Religious Education 11-16

Becoming a Religious Education (RE) teacher offers the opportunity to inspire students and deepen their understanding of the diverse world around us. In this role, you cultivate empathy, critical thinking, and open-mindedness, while promoting mutual understanding and fostering a sense of global citizenship. You will create a space to ask broad, big questions about life and the world and to explore established beliefs, faiths and values.  

Being a teacher of RE means you will support young people to: 

• explore major and distinctive dimensions of human experience;
• reflect deeply on perennial questions about life;
• understand why the world is the way it is today and how ideas and traditions have developed over time;
• gain a deeper understanding of the world around us and how beliefs impact on the actions of individuals and groups of people;
• understand, interpret and analyse different sources of authority;
• develop a deeper personal understanding of your own beliefs and values;
• develop their literacy, language and skills of interpretation, analysis and evaluation and argument;
• understand why an empathetic and tolerant approach to diverse views and practices is important.

What are the key concepts that underpin our approach to the teaching of RE?

• Questions of belief, value, meaning, purpose, truth, knowledge, morals and their influence on individuals, communities and societies
• Knowledge and understanding of the belief, teachings and practices of world religions and other world views and perspectives
• Beliefs and teachings: beliefs about God, gods or ultimate reality; the role of communities of faith, key moral principles and the meanings and purposes of human life. 
• Practices: the application of beliefs and teachings to the lives of modern believers including the study of places and forms of worship (as appropriate to each religion) rituals, prayer, meditation, festivals and celebrations, fasting, rites of passage, religious journeys and pilgrimage
• Key sources of wisdom and authority including scripture and/or sacred texts 
• Significant common and divergent views between and/or within religions and beliefs
• Application of knowledge in order to analyse and evaluate
• Reflection on and development of personal values, beliefs and attitudes 
• Construction of well-informed and balanced arguments 
• How pupils learn in religious education, including misconceptions and preconceptions

My Subject Specialists for RE were great and I feel lucky to have been supported by them while I trained on the SCITT course. They are both so wise and generous and I draw heavily on all the things that I learnt in their sessions in my teaching.

This course is built on an extensive research base in teaching RE and it is closely interwoven with our Central Curriculum Sessions as part of our overall Integrated Curriculum approach. Each year we review all aspects of our courses to ensure that they cover the most relevant components of the subject as well as introducing you to the most commonly taught ideas and concepts. Mentors and specialist teachers in our partnership schools also play a crucial role in reviewing the programme to ensure that it gives the very best preparation for becoming a great RE teacher.

Our carefully designed curriculum is structured so that you will have approximately one Subject Curriculum Session a week across the 2024-25 academic year. Alongside this, subject specificity is carefully woven throughout all aspects of the course, including the ongoing assessment process and the optional PGCE assignments, so that all content is relevant to you and your teaching. Subject Curriculum Sessions will develop on the ideas and theory raised in your general Central Curriculum Sessions so that you have expert guidance on how best to deliver strategies and techniques in your specific subject area. 

Our RE course prepares you to teach across the 11-16 age range, and you will be formally assessed in those key stages. In addition you will also have the opportunity to observe and teach KS5/ A level in at least one of your placements and your Subject Curriculum Sessions will include training that prepares you to teach KS5/ A level.

The links below will provide you with information about the curriculum and programmes of study for Key Stage 3 and 4 that schools are expected to deliver, these shape the content that your Subject Curriculum Sessions will cover, to ensure that you are able and confident to teach across the full range of topic areas included.

• Religious Education Oxfordshire Locally Agreed Syllabus
• Religious Studies GCSE (KS4) subject content

As well as introducing you to a wealth of relevant books, articles and research papers from our own resources and library, you will also have access to National Association for Teaching of Religious Education (NATRE), the leading professional body for RE teachers. 

Membership will be set up and arranged for you at the start of the course and your Subject Specialist will guide you on how best to use the resources, professional learning community and events from the association to support your subject development and the lessons that you will prepare and deliver.