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Dear God...
“Hardly anyone can ever find God because God is right at the end of your mind after all the background thoughts are gone.”
Maisie Satchwell-Hust

NATRE*
NATRE Curriculum Symposium
​*National Association of Teachers of Religious Education 
 
The quality of curricula has become a key focus for schools over the last few years, partly in response to the new Ofsted framework which places emphasis on this, and partly to the work of teachers and academics about improving RE curricula.

This raised profile has led to discussion and debate amongst teachers about the best way to raise the standards of an RE curriculum.  The plan to hold a curriculum symposium will help address the needs of teachers as they grapple with writing high quality curricula for their pupils.
 
The symposium, hosted in Birmingham, will feature input from nationally renowned curriculum experts on the key principles of successful curriculum design, as well as time for a group of 20 teachers from across the RE community to critically engage with each other’s curricula as part of a professional learning community.

This engagement will allow the group to peer review other school’s RE curricula, with the aim of offering suggestions for improvement for each teacher to take away.
 
From these discussions will emerge a greater understanding of the process of successful curriculum design, which can be shared and replicated in multiple environments.

Furthermore, the symposium will give teachers the chance to explore how the RE curriculum is developing, taking account of the numerous reports and recommendations that have been published in the last few years, in particular, the Commission on RE’s final report of 2018.
 

 

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Materials from the symposium, which will include video of the curriculum experts, and papers written by attendees, will then be made available to local network groups and hubs across the country for small groups of teachers to engage in a similar process, establishing their own professional learning communities.
 
From this, the overall aim is that teachers across the country, in all kinds of schools, are empowered and skilled in the task of writing a high quality RE curriculum for their school. 
 
The original plan had to be hold the symposium in the second half of 2019, but this is now under review due to the upheaval caused by Covid-19.  It is now likely that it will take place in early 2021.
 
For more information about NATRE:
https://www.natre.org.uk/