 1 June 2013

WHO ARE WE? If you're reading this journal and find some of the references strange to you, here's a brief introduction to who we are. Initial Teacher Education in England and Wales takes place, for some, entirely in schools and for others in a variety of ways which combine University and school based training. In the University of Cambridge, at Secondary level, training combines periods in the Faculty with periods of teaching placement in school. Those who qualify obtain both QTS and half of a degree called a Masters in Education. Teachers can return to the Faculty in any one of the three years after qualification to complete their Masters. Their study brings them back together, both online and through Saturday Conferences, into a creative dialogic space where their professional development can flourish.

Many find this really beneficial in helping support them and develop their teaching and learning knowledge in the early years of their career.

Within the University we also support three Farmington scholarships a year, which facilitate professional development for serving RS teachers nationwide. We work with more than 40 training schools in the partnership, scattered right across East Anglia. Between us we train, annually, around 350 trainees in 11 different curriculum subjects, including Religious Studies.

WORDS: Mary Earl

A LETTER FROM THE EDITOR One of the things we agreed, on the mentor panel this Autumn, was that it would be good to have a website which profiled the really innovative teaching and learning ideas which emerge within the partnership, but don't get seen by everyone. It even went onto our development plan!

So, in January, Sahra and I set out to devise both a website profile and then, later, a magazine format, for showcasing some of the innovative practice we see evolving in the partnership. In this way we have begun the process of creating our own learning hub (ahead of our time, we RPE people!).

The website is currently in development and, we hope, will go live in the last part of this year. What we do have for you until then is this magazine. So welcome, one and all, to Volume 1, No 1, of a new magazine called Innovative Practice in Religious Education. The publication reflects a massive amount of creative energy, aspiration, and inspiring practice by a huge range of people in partnership schools. They have all contributed very freely and very generously to it, in the middle of extremely busy lives. Our very grateful thanks go to them all.

To everyone else, please bear in mind that we will soon be looking for pieces for the next edition, so if you have something to share please let us know.

This editorial would be incomplete without giving the most enormous thank you to Hollie Gowan who has singlehandedly designed the entire journal. Hollie ran her own magazine at university and foolishly (!) showed me early on how great her skills are in this area. I cannot thank her enough and we’d be lost without her!

We hope you enjoy this first taste of the richness of RPE (RS/RE) in the partnership. Reading about your energy, commitment and creativity in putting good pedagogical principles into practice makes me feel very privileged to be in this schools partnership.

Thank you all.

Mary Earl.

Editor-in-Chief: Mary Earl Deputy Editor: Sahra Ucar Editorial Designer: Hollie Gowan

CONTENTS MOVING BEYOND THE REACTIONARY

GOING SOLO: TOOLS FOR SELF-ASSESSMENT IN RE

Paddy Winter teaches at Hinchingbrooke School. He has recently become a Head of Research for the school, too. Paddy gives an insight, here, into the thinking behind his cross curricular and cross age group 'what should we teach about the Shoah?’ Project.

Naomi Barker has trained this year in the Faculty, at Comberton Village College and at Chesterton Community College. The SOLO Taxonomy project was inspired by a Geography teacher colleague - and developed by Naomi, in RE, as part of her 1c project.

DIALOGIC TEACHING AND LEARNING

TALKING FOR TALK'S SAKE - OR FOR KNOWLEDGE'S SAKE

Martin Lee has been involved for many years in developing school based research communities linked directly or indirectly to the Faculty. His article looks at an example of working with dialogic thinking theories at KS. His work is also part of both the Cam Star project and will contribute to the data for a forthcoming article on dialogic teaching and learning in RE.

Charlotte Orrock has trained this year at the Faculty, at Hinchingbrooke School and at Jack Hunt School in Peterborough. This article, drawn from her experience of working with P4C during her 1c project, takes an intriguing look at the pros and possible cons of this methodology.

NEW SCHOOL, NEW RULES? Dr. Richard Kueh introduces the exciting new prospect for RE in Cambourne Village College. As the new subject leader his focus is finding a fresh take on religious education and discussing as many perspectives in his quest as possible.

THE LION WITHIN TEACHER INTERVIEW

DEAR MENTORS…

Joy Lyness, 2012 trainee, shares her revealing interview with her mentor Sam Barnes, Head of Department at Sawston Village College, conducted as part of her 1c project. Here Sam gives a really open account of what makes her – and her students – ‘tick’ and shows us what we can all learn from ‘teacher voice’ as part of collaborative professional development.

Our Mentor Agony Aunts address the challenges faced by mentors and share their tips and experiences. In this issue, Andrew Jackson considers how to make mentormentee dialogue fruitful through mutual self-reflection, while Stephanie Walker considers how to deal with trainee difficulties in constructive and positive ways.

INTERNATIONAL ISSUES IN RE; A UK/US PROJECT Laurie Hogen is a recently retired Head of an episcopal school in New York. She has been studying, this year, at the Woolf institute and tells us here about a new and exciting project for international collaboration in setting out principles for best practice in RE with which we can all, as a partnership, be involved next year.

SPIRITED ARTS: WHAT? WHY? HOW? Hannah Warring a trainee from this years PGCE explores her experiences of undertaking a Spirited Arts scheme of work and the benefits of this for both teacher and students.

WHY RPE? Rachel Gleeson from Bottisham Village College shares the story of her school’s new direction for Religious Education. She examines her reasons for choosing RPE instead of another variation and the benefits of this approach.

MOVING BEYOND THE REACTIONARY Should the shoah just be about a shock factor for students? Paddy winter puts forward an interesting take employed by his school On a bright sunny June day in Cambridgeshire, how are you supposed to get 14 year olds to truly understand the Shoah? In the short curriculum time RE has, can we move beyond shock and emotivism to true understanding? Is this possible at any level and if so, how? At Hinchingbrooke School we, as an RE department, engage with the Shoah by contextualising it through an enquiry, ‘Has the Jewish Identity Survived?’, asking students whether the Abrahamic faith of the Torah is the same faith we see today.

Over a 6 week period students engage with Judaism through various theological, philosophical, historical and social lens.

Yet debate has arisen in the department as to whether the scheme is merely an overview, lacking in-depth understanding. And RE is not the only subject with this debate, our History department also finds itself debating how to engage with the Shoah, deciding to engage students in causation questions on the political and social context of Nazi Germany rather than the events of the camps themselves. Both departments intend to contextualise the Shoah in terms of time, place and faith. The question is are we depriving students of a key understanding by not addressing the Shoah itself? Authors such as Primo Levi, Anne Frank and Ellie Wiesel provide ample opportunity to engage with the camps through age appropriate literature so why the hesitation? In short –fear of desensitisation.

Students regularly see violent images (computer games, films, the news) so there is a danger that the reality of the camps are lost if seen through yet another image of dead bodies. By hunting out something shocking enough for students not to be desensitised to, images or narratives become tools designed to illicit emotional reactions. Surely the aim of the classroom is loftier than this and is instead to develop skills, whether in RE or History, enabling students to sophisticatedly engage in the debate, rather than mere exposure to description of the past.

To allow for this sophisticated engagement, it was felt students needed to join the debate how to gain full understanding of the Shoah. The opportunity to do so was offered in a daylong Able, Gifted and Talented conference entitled ‘How should we teach the Shoah?’, as collaboration between RE and History and the Cambridge RE PGCE students. The day began with staff stating the RE perspective, a values education of ‘Never Again’, against the History perspective, a purely objective engagement with the past.

Authors such as Primo Levi, Anne Frank and Ellie Wiesel provide ample opportunity to engage with the camps through age appropriate literature so why the hesitation?

What did students already know and where did they get this information from?

What are the differences in teaching according to RE and History?

Should we engage with controversial issues in the classroom and if so how?

What are approaches which already exist in teaching about the Shoah?

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the models encountered?

Setting up somewhat stereotypical and over simplified perspectives on the debate gave the students the unusual sight of teachers arguing and criticising each other. This was essential as it empowered students, the teachers didn’t already have the answer, the conclusion would require a whole group response. Structuring the day for the students, we asked 5 key questions. To engage with these questions, students had a resource pack and a PGCE supporter who was under strict instructions to facilitate rather than instruct.

The final product of the day was the various groups creation of a scheme of work, in which students could show their own evaluation of the discussion through the questions they create for the scheme. The task served as an empowering tool, encouraging all participants to focus upon the means of understanding the Shoah, removing the possibility of teacher expectation of an emotional reaction from students to the information they were presented with.

Through the 10 proposals for cross curricular schemes of work and accompanying discussion it was clear that 3 groups emerged from the day:

Using this multidisciplinary approach encouraged the students to be conscious of the time, space and place in which arguments were positioned; providing clear evidence of level 7/8 work thus prompting further work within the department focusing on resource provision.

Interestingly the day also raised pedagogical issues over the difference in enquiry construction between RE and History. Students enjoyed setting their own questions for schemes of work, however, as is always the case, what question to set became problematic. The history model provides an easier process for constructing effective enquiry through use of second order concepts, such as change and continuity, cause and effect. When using concepts such as belief, truth, meaning and purpose, as set in the RE Agreed Syllabus, students found they knew what topic to investigate but were unsure as to how to formulate questions on that area. This is an area the department are keen to work on in the future, to see if there are secondary order concepts lurking out there for the RE world.

WORDS: Paddy Winter

Shoah through RE: “Studying the past means studying people, so you have to do it through RE as RE is better at engaging with people than History does.”

Shoah through History: “We don’t get moral about things like Agincourt or the Battle of Hastings. We recognise that they are wrong but why does the Shoah get special treatment?”

Shoah through cross-curricular: “Surely if both subjects are good just use both. Don’t you make things more difficult by only focusing on one? That doesn’t make sense.”

Students, when given the correct range of materials, had been able to consider arguments surrounding the Shoah in great detail without reducing the topic to something purely emotive or horrifying, instead considering how/ whether one really is able to understand a topic so foreign to the students studying it. Promisingly the day also showed student capacity to work in a classroom without walls, not confined to the limits of one discipline but able to draw upon multiple subjects in order to enhance arguments.

Are there any secondary order concepts lurking out there in the RE world?

WHY RELIGION RELIGION, ILOSOPHY AAND PHILOSOPHY ETHICS? What happens when your department needs to go in a whole new direction? Rachel gleeson tells the story of her school and why they chose rpe.

Bottisham Village College is an 11-16 Academy in Cambridgeshire, between Cambridge and Newmarket. The school has 1250 students on roll. The school is fairly monocultural, with students from backgrounds of ‘vaguely religious’, atheist or with no belief.

For some schools it’s RS, for some RE, some RPE - So Why REP? At Bottisham, update at GCSE was bleak for Religious Education from 2008-2009, action was needed. As an NQT I faced teaching no GCSE RE and a group of six students in their final year. Something needed to change - we visited a number of schools in the area and spoke with colleagues at other schools and at Bottisham. It was agreed that Bottisham RE department has a passion for Religious Education, and that we didn’t want to lose that by rebranding ourselves the wrong way for our students. Personally, I held a strong view about losing the ‘Religious/Religion’ element of the subject.

We realised that many of our students did not want to opt for learning about ‘A’ religion at GCSE, so we needed to broaden our approach. With other schools moving or having already moved to RPE, we knew that this would be an essential element of our rebranding. The first step was a move to OCR GCSE RS Philosophy and Applied Ethics. The numbers didn’t soar - but we stayed practical and positive, and were lucky to be supported by a college leadership team who wants all areas of the curriculum to thrive and be outstanding. With a class of 6 we were able to continue. Overwhelmingly, this was followed the next year by a class of 36.

The second step was the rebranding at whole school RE level. We decided to go with our gut and keep RE as an initial, and decided to opt for REP, an ethical and philosophical approach to RE. The strength of this initial is for practitioners who have trained as ‘RE teachers’, but it emphasises that this change is about rigour and not redefining our subject. This led to the need to change our pedagogy, and inspire in RE from the bottom up (having now secured a good GCSE class).

In order to secure engagement we developed a scheme of work called ‘Why REP?’ for use at KS3. The Scheme of Work aims to eliminate the question of ‘Why do we do RE?’, a question which I am convinced stems from parental views of ‘RE in their day’ or a lack of understanding of just how broad our subject is, in terms of both topics and skills. It was important for us to show off the passion for our subject that we have and why it interests us so much, coupled with its importance for everyday life, in response to society and the media.

We have trialled the ‘Why REP?’ scheme of work with both Year 7 and 8, and have now kept it as a permanent feature for Year 7. The course starts by addressing ‘What’s the importance of REP?’ whereby we break down the letters and make sense of what the subject is about. This lesson asks questions as well as answering them, and begins to explore the breadth of RE in today’s curriculum. The Scheme of Work goes on to look closely at other RE related vocabulary that can easily be misused or misunderstood, for example ‘belief’, ‘faith’ or ‘truth’.

Lessons are taught about ‘What is a truth claim?’ and ‘What is evidence?’.

We begin to address ‘big’/philosophy-style questions; students study some of the arguments for the existence of God (Robert Kirkwood’s book provides some great resource ideas for this- for example, The Magical Mystery Tour), and can get creative by considering what would be on their ticket for the journey of life.

This unit of work explores the concept of behaviour how we make decisions and what influences our decisions. Through looking at real life decision making scenarios, students begin to explore ethical principles/ develop their own, and learn the skills of a great A02 GCSE style response.

Our ‘Why REP?’ scheme of work would be useful to ITT’s or NQT’s who might want to strengthen their RE questioning skills, use a number of creative pedagogies, improve literacy skills within RE (including some hermeneutics) and engage in research. The Scheme of Work is lacking in the phenomenological, so we have chosen to follow the Scheme of Work with a more in depth study of the physical practicalities of religious beliefs. Assessment opportunities are provided throughout. The unit also includes a formal assessment called ‘The Truth is Out There’: a research project in which students present arguments for or against a truth claim. This is non-prescriptive; topics studied have included ghosts, horoscopes and UFO’s, God, Near Death Experience and zombies! The focus of the assessment is on RE communication, presentation of arguments, supporting arguments with evidence and using terminology well such as ‘atheist’, ‘agnostic’, ‘theist’, ‘truth’, ‘evidence’, and ‘belief’.

In evaluating the Scheme of Work as a department of specialists and non-specialists, we felt that this Scheme of Work really emphasises what RE should be about. The Scheme of Work is wholly accessible to specialists; some non-specialists, however, felt that some of the ‘peripheral questions’ that students had were more tricky and some training on the types of questions a student might ask in response to a key question, philosophical argument or ethical theory may be of benefit. The Scheme of Work would certainly be adaptable as a starter unit for all Secondary RE departments. As a department, we feel that the Scheme of Work is a sound starting point for developing the right RE ethos that we want as a school: one of tolerance, creativity, subject-rigour, independent learning, social, spiritual, moral development and enquiry.

WORDS: Rachel Gleeson

PHILOSOPHY FOR CHILDREN Charlotte Orrock asks: talk for talk’s sake, or talk for knowledge’s sake?

School context My research took place in a mixed, 11-18 comprehensive school in Peterborough. There are 1716 pupils on roll and in total, 52 different languages are spoken by the students. 53% of students do not speak English as their first language, and the second largest ethnic group after White British (39% against a National Average (NA) of 75%), is Pakistani heritage (33% against a NA of 4%). The Religious Education (RE) department at the school has 3 fulltime specialists, and 4 non-specialists teaching at KS3. RE is compulsory for all students to the end of KS4, and all take a full course Edexcel GCSE

Research rationale Following an initial interest in dialogic teaching, I set up this case study to investigate the impact of ‘Philosophy for Children’ (P4C) on student learning.

P4C has come under criticism recently from John White, who suggests that it focuses too much on students’ acceptance of differing points of view, rather than philosophical content (White, 2012).

I wanted to investigate whether P4C develops skills in building knowledge, or whether it is just about skills in opinion sharing.

The research was based on a social constructivist model of learning which suggests that we build knowledge through our interaction with our sociocultural setting. The case study was set up with a mixed ability Year 7 class using P4C in order to consider what it means to be human.

After an introductory lesson, students had 4 discussion lessons looking at a variety of initial stimuli, followed by an assessment lesson to conclude the scheme of work. Students had ‘Philosophy Journals’ which they completed each lesson. The research took place over 6 weeks in February and March 2013, and used a variety of methods to collect data including questionnaires, pupil product, participant observation and a group interview with a sample of students.

“If we hadn’t had the discussions I would just put what I’d learnt at Mosque. .”

Case study analysis Two main observations can be summarised from my analysis of the data collected during the research.

First, there was an emphasis throughout the data on finding out about other religions, more specifically the differences between religions. Students seemed to take these religious perspectives as authoritative and attached value to learning more about them: “You can see like, in Christianity what they thought…and like in Islam, what we think would happen”. However there was a distinct lack of critical engagement with these beliefs. This could have been partly influenced by the particular school setting for this research, where inclusion and acceptance of diverse religious beliefs is the clear and articulated ethos. However, there was also a focus in the data on students ‘sharing ideas’, ‘voicing their opinions’ and ‘expressing their feelings’. One student commented: “It don’t [sic] matter if you’re right or wrong”. It could be argued that developing an understanding of different religious perspectives is developing substantive knowledge: one student noted, “If we hadn’t had the discussions I would just put what I’d learnt at Mosque”.

However, the question is, does being able to describe different opinions about a concept equate to developing an understanding of it?

Second, there was evidence that students were coming up with new suggestions in the discussions.

Students commented: “the questions that we ask each other give you more ideas”; “if you join the ideas together you get new ideas from that”. Whilst on the surface this may appear to suggest that students are building new knowledge, again the emphasis is on ideas, with little focus on reaching conclusions or arriving at any ‘truth’. Interestingly, students expressed frustration when similar ideas were repeated and reinforced between members of the group, saying that it was ‘wasting time’ when they wanted to find out about the differences between opinions. Together with a continued emphasis on reporting opinions in the final assessment, this data suggests that whilst the sessions have encouraged students to ask questions, there has been little attempt to construct reasoned answers to those questions.

Conclusion From this research, albeit on a small scale, it is clear that P4C developed discussion and social skills for students, including speaking and listening, working together and showing respect for each other. What is less clear however, is the extent to which it developed the substantive content element of learning for students. By sharing their opinions and values, students were able to gain an understanding of different perspectives, which is of value in itself, but there was very little critical engagement with these perspectives.

The sociocultural context in a P4C discussion is both the initial stimulus material and the participants themselves. If the stimulus material is not presented as an authority*, then it becomes overshadowed by participants, and the ensuing discussion results in largely opinion sharing. If, however, it was presented as an authoritative ‘voice’ within the discussion, students would be able to reason from it, and use it to critique individual perspectives, thus engaging in genuine discourse. Through this critical engagement, students would be able to develop and reformulate their understanding of substantive concepts, thus building knowledge.

As P4C has evolved since Lipman first developed it in 1970s, the initial stimulus material used now tends to be any source which sparks discussion: a story, a picture, or a poem. This was indeed the case for this research where sources relating to the overall enquiry question for the lesson were simply presented to the students in order to stimulate their questions. However, I would suggest that setting up the enquiry more purposefully in order to create an authoritative social context with which students can critically engage would be of more benefit to student learning, continuing to develop their discussion skills, but also developing their understanding of substantive concepts. As a pedagogical tool P4C has great potential to benefit student learning but, in order to maximise that benefit, I would advise that teachers pay careful attention to both how they choose and how they present the initial stimulus material.

WORDS: Charlotte Orrock Note on the use of the word ‘authority’ in this context.

References

Wegerif, R. (2011). Towards a dialogic theory of how children learn to think. Thinking Skills and Creativity 6, 179-190.

White, J. (2012). Philosophy in Primary Schools? Journal of Philosophy of Education. 46(3), 449-460.

DIALOGUE WITH INFINITE OTHER Martin Lee experiments with multi-link discussion and presents his findings here.

Circle time

Multi-link discussion

This is a summary of a short case study into discussion work undertaken at Presdales School with a Y8 class working with the key question ‘what can we learn from Hinduism about relating to the transcendent?’ For some time, I have used a community of enquiry approach to discussion work, derived from Matthew Lipman, and popularised in the UK as ‘philosophy for children’ (P4C).

A chance encounter with Will Ord (one of P4C’s trainers and previously a Head of RE) gave me the idea of using ‘multi-link’ cubes to represent a line of enquiry in concrete, physical terms. Each student, at the start of the discussion, has four cubes, colour-coded to represent different types of contribution, eg ‘agree’, ‘disagree’, ‘big idea’ and ‘question’.

Students are used to (and enjoy) sitting in a circle (they call it “circle time”) and using a spoken formula to refer to previous contributors by name and build on their ideas. Teacher input is minimal. However, I have some concerns about whether the approach is effective in terms of helping students really develop their own and others' thinking. Whilst such ‘circle time’ seems to meet some of Alexander’s (2008) five principles of classroom talk (namely ‘collective’, ‘reciprocal’ and ‘supportive’), I was unsure about the extent to which such an approach developed ‘cumulative’ and ‘purposeful’ talk.

They then literally build on each other’s ideas, adding their cube to the previous one as a visual representation of the line of enquiry. A basic questionnaire after I first used this approach revealed, as I suspected, that students loved agreeing, but were much more reluctant to use the ‘big idea’ cube, which required them to contribute a fresh perspective to the discussion. This confirmed my suspicion that P4C had become a safe comfort zone for them, rather than a challenge to develop newer and more critical ways of thinking.

The vertical dimension Rupert Wegerif (2011) distinguishes between ‘horizontal’ thinking/dialogue and ‘vertical’. In P4C, students' talk might contribute to a ‘horizontal’ trajectory of learning, as they get used to what joining a community of practice, such as ours, might involve. However a more critical, ‘vertical’ dimension might be lacking. Students might appear to be learning through discussion work, but in reality simply be sharing opinions and ideas, without necessarily learning anything new about the topic, or even thinking more critically about it.

Drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin’s (1986) idea of the ‘superaddressee’, Wegerif (2012) suggests that “in every dialogue there is a ‘third’ voice and so the call of infinity”.

In essence, this is simply stating that in every dialogue there is a third person perspective, which is important for developing the idea of critical engagement with the dialogue itself. Wegerif suggests that this 'vertical' dimension might be the voice of reason, or the voice of the community of scientists, but not just 'my opinion’.

Each week, my Y8 class had a different narrative from the Hindu tradition from which to learn and so, for them, this ‘vertical’ dimension might be such narratives. But, as soon as they ‘listen’ to the particular story, a new thirdperson perspective emerges, eg a link to other stories previously studied, or another ‘voice’ from the Hindu tradition, or from another tradition, and so on to infinity.

Wegerif (2011) suggests a progression, from dialogue with specific others (eg a community of enquiry), through dialogue with projected cultural voices (which might be the voice of reason, the voice of the scientific community or any of the various Hindu traditions), and onwards to dialogue with the infinite other, where he suggested that a sense of one’s own cultural identity is enhanced by the cultural perspective of another. In my multi-link discussions I was keen to know, not only if the concrete act of linking the blocks would help students build a coherent line of enquiry, but also if the ‘question cube’ would help students learn to problematise ideas and if the ‘big idea’ cube might help them to dialogue with these otherwise absent cultural others.

Although many students said they enjoyed circle time (P4C) more than the multi-link approach, which they found too constraining at times, there was general agreement from both questionnaires and interviews that this second approach did definitely help them structure coherent discussions. In particular, it helped them move from oracy (discussion) to written work, as the structure of the multi-link dialogue actually mimics the students might structure their written work. So, for example, a 'big idea’ cube, followed by an 'evidence’ cube, mirrors the ‘P’ + ‘E’ of the ubiquitous ‘PEE’ paragraph structure to written work (where PEE = point+evidence+explanation).

In the multi-link discussions observed, there was very effective use of the like ‘evidence’ cube to link discussion to text, although some groups struggled to generate sufficient ideas from more complex texts, or else there was a tendency to over simplify ideas from the more accessible narratives.

Going forward

This might involve introducing another coloured superaddressee cube, e.g. a ‘link to Hinduism’ cube.

This then might be further developed with other superaddressee perspectives, such as a ‘link to ideas from other religions’ cube; carry out more research into how students’ understanding of themselves is enhanced by the cultural perspective of others: is this the beginning of real AT2 (learning from religion)?

As I consider how to develop this approach for future use, the following points might be borne in mind: have a bowl of cubes on each table (not just one of each colour for each student).

WORDS: Martin Lee

The students were very specific about removing this particular constraint; consider whether I could give groups some 'talking points’ (Alexander, 2008) as ideas from which to work from instead of expecting students to generate them all; develop more concrete ways for students to dialogue with the text e.g. summarising it before the lesson, or dramatising it, or where one person takes on the ‘role’ of the text and speaks on its behalf; consider how to relate the text to its context in the broader tradition.

Alexander, Robin (2008). Towards doalogic teaching: Rethinking classroom talk (4th ed.). Osgoodby: Dialogos .

Bakhtin, Mikhail. (1986). Speech genres and other late essays. Austin: University of Texas .

Wegerif, Rupert (2011). Towards a dialogic theory of how children learn to think. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 6(3), 179 – 190 .

Wegerif, Rupert (2012). In a talk given at the Virtual Tech de Monterrey, Rupert Wegerif explains by the'Infinite Other', 18th July 2012. see http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGtes2X_ucw

References

DEAR MENTORS… What do you do when the transition between placements presents issues in trainee progression? Stephanie Walker shares the strategies she put in place for her trainee.

This year my trainee (Alex) experienced some difficulties during the transition period from PP1-PP2. Coaching and mentoring them during this time was a learning curve for me as a mentor and our experience may be of use to future trainees and mentors.

The issue Alex experienced was regarding lesson planning. He is extremely intelligent and was very successful in their university career achieving a first class degree. Alex is a self-confessed perfectionist who always strives to do their best and impress.

Starting the course Alex felt that they were uninformed regarding the theory of teaching and planning and consequently focused their efforts on the academic side of the course. Due to this insecurity and the challenging nature of some of the PP1 classes, Alex was intimidated by the prospect of teaching and subsequently spent hours and hours planning each lesson in the attempt to achieve the perfect 3-part lesson!

This need to achieve perfection in every lesson became an unachievable expectation that hindered Alex’s ability to plan confidently and independently during PP2. It became apparent that Alex struggled to manage the time they spent on planning and needed support to manage their planning and workload. What Alex struggled to overcome was the fact that a 50 minute lesson doesn’t need 8 hours of planning, he needed to embrace the uncomfortable truth we all face as teachers that perfection doesn’t exist!

Have you tried?

In a mentor meeting we negotiated some survival tactics and guidelines to manage time spent on planning. Initially Alex. found it hard to follow these guidelines as they believed that condensing planning time led to poor lessons and a loss of control. Alex. struggled to see the flip side to their obsession with perfection, namely the inability to manage their work load and sustain a healthy work life balance. The following guidelines were agreed: No work after a certain time. E.g. 7pm; one day off a week; use school resources when appropriate; make templates of tasks, PowerPoint’s and differentiated help sheets that can be adapted and used for any topic/ KS; spending no longer planning a lesson than it takes to deliver and to move from teacher led lessons to pupil.

Alex whilst teaching focused on the next task or resource and saw lessons as a sequence of activities.

This often meant that the experience of teaching was lost and they were unable to react to what was occurring in the class room. Alex really started to progress and flourish when they adopted a more holistic approach to teaching and planning, i.e. keeping the objectives and learning at the forefront of their mind. .

WORDS: Stephanie Walker

“…the hardest thing I have had to do is to let go, and to not hide behind worksheets.

The easiest thing I have learnt is how rewarding it is to actually be in the classroom, experiencing learning taking place.”

Alex (Trainee)

GOING SOLO What are the benefits of using the solo taxonomy in the religious, philosophy and ethics classroom?

Naomi Barker explores the possibilities.

How can we quantify the complexity of students’ thoughts in Religious Education, Philosophy and Ethics (RPE) at school? It was in seeking to answer this question that I came upon the Structure of Observed Learning Outcome (SOLO) Taxonomy and decided to trial its use in the RPE classroom.

Developed by Biggs and Collis (1982), they propose it is: ‌the only instrument available for assessing quality retrospectively in an objective and systematic way that is also easily understandable by both teacher and student. For this reason, the Taxonomy may be used as an instructional as well as an evaluative tool (1982, p.xi).

Biggs and Collis divide their SOLO taxonomy into five levels: prestructural, unistructural, multistructural, relational and extended abstract. The strongest attempt thus far to bring SOLO in to both Primary and Secondary schools has been by Hook and Mills (2011): originally developed in New Zealand it is starting to now be trialled at schools in the United Kingdom.

They particularly focus on the importance of sharing the SOLO taxonomy with students through the use of symbols (see table 1) which can also be re-created in dialogue through hand signals (Hook and Mills, 2011:12). These signals can be used by both students and teachers throughout lessons to represent a SOLO level.

School context and case study content: My study on the SOLO Taxonomy was conducted whilst on my teaching training year at a mixed gender academy state school in Cambridgeshire, hosting year groups 7-11. The school is comprised of around 1000 pupils, with the proportion of students eligible for free school meals close to the national average. The school has a very diverse background of students, with a higher than average number of ethnic minority students with a significant minority arriving at points throughout the year with very little English

Findings: My research suggested that SOLO can have positive implications in the RPE classroom, firstly by creating a shared dialogue between students and teachers which allowed pupils to understand how to be ‘successful’ in RPE. Students evidently became excited by the subject and the SOLO which utilised a language that could understand. For example, one student wrote ‘I think the SOLO maps and SOLO levels are great because I now know what I have to do to get a good level and the maps also helped’, a thought repeated by Victoria* in a second interview (I2) where she described how she now knows ‘what I have to do and it’s easier to think’. Hook and Mills posit SOLO as an opportunity to develop a “common understanding and language of learning” between students and teachers (2011:5): I would suggest that not only has their point been evidenced as valid by this research but it has highlighted what a positive influence this can have in RPE. If students ‘know where they are going in their learning and what counts as quality work’ (Wiliam, 2011:69) then they are more likely to achieve high level thinking: understanding leads to self-assessment and thus progress. As one student wrote, ‘we should keep using SOLO because it helps us reach a target and assess ourselves.’

The students also suggested that the SOLO Taxonomy can be successfully utilised for differentiation purposes in the RPE classroom. Victoria and Ewan commented on the benefits of clearly differentiated learning objectives (I1), repeated later by four of the five students (I2).

For example, Abdul says, ‘It’s about having my own learning objective…it tells me what level I’m aiming for’ (I2) echoed by other students in the class. It was also clear that students’ confidence in RPE improved as the lessons progressed; for example, students chose to swap their SOLO sheets for a higher level.

I would argue that this correlates with having a shared success criteria: the latter meant further ‘ownership’ for pupils on how to achieve an end SOLO target which led to greater ‘motivation to learn’ (Puntambekar and Hubscher, 2005:4).

I would suggest that the correlation between having a shared success criteria leading to greater self-efficacy was further evidenced by the students frequently using the SOLO hand symbols. Utilising Bruner’s theory (Bentham, 2002:16), I would argue that these provided representation for the students: as they traversed the modes of this they gradually became empowered by the skills required and experienced cognitive development.

The physical experience of the hand gestures (the enactive stage) was represented as iconic through the symbols. By frequently utilising these students gradually moved into the symbolic mode storing the code they represented through language exemplified in class contributions and writing. For example, one student wrote ‘I can link my ideas’ which I would suggest is illustrative of its origins in the relational hand gesture.

This increased confidence and motivation seems to be a process the students were aware of: Ewan and Tom both said that they had become more confident (I2) echoed in students written feedback where there is a focus on their achievement and bettering of targets: that they ‘tried really hard’ or ‘worked really hard and enjoyed RE more’.

The students seemed to evidence ‘greater self-efficacy’ exemplifying Bandura’s theory that “guided enactive mastery…create and strengthen efficacy beliefs” (1997:80).

From my experience the SOLO taxonomy has provided one possible solution to this question. In generating a success criteria that students could understand, a shared dialogue was constructed between teacher and pupils thus allowing students to self-assess and monitor progress towards a negotiated, differentiated end goal which in turn led to improved motivation and increased self-efficacy.

The use of hand-signalling further aided this process.

The terms for success were now tangible and as students began to internalise the thinking functions required of their SOLO level target, their ‘locus of control’ (Howe, 1999:116) altered resulting in an improved engagement with the subject and a motivation to reach their target level. As Cheyne and Tarulli (2005:136) describe, “all of this is organised around the issue of control, which, through, ontogeneises becomes transformed from that of an external agent over a subordinate to one of an internal agent over self”.

I would suggest that these hand signals also have potential implications for making RPE more accessible for students with English as an additional language, as a means to overcome the language barrier and to provide a visual and sensory aid to understanding what is required in RPE. It is important to state that my research was on a very small scale and thus all its conclusions can only be posited tentatively: a much larger sample and longer time period would be required to establish findings more authoritatively.

However, it is clear that the SOLO Taxonomy and its hand signals can hold exciting possibilities for improving teaching and learning in the RPE classrooms.

WORDS: Naomi Barker

The data indicates that students felt they had improved the complexity of their thoughts and accomplished in RE: for example, one individual writes that it went well because ‘I could write what I thought and link my idea ideas and tell how it affects people today’. The physical experience of the hand gestures (the enactive stage) was represented as iconic through the symbols. By frequently utilising these students gradually moved into the symbolic mode storing the code they represented through language exemplified in class contributions and writing. For example, one student wrote ‘I can link my ideas’ which I would suggest is illustrative of its origins in the relational hand gesture.

Once this process has occurred the students will be equipped with an understanding of what it means to improve the quality of their thinking and thus to move towards their end SOLO target. This would further explain the improved self-efficacy which arose: in line with Piaget’s discovery theory (Bentham, 2002:14), students would become aware of the discrepancy between their existing schemas and these new possibilities and would be internally motivated to learn new schemas as a means to succeed and to make further sense of the new language they had acquired.

Implications for RPE: How do we create a success criteria in RPE that the students will understand and which will in turn provide a shared discourse for learning in the classroom?

*All names have been changed for ethical reasons.

References (I1) Interview one. Conducted after the first SOLO Taxonomy lesson.

(I2) Interview two. Conducted after the sixth (and final) SOLO Taxonomy lesson.

Bandura. Albert. (1997). Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control. New York: W.H. Freeman and Company.

Bentham. Susan. (2002). Psychology and Education. Hove: Routledge.

Hook, Pam. Mills, Julie. (2011). SOLO taxonomy: A Guide for schools. Laughton: Essential Resources Educational Publishers Limited.

Puntambekar, Sadhana. Hubscher, Roland. (2005). Tools for Scaffolding Students in a Complex Learning Environment: What Have we Gained and What Have We Missed?

Educational Psychologist. 40(1), 1-12.

Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner, E. Souberman (Eds.). London: Harvard University Press.

Wiliam. Dylan. (2011). Embedded Formative Assessment.

Bloomington: Solution Tree Press.

SPIRITED ARTS: WHAT? WHY? HOW? Hannah Warring presents the wonderful results of a spirited arts scheme of work.

Spirited Arts is an annual competition run by NATRE ‘to link creativity with Religious Education for Schools’. It is open to all pupils aged 4-19 and each school can submit 10 entries. There are 5 categories to choose from each year and schools and pupils are free to choose which medium or mediums they use to create their art. Each piece of art must be accompanied by an explanation of what it is and what it shows and the NATRE website provides sentence starters to inspire and guide pupils.

So now you know a little about it, you’re probably wondering how and more importantly why you should you encourage your pupils to enter? Well wonder no longer, here I share my experience of entering Spirited Arts and why I think it is a great idea.

I had a year 8 group who were a little rowdy, to put it bluntly. They are all high achieving and none are what you might call ‘naughty’ but as a group they are loud, or as another teacher (who is clearly more subtle than me) put it, they are “very bouncy”. I had already created and implemented a scheme of work using stories with them, which had worked brilliantly and was now looking for another exciting idea to try out.

Spirited Arts was suggested so I looked into it and decided to give it a go.

Our topic for the term was Science and Religion but apart from that I was given free rein; so I decided to adapt the ‘Open Mind’ category and ask my pupils to produce a piece of art which showed whether or not they think Science and Religion are compatible. In short we worked on ideas to do with Science and Religion for 5 lessons (including showing them lots of art), did the main art project for 2 lessons and then wrote about our art in a final lesson.

How did the pupils feel about this? The vast majority really enjoyed it. How do I know this? I gave them a structured journal to complete throughout the project.

The main benefit was increased engagement and concentration but I think lots of pupils also gained confidence. A number of the girls who often didn’t contribute in class would offer ideas and the work produced at the end was brilliant. Even pupils who confessed that they didn’t particularly like art said by the end that they had enjoyed the project, probably due to the change in routine.

I fully advocate encouraging creativity in R.E, not just to increase engagement but also to aid pupils’ achievement.

If you use creativity to communicate knowledge it gives pupils an alternative way to understand and also to show what they understand. One of the EAL pupils in the class showed through a combination of his art, and the writing that accompanied it, that he understood far more than he could explain through literacy skills alone. If like me you use creativity to show pupils own opinions or beliefs you are also fulfilling the AO2 part of the curriculum. And finally if all else fails at least the pupils will like you a bit more for trying to make their lessons interesting (hopefully anyway).

So here is my super spectacular Spirited Arts advice (you can tell it’s the end of the term): Give pupils plenty of time (one pupil was very disappointed that his work which he was “sure would be amazing when it was finished” never actually got finished).

Book an art room for the practical lessons and if you can, bribe an art teacher to help.

Show the pupils examples of art related to the category but also outside of it to inspire them.

Be encouraging especially to those who clearly aren’t the next Holman Hunt.

And finally have fun, if you enjoy it they probably will too.

WORDS: Hannah Warring

Good luck!

Oh and by the way, it’s probably not worth entering this year, my class are convinced one of them is going to win.

TEACHING OUR OWN AND OTHER FAITHS IN SCHOOLS International Issues in Religious Education: a Pilot Program for Schools in the UK and US As a recently “retired” Head of School in New York City, I have been fortunate to spend this academic year taking courses in the Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) at the Woolf Institute in Cambridge. The focus of the coursework has been to consider the historical and present day challenges caused by the interaction of Judaism, Christianity and Islam and the opportunities for dialogue, knowledge and understanding in order to respond to the needs of different populations living together in global, culturally diverse societies. For several years after 9/11 and interacting with families of different faiths, I came to realize that schools needed to have a “toolkit” of best practices in order to teach, with some confidence, about and from different religions.

It is hoped also that the interaction and experiences of the US schools with the UK schools will enrich the dialogue and final product.

The Woolf Institute was not only interested in creating a pilot program but was delighted to team up with Mary Earl of the Faculty of Education at The University of Cambridge and Sue Ward, an advisor and consultant for RE in Cambridgeshire and for SACRE. Along the way Sahra Ucar, a practicing RE teacher and research assistant joined the team as did Mohammed Aziz and Alice Thompson of the Woolf Institute.

The project will be as beneficial to each school according to the interest and passion of each participant to share and learn from others across faiths and countries. I invite teachers who have this interest to contact me at lauriehogen@gmail.com and request the relevant materials. The cost to the participating school is £300 which includes preconference visits (if desired), the Symposium and the Conference and Saturday evening dinner with speaker.

Each participant receives a certificate of participation as well as an expanded vision of religious education, innovative practices and new friendships with colleagues across boundaries of faith and country.

The focus of this pilot program is to identify and share international best practices in teaching RE with a view to providing high quality professional development for schools and teachers in the UK and US. The particular schools selected to participate are secondary (ages 11 to 18) with a Jewish, Christian and Muslim faith foundation as well as some state secular schools. In each case, the school must have an interest in expanding their knowledge in teaching about and from their own faith and that of others.

The project invites participating schools/teachers to complete a questionnaire of reflection on teaching strategies and curricula, to submit a scheme of work and a case study as well as read a few selected articles that represent international research in the area of religious education.

The final product will be a toolkit and report published by the Centre for Public Education of the Woolf Institute to be used in training teachers in faith and non-faith schools in both the UK and US.

WORDS: Laurie Hogen

MENTOR AGONY AUNT There is always a continual dialogue between mentors and trainees. Andrew Jackson explains how his experiences have helped him move forward with mentoring.

Dear Mentors, I write this firstly being aware that I am new to mentoring, and secondly after a conversation with my PP2 mentee about the significance and responsibility we hold as mentors. It is my hope that these few words assist you from my own personal experience of mentoring in the high pressured and equally rewarding environment of a village college in the south of Cambridge.

When I was mentoring most successfully I wasn’t just explaining a ‘to –do list’ of the tasks he had to do but also sharing how you do this successfully so it’s meaningful for everyone involved. This involved outlining two or three examples of what success looked like and however boring this may appear, for someone new to the profession it has proved to be an exceptionally useful task.

One problem my mentee faced was managing all he was expected to do alongside his aspiration to be an ‘Outstanding’ practitioner. While I do not disagree with his drive to be the best he can be (in fact I salute and am encouraged and spurred on by his endeavour), there are many other areas that also have to be managed. His aspirations must be set within a wider context that involves: researching and writing assignments; ensuring his folder is up to date; completing his weekly training activities; planning and being part of the school community.

Another challenge my trainee faced was with adjusting to a world where acronyms and specialist terms needed explaining. My trainee experienced this to his detriment at an interview when it became clear that although I’d used phrases like ‘demonstrating visible progress’ (and used them several times) it was obvious that he hadn’t really grasped the meaning of these teacher buzz words and he was unable to discuss how this practically works when teaching his lessons. A classic interview question, ‘How do you ensure and promote progress among your students?’ was answered by shallow cliché’s not because he was incapable but rather because I had used the phrase but hadn’t given practical understanding.

The reality is that this is preparation for the rest of their lives as teachers; in fact it’s only going to become busier!

As experienced teachers we manage these pressures and tasks firstly because we are used to it, and secondly because it is part of what the job demands. If we are to be even more successful mentors we must not only set out a list of expectations but spend time (variably depending on the trainee we work with) managing how long these tasks could take. As in the classroom, our mentees need clear success criteria and potential time estimates for success.

In order to become a better mentor I need to ensure that in the busyness of the teaching day when I am using these terms I explain what ‘demonstrable progress’ looks like and give two or three ideas for my trainee to decide how best to use this new understanding. This will ensure he not only knows the definitions of these words, but more importantly how they apply in the classroom.

Unfortunately, for all the success stories, we will all at some stage be faced with the ‘bad day at the interactive white board’. The important thing is the relationship built up between mentor and mentee so that in those moments there is enough trust for me to be able to say something meaningful and constructive.

For us, it came after a short course Year 10 lesson - I had been elsewhere in the school and so a cover teacher had sat in, because that’s the rule. I walked in the classroom and could tell that nobody was very happy. I, (in hindsight stupidly) asked ‘are you ok?’ and released the cover teacher while the class sheepishly wrote in silence for the last fifteen minutes till the bell.

I asked ‘What can I do?’ - a better question , but still not satisfactorily sorting the problem of the lesson that simply does not go as planned. We then had a more successful discussion at the end of the day about what the specific issues that arose were, and we were able to put these into the context of his wider experiences. On further reflection an even better question would be ‘What could we do?’ especially early on in the placement.

Unfortunately, I don’t think this is the last time we have one of ‘those moments’ where after the last student leaves the room your trainee gives you ‘that look’.

However, on reflection there are probably three things that I could do to ensure the trainee gets even better.

Firstly, and this depends on the situation, is to remember that to say something (honestly and meaningfully) nine times out of ten is better than to not say anything at all.

Find the positive. Put the lesson in context. Remind him or her that we all have days like this and then more importantly give one or two suggestions that focus on the next time you see that class. Note – one of the pit falls I have fallen into on several times was giving a list seven or eight improvement points and targets when realistically two would move my trainee in the right direction and encourage them to do more learning and me to do less talking. And finally, ‘because, because, because’ (think of the Wizard of Oz), explaining why I make decisions I make, or why the training tasks or lesson may have gone the way they did really benefitted my trainee’s thinking and practice as well as my own.

The benefits of having a trainee far outweigh the pressures. If we can take on advice then the experience will be even richer for the trainees and ultimately the students - so everybody wins! We must be consistently thinking about new ideas and opportunities to inform, stretch and challenge our trainees to become even better.

WORDS: ANDREW JACKSON

THE LION WITHIN What techniques are there for effective target setting? Joy Lyness speaks to Sam Barnes about the strategies she has undertaken in the classroom.

1/ In what way do you make targets work most effectively in your teaching?

It is important to get students to be aspirational and to focus on where they want to get to; instead of focusing on what they are told they will achieve, focusing on what they can actually achieve if they work very hard. I ask pupils where they would like to see themselves in two years time. I also ask them what their dream grade would be – what they would be really happy with and would make them do a dance or a skip.

On the first day of Year 10, the pupils set a dream grade for themselves. This gives them power and puts them in control of their own learning and gives them something to drive for and fight for. I constantly make reference to this dream grade within the classroom to remind them that they are in charge and that their minimum grade estimation is not important because the dream grades are always higher. As a class, I assure the pupils that they can make it happen. If they work hard, the dream grade will be their end result.

I tell the pupils the stories of past pupils who have been estimated a C grade and have come out with their dream A grades – every single student who has sat in my classroom who has been committed to achieving their dream grade has made it happen. If the pupils buy into it, they achieve it. If they do the things they are asked to do, if they are trustful of the teacher and if they work hard then they will achieve it. In the last four years every single student in my room achieved A*-C. I have the best results in the school and the students achieve significantly higher in Religious Studies than in any of their other subjects taken at GCSE. Setting targets early on and reinforcing targets empowers them to achieve better. I like to create a language in my classroom. GCSE students recognise certain phrases. I do this to create a team environment. E.g. ‘Alright team, how are we going to help each other today’?

My classroom is very much a team effort. As soon as you step in the pupils know they are going to work hard, be part of a big team, enjoy it and receive results. They know that the more they put in, the more they will get out. In this team spirit in my room, naughty boys aren’t naughty because they have to be joining in the team ethos which is, ‘we deserve to do well because we work hard’. I constantly blow their trumpet because they do find it hard to say that they have done well. At the end of every unit, we have a mini-mock exam.

The pupils are given the same amount of time as they would in the normal exam. They then go through it and self assess it for homework, writing down two things they did well and two things to put a stamp on in the exam. i.e. targets. In Year 11, they have a project pounce sheet, where they write down three things they need to improve on, and comment on whether they had improved since the last time and to set themselves a specific based on something that they could improve for their exam. They self-assess thoroughly, and write down their dream grade answer, because I want their last memory before the exam to be a memory of success – it’s not just about knowing the information. Half the battle is believing you can do well – show yourself you can do well by taking something scary that you haven’t done well in and overcome it – this takes out the panic worry and fear and opens up success.

2/ How do you know that this process is successful on the pupils behalf?

A range of factors, including interviews, results, language and feedback from pupils. If you ask them does self assessment help, they would say it’s annoying having to do it, but it’s extremely helpful.

Every Year 10 and Year 11 say at the end that the most helpful strategy is to do self-assessment and targets because they bring you confidence as well as understanding. It’s self-efficacy – we give them the skills to succeed and achieve better – students know that they are learning throughout and know what to do to improve. In addition, at the beginning of Year 10 the pupils are petrified, but at the end of Year 11 they are optimistically nervous because they have shown themselves during the past 2 years that they can do it and no one could do better based on how hard they work.

3/ How do you successfully implement target setting to avoid performativity in education?

I make it clear that I want them to do well for themselves. I don’t want them to do well for me or the schools statistic, I want them to do well because they can and if they work hard they can get the results.

Targets are set thoroughly, are engaging and selfowned. They are detached from the exam process but are not in intimidating language. I set targets through using the metaphor of being a lion – a pedagogy based on the idea of seeing yourself as a kitten that looks at a mirror and reflecting back at them is a big lion. We talk about how you feel - you might feel nervous and that you can’t do it, but it’s about how you perceive yourself i.e. what you see mirrored back at you will get you through. Lions are courageous, strong, in charge, territorial and don’t give up.

All those characteristics are what I see in each of my students. Half way through every Year 10, I could go through every single person and say something that they have demonstrated that is academically outstanding and something about them as a person that is impressive and should be proud of. It is not about being exam machines, it’s about acknowledging their ability academically, but acknowledging also what I know about them. This is linked to the idea of the lion – when thinking about achieving you need to embrace these lion qualities.

When it’s the exam and you are stressed and worried or in difficult situations in life, there is part of you, whether you know it or not, which has the qualities of a lion. You are in complete control, you are dedicated and capable and you can achieve anything. I encourage the pupils to use this lion metaphor for everything in life i.e. getting a job.

Once they click into this that they are a lion, which is caught up with self-esteem and self-efficacy, I encourage them to take it into other places as well as RS. Students often feedback saying ‘I did a growl to myself before my other subjects exams’.

Another kid said I went to an interview at university and they took their lion teddy on their gap year to China. I teach self-efficacy, it just happens to be through RS and target setting is involved in this philosophy. I make clever links i.e. Go get your Gazelle – which means Go get your exam. I use stamps and stickers and revision sources with lions on them. They then always know that they are capable and that they can do it and have to believe in themselves. Even if they don’t believe in themselves, they know that I do and that’s enough.

4/ Why do you consider targets to be an essential and important part of education?

I think that without target students don’t know what they are driving at. If their target is ‘I want to go to ____ so I need to get an A*’, or ‘I want to be Head Justice of the Human Rights Commission so I need an A* in my RS’, then targets help to motivate and drive students in a variety of ways which aren’t always obvious and visible. It helps to give them a sense of drive, particularly when they invest in them because they have picked them in my class. If they chose their own target it is theirs, and they are going to want to do well because they are at the heart of it. They get excited because they get to be in charge; it’s like a psychological shift.

Extra comments/statements: How do I know targets work? Well, pupils buy me lions as gifts. One of my classes sponsored/adopted me a lion because they knew ethically I would agree with it.

These kids are really bright; I teach really clever kids and they buy into it. Why do 16 year olds who are top in their year and country academically buy into this concept? Why do they get excited? I also get my classes to write a letter to their future selves. It is a motivational letter that reminds them of why it’s worthwhile to work really hard. They then read this when they can’t be bothered to revise and it motivates them.

They know themselves what they need to do. 9 out of 10 of these letters have the reference to the Lion in them getting them to do it. They know that they are going to fall down at some stage and this letter reminds them that they can do really well.

They get excited by it because I make it all about them.

I care about them as individuals and not just their grades. I give speeches on how proud I am of them and bring in little cakes of lions which my Mum bakes. I call this consuming the lion. They know that I am a human being who generally values them. They come back in Year 11, having had half of their exam done feeling exhausted. Everything’s more serious in Year 11 and I give them a booster and some assurance and have a celebration lesson. I give them lion pens that they can use to constantly remind them that they are lions. I make symbolic links of why I am giving them this pen – being right/write. At the same time, fun is always embedded in a sound pedagogical way of thinking to improve their self-efficacy. If self-efficacy goes up, grades go crazy.

WORDS: Joy Lyness speaking to Sam Barnes

NEW SCHOOL, NEW RULES? Finding a fresh vision for re in a new Cambridgeshire school.

For the first time in fifty years, a new Secondary School will open in Cambridgeshire.

In 2013, Cambourne Village College, a sister school to Comberton Village College, will open its doors to a fresh intake of students. As part of a Farmington Fellowship, I will be conducting a research project which links to the twin challenges we face setting up a department at Cambourne Village College: first, articulating a coherent, localised and contemporary vision for RE practice and second justifying its place on a new timetable and curriculum. My aim will be to survey a range of approaches to RE, unpacking the links between pedagogy and practice. Practically, I will research how RE is perceived within University departments (in Theology, Philosophy and Religious Studies). My aim is also to make important links with other Partnership Schools to identify common aims and objectives. I look forward to being in contact to hear your ideas!

WORDS: Dr. Richard Kueh

CONTRIBUTIONS… We would like to say a massive thank you to all artists and photographers who contributed to this magazine by allowing their beautiful work to be shared with us all. We would also like to thank all the students whose amazing work is shown in this magazine.

See you in 2014!

Named Artists ‘Shoah’ 2009 by Evan Lavine ‘Shoah (Holocaust)’ 2011 by Andre Lage ‘Circle Time’ 2011 by Kieran Gillard ‘Cambridge’ 2011 by Stewart Black ‘Communication’ 2007 byJoan. M. Mas ‘Think’ 2012 by NIST School Shared Account