This story is one of a collection of stories from RE Today. Each story is available as a one-page pdf downloadable at the point of sale, free of charge. Each story is accompanied by Key Questions for pupils, or Activities for working with the story in the classroom; main themes covered by each story are identified. THEMES: dedication; self-sacrifice; commitment

This story is one of a collection of stories from RE Today. Each story is available as a one-page pdf downloadable at the point of sale, free of charge. Each story is accompanied by Key Questions for pupils, or Activities for working with the story in the classroom; main themes covered by each story are identified. THEMES: faith; prayer; turning point; Lailat al Miraj

This story is one of a collection of stories from RE Today. Each story is available as a one-page pdf downloadable at the point of sale, free of charge. Each story is accompanied by Key Questions for pupils, or Activities for working with the story in the classroom; main themes covered by each story are identified. THEMES: generosity; helping those in need

This story is one of a collection of stories from RE Today. Each story is available as a one-page pdf downloadable at the point of sale, free of charge. Each story is accompanied by Key Questions for pupils, or Activities for working with the story in the classroom; main themes covered by each story are identified. THEMES: The power of Islam to change people’s lives; courage to stand up against prejudice; the call to prayer; standing up for what you believe in

This story is one of a collection of stories from RE Today. Each story is available as a one-page pdf downloadable at the point of sale, free of charge. Each story is accompanied by Key Questions for pupils, or Activities for working with the story in the classroom; main themes covered by each story are identified. THEMES: change; God; service; Sewa; Simran

This story is one of a collection of stories from RE Today. Each story is available as a one-page pdf downloadable at the point of sale, free of charge. Each story is accompanied by Key Questions for pupils, or Activities for working with the story in the classroom; main themes covered by each story are identified. THEMES: good overcoming evil; Divali

Our RE Today Catalogue has gone digital! As a Secondary RE teacher, you can now access all our high-quality classroom resources and browse our best-selling online CPD courses and webinars at your fingertips, all fully indexed by major world faiths, and non-religious worldviews in RE. From best-selling RE classroom resources to new publications, our NEW digital catalogue has everything you need to support RE at your school

I once heard Zen Buddhist Master, Thich Nhat Hahn, talking at the Houses of Parliament. The talk was followed by a ‘walking meditation’ in a small garden behind. We followed Thich Nhat Hahn (addressed as ‘Thay’ by those in his community), a few slow steps at a time: breathing in (two steps: I have arrived in the here and now) and out (three steps: I am at home in this beautiful mother Earth, gaining nourishment and restoration). Assaulted as we were by the noise and fumes of traffic from Parliament Square, and watched with bemusement by tourists and armed police on duty, it was a memorable experience. It made me reflect on how Buddhists have applied their ancient teachings and practices to the busy contemporary world. For many people, the Dharma seems well suited to address the many stresses and obstacles to happiness that occupy our twenty-first-century lives. This book is called ‘Buddhists’ rather than ‘Buddhism’, offering snapshots of Buddhist thought and practice alongside some pages that offer some context, rather than trying to present a coherent overview of a religion. It deals in particular with the interface between the Dharma and today’s world, providing original source material and contemporary voices, recognising and identifying a diversity of views, controversies and complexity. We give some resources on the core teachings and texts (pp. 4–7) and an introduction to the spread and diversity of Buddhist traditions. We have tried to enrich the encounter your students have by including interviews with lay and ordained Buddhists (pp. 8–12, 18–25), looking at the contemporary art of Gonkar Gyatso (p. 3), exploring some statistics on Buddhists in the UK and the world (pp. 16–17), inviting some top academics to give their scholarly views (pp. 13–14, 32–33) and preparing your students for examination study on the complexities of the arhat and Bodhisattva paths (pp. 23–31). Thoughtful activities accompany these resources. They are intended to encourage you to make flexible use of them, helping your students deepen their understanding of the Buddha’s path and Buddhist practices, and to get them thinking for themselves about the relationship between suffering, happiness and the modern world

This book explores the beliefs, practices, traditions, values and identities of Sikhs. It is representative rather than comprehensive, exploring a selection of key aspects of a Sikh way of life (or Gurmat – ‘the teachings of the Guru’). We use the term Sikhism, as the term commonly used in RE, although one that is sometimes contested and seen by some as a Western imposition onto the tradition. We also refer at times to Sikhi, a term preferred by many Sikhs, to show that the faith is not just a system of belief but a path to follow. The term ‘Sikh’ comes from sikhna, ‘to learn’, so a Sikh is a learner. We have sought authentic resources to introduce students to Sikhi, including voices of Sikhs in the UK today (see, for example, pp. 5, 6, 15, 27–29) and explorations of the Guru Granth Sahib – seen as the living Guru, a living voice rather than a lifeless text (e.g. pp. 8–11, 30–31). The place and identity of Sikhs in the UK have specific contexts, of course. This is examined in the art of the Singh Twins, setting their own identities within the story of their father’s (see pp. 12–13). The account of Gurinder Chadha reflects a similar story (p. 15). The difference between online perceptions of Sikhs (as turban-wearing and amritdhari – initiated, Khalsa Sikhs) and the more diverse reality is considered in a number of places (e.g. pp. 14–15, 18–23 and in the infographic on pp. 16–17). So – we offer a snapshot of Sikhs and Sikh living, presented alongside a range of creative and engaging ways to explore Sikhi in the classroom, to get your students to think hard and learn lots

Welcome to the second book in our new curriculum series, Big Questions, Big Answers. This book focuses on worldviews. I first became aware of this term about five years ago and, a bit like when you buy a different car you suddenly see lots of people driving the same make, I now feel I hear the word more and more often. But what does this word mean and why might we use it with our pupils? The RE community is beginning to respond to the idea that the subject should examine worldviews, but already substantial reports from Theos and the RE Council point out the complexity of the concept. In this book we try to introduce some ways of thinking about worldviews as part of your RE or for some Religion and Worldviews lessons. We hope that the units and resources will prove practical and engaging in the classroom, increasing students’ knowledge and awareness of their own and others’ worldviews. Simple strategies have been used to increase pupil understanding of diversity within a worldview looking at celebration of Diwali, Eid-ulFitr and, later in the book, Christmas. We also look at how worldviews affect how you see things and, for many, how they choose to live their lives. Our two multidisciplinary units introduce sociology and religious studies, and relevant questions and methods, with our disciplinary experts Dr Rachael Shillitoe and Dr Chris Cotter. In these units pupils study the diversity of celebrations of Christmas and then what affects how people from different groups dress. We are really grateful to the teachers and pupils who trialled the disciplinary units in the book, and we have adapted these resources as a result of these classroom trials. We continue to expand the digital offerings for our books – do go to the website and look for the many extras.Finally, we would love to see examples of pupil work to share with others – do send us some examples

Welcome to the fourth book in our curriculum series Big Questions, Big Answers. This book focuses on worship, a central activity in most religious worldviews. The theme of worship is a basis for exploration of beliefs and values. Many children will not have encountered or engaged in worship within a religious community, however they will be aware of the idea of holding something in high honour or being devoted to something. This book offers clear substantive content about the practice of worship for Christians, Jews and Muslims, and focuses on celebrations and worship in new year festivals such as Diwali and Rosh Hashanah. The units and resources focus on Christian, Hindu, Jewish and Muslim worldviews, and we concentrate on the nonreligious celebrations at new year. For younger children we explore worship through the eyes of Grace and Imran. We were really pleased to have the support of Ellie Olmer, Rabbi Alex Chapper and the Revd Jenny Ridge to provide contemporary images of worship in a church and a synagogue. Our multidisciplinary or, touse Ofsted language, ‘ways of knowing’ unit for 8–11s reintroduces religious studies and psychology with our disciplinary experts Dr Chris Cotter and Dr Carissa Sharp. In this unit, pupils study prayer in Christianity, Islam and the Hindu Dharma, find out some data on how many people pray regularly, learn what religious traditions teach, look at some prayers from three traditions, and compare the differences between more formal, public, community prayers and the practice of personal prayer. We look through the lens of psychology at whether there are common ways of describing the nature of personal prayer across religious traditions. We continue to expand the digital offerings for our books – do go to the website and look for the many extras. We would love to see examples of pupil work to share with others – do send us some examples

It is always both exciting and daunting when starting to plan one of these books. It gives us an opportunity to help teachers and students examine some fascinating content, but even with extensive online support resources one publication cannot cover everything. The RE community is beginning to respond to the idea that the subject should examine worldviews, but substantial reports from Theos and the RE Council have already pointed out the complexity of the concept (see p. 3 for details). As such, we recognise our limitations. We can only introduce some ways of thinking about worldviews, but we hope that these will prove practical and engaging in the classroom, increasing students’ knowledge and awareness of their own and others’ worldviews We spend some time on examining and applying James W. Sire’s model of worldview questions (pp. 4–11). This is a good starting point, as the questions are close to the kinds of things we often address in our subject. As always, we include voices from religious and non-religious perspectives (pp. 12–13), which indicate something of the complexity and fluidity of worldviews in people’s lives. As well as starting by asking people questions, we also start at the other end: we present case studies that look at people’s actions, and ask students to discern what these reveal about these activists’ worldviews (pp. 14–15) Our multidisciplinary approach introduces sociology and its questions and methods, with our disciplinary experts, Dr Rachael Shillitoe and Dr Chris Cotter. We have set it up so you can take students through different processes, including gathering data, analysing it and drawing conclusions. Having examined it though the sociological lens, there is an opportunity to apply a religious studies lens as well. There are opportunities to reflect on the potential of these disciplines for enriching an understanding of worldviews

We begin a new series as part of the Big Questions in Classrooms programme, funded by the Templeton World Charity Foundation. The series is called ‘Challenging Knowledge in RE’, and the purpose is to support teachers and students in investigating how knowledge is created in different disciplines, and in helping students perceive the value of different kinds of questions, methods and explanations used to understand big questions. This new series explores some of the substantive knowledge often encountered in RE, in this case around the idea of God. It looks to provide creative, thoughtful and practical ideas to enrich students’ understanding. The new focus for the series is to increase students’ disciplinary knowledge too. As we encounter the world, we can explore it using different disciplines and methods. These disciplines then generate knowledge. The knowledge we encounter depends on what we are looking for and how we look. In this volume, we are focusing on the kinds of questions, methods and findings that are opened up by the disciplines of theology and psychology. Of course, both these disciplines are complex, containing within them many other subdisciplines, so we will only be able to do some preliminary study, exploring a limited range of questions and methods. Our intention is to outline the broad processes so that students have enough disciplinary knowledge to carry out their own (rudimentary) investigations. We introduce students to our resident experts, Dr Carissa Sharp and Dr Simeon Zahl, and invite students to become investigators themselves. In so doing, they are encouraged to evaluate the methods and answers, as well as reflect on their own position and the impact it has on their understanding and responses.

Religion – our field of study – is vast, rich, complex and contested. Here we have selected content to illustrate how we can study religion in different ways. We might see religious studies as a home discipline, which then draws on methods from many other disciplines. This contrasts with the theological approaches we often use, which tend to look for coherence and deal with orthodoxy. RS tends to look at (non)religion as a social fact in descriptive and analytic ways (see Chris Cotter’s investigator file, pp. 8–9) In this volume we analyse sociological data from the 2021 Pew Research data on religion in India, showing that the tidy boxes in which we often place religions in RE simply don’t reflect the reality of Indian religion (pp. 16–17). We apply methods of literary theory to the Ramayana, reading it from the goddess Sita’s perspective, offering a feminist viewpoint (pp. 18–19). Professor Linda Woodhead’s article (pp. 20–21) introduces her 2021 research, where mixed methods reveal the importance of values in the lives of Generation Z; she suggests that ‘values are the new religion’. We look through an anthropological lens at ‘material religion’, including the use of amulets in Islam (pp. 26–29), and astrology in Hindu ways of living (pp. 30–31). Anthropological methods help to illuminate the integration of Christian and indigenous practice in southern Africa (pp. 32–33). We use these case studies to open up wider questions about the reality of a spiritual dimension in the lives of the majority of humans, and how this plays out in the secular world of the majority of our students We also apply a critical lens to the nature of religion itself. In order to explore the relative importance of a range of features of religion, students undertake some research and compare it with data already collected (pp. 8–13). Building on this glimpse of the diversity of lived religion, students are then able to consider whether it is possible or desirable to pin religion down to a definition (pp. 14–15). Throughout, we offer opportunities for students to reflect on their own worldviews.

This story is one of a collection of stories from RE Today. Each story is available as a one-page pdf downloadable at the point of sale, free of charge. Each story is accompanied by Key Questions for pupils, or Activities for working with the story in the classroom; main themes covered by each story are identified THEMES: feeling ashamed; saying sorry; being forgiven; changed character

This story is one of a collection of stories from RE Today. Each story is available as a one-page pdf downloadable at the point of sale, free of charge. Each story is accompanied by Key Questions for pupils, or Activities for working with the story in the classroom; main themes covered by each story are identified. THEMES: revelation; commitment; experiencing God; friendship

This story is one of a collection of stories from RE Today. Each story is available as a one-page pdf downloadable at the point of sale, at a cost of just GBP1 per story. Each story is accompanied by Key Questions for pupils, or Activities for working with the story in the classroom; main themes covered by each story are identified THEMES: hope

This story is one of a collection of stories from RE Today. Each story is available as a one-page pdf downloadable at the point of sale, free of charge. Each story is accompanied by Key Questions for pupils, or Activities for working with the story in the classroom; main themes covered by each story are identified. THEMES: loyalty; devotion; faith; evil; Holi

This story is one of a collection of stories from RE Today. Each story is available as a one-page pdf downloadable at the point of sale, free of charge. Each story is accompanied by Key Questions for pupils, or Activities for working with the story in the classroom; main themes covered by each story are identified. THEMES: Allah’s wisdom; creation

This story is one of a collection of stories from RE Today. Each story is available as a one-page pdf downloadable at the point of sale, free of charge. Each story is accompanied by Key Questions for pupils, or Activities for working with the story in the classroom; main themes covered by each story are identified. THEMES: God; Muhammad; respect; ritual