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REC NEWSLETTER AUGUST
2010
CONGRATULATIONS
Congratulations to
two REC officers whose achievements in RE-related endeavours have
received
academic recognition in recent weeks.
Joyce Miller, deputy chair of the RE Council, has been awarded an Ed D
by the University of Warwick for her thesis which included studies on
religious education and the arts, community cohesion and a practitioner
research study in which she applied key concepts from the interpretive
approach to teachers' continuing professional development. Trevor
Cooling, REC
Treasurer, joins the Faculty of Education at Canterbury Christ Church
University as Professor of Christian Education.
We congratulate them both on their successes and wish Trevor all the
very best for his new post.
CELEBRATING RE
Plans are moving ahead rapidly for the month long national
celebration
of RE in March 2011. Information about
the latest developments will from now on be included in a monthly
newsletter,
for which anyone can sign up via the website at www.celebratingre.org
Articles on the website give a
wealth of ideas on how to celebrate for Early Years, primary, secondary,
SEN,
gifted and talented, SACREs, using wise sayings and using social media;
there
will be many further additions over the next couple of months.
RE-SILIENCE
The REsilience project,
designed to build secondary teachers'confidence to handle contentious
issues in
RE, has now completed its pilot stages in England and Wales. Project
mentors have been trained and the
suite of Gateway support materials completed.
Schools are invited to register interest in taking part by signing up on
the website at www.re-silience.org.uk Those interested in following
the development of the project can also sign up for the newsletter via
the
website.
NAME CHANGE: FRIENDS OF THE WESTERN BUDDHIST ORDER
At
the end of May, the Friends of the
Western Buddhist Order and Western Buddhist Order changed their names to
the Triratna Buddhist Community and the Triratna
Buddhist Order. (Clear Vision is run by members of the Triratna
Buddhist
Order). The short form replacing
"FWBO/WBO" is now "Triratna" (this means Three Jewels or
Triple Gem in Sanskrit). Since our tradition was founded in the 1960s,
our
original names have dated; in particular, we have developed a massive
following
in India, where they use different names as they are not Western. For a
long
time it has been our wish to find one unified name. The FWBO/Triratna is
mentioned on many syllabuses, including GCSE, as an example of a new
western
Buddhist movement to be studied. It will take some time for the change
of name
to filter through, but when you next revise your Agreed Syllabus, do
please
take note!
BRITISH
BUDDHISM TODAY: A TALK BY MUNISHA
Some
of you may be interested in a 30-minute talk given recently to the
annual
Manchester Buddhist Conference, on "British Buddhism Today". The first
half is probably of most relevance
to RE colleagues, from a citizenship and community cohesion perspective,
as it
deals with statistics for UK Buddhists. Statistics are always flawed and
questionable, but nonetheless, it does offer some surprises - certainly
for
most of this Buddhist audience! Please read the text below the video
frame.
http://vimeo.com/12741592
ACADEMIC STUDY OF HINDUISM ON SKY
807
Hindu Academy has launched a
series of programme broadcast three times daily on Hindu faith channel
at
SKY 807. These programmes are academically oriented and can benefit RE
teachers trying to gain a deeper insight into Hinduism and take place
daily at the following times:
7 to 7.30am:
Contemplative Hinduism // 4 to
4.30 pm: Hinduism for GCSE and Advanced levels // 10 to
10.30pm: Hindu
Philosophy
Hindu Academy (http://www.hinduacademy.org)
has also launched this channel with clips on
Hinduism at: http://www.youtube.com/hinduacademy
MEMORIAL SERVICE IN NEUVE CHAPELLE
The Hindu Council (http://www.hinducounciluk.org)
sent a Hindu delegation led by Major (Retired)
Suryaparsad Upadhya to participate in a memorial service in Neuve
Chapelle
on 19 July 2010 in response to an invitation from the Prince of Wales
office. The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall paid tribute to
the contribution of Muslim, Sikh and Hindu soldiers in the First World
War
during a visit to the Neuve-Chapelle Indian Memorial. The Battle of
Neuve-Chapelle saw a huge contribution by the British Indian Army, and
the
memorial represents the 4,742 Indian soldiers with no known grave who
died in
the First World War. The Prince of Wales was able to honour and
recognise the
contribution of the Indian contingents to whom Western history has not,
perhaps, quite given the recognition they deserve.
SUBJECT CENTRE FOR
PHILOSOPHICAL AND RELIGIOUS STUDIES
The Subject Centre for
Philosophical and Religious Studies ran a conference on Courting
Controversy: Teaching Theology and Religious Studies in the 21st Century in Leeds in July. The conference brought together
academics, school
teachers and students to explore issues around the policy and practice
of
teaching Theology and RS in a multi-faith and multi-cultural society.
Resources
from this event are available at http://prs.heacademy.ac.uk/view.html/prsevents/460
The
Subject Centre has published a Buddhism Faith Guide to complement
its
existing suite of Guides on Christianity, Hinduism, Islam,
Judaism and
Sikhism. The Guides are designed to support staff in UK education
as
they engage with students from a variety of religious backgrounds. The Guides are available online at http://www.prs.heacademy.ac.uk/publications/index.html#1 or in hard copy for a small fee by contacting
JAINPEDIA (www.jainpedia.org)
As
part of the JAINpedia project and to celebrate the amazing display of
Jain
manuscripts exhibited at the V&A's Nehru Gallery of Indian Art,
JAINpedia staff held a volunteer training session at the
Museum on 25th July 2010. This was conducted by an official
V&A Intercultural guide who gave an in-depth tour of the display to a
group
of potential volunteers in the gallery. The session lasted for an
hour and the explanation about the 20 objects on display was greatly
appreciated by all who attended. If you wish to attend a similar
session
you have an opportunity to join a tour at the V&A on 15th August
which will be delivered by the same guide. Places are limited so to
book
now please contact
It will start from the V&A main
reception on Cromwell Road, South Kensington, at 11 am on 15th August 2010.
CND PEACE EDUCATION
CND
Peace Education provides young people with information on peace and
nuclear
issues, and empowers young people to make their own decisions. It has
free
resource packs for Key Stages 2 to 5. They explore the issues in fun and
exciting ways, including the nuclear weapons debate through the medium
of the
X-Factor! (see the Teachers' TV film on the activity here - http://www.teachers.tv/videos/ks3-4-citizenship-the-bomb-factor-nuclear-weapons).
For
younger students, there is the story
of Sadako Sasaki, the little girl who attempted to make 1000 paper
cranes as a
display of peace after the Hiroshima bomb.
Copies of the materials can be downloaded from here: www.cnduk.org/education or
paper copies can be ordered by filling in the web form.
RE-ONLINE (www.REonline.org.uk)
During
the summer break [perhaps on a wet day] why not take an hour or two to
browse
REonline? Many comment on the range of resources when they do. This
month RE-Online has started a review and
updating of the site with a better Subject Knowledge section,
found in Teacher
Resources or Lifelong Learning. Share [ www.share-re.org.uk ] is also
new; here anyone
can set up, or join, one of the networking opportunities for work in RE -
and
it's free. More changes will follow in each of the coming months so it's
worth
checking .
BAHA'I RESOURCES
Two new resources have recently been released within the Bahá'í
community, as part of our programme of youth empowerment. Discovering
Your
Gems and Shaping Our Future are two workbooks that can be
used
with young people aged 12 to 14 to explore spiritual and practical
issues. For more information, visit http://www.grbooks.com/show_auth.php?author_id=168. |
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