Anyone an RE teacher, or training to be one?

[allgonebellyup]

What is it like, would you recommend it?

I am and I love it... but I only teach 'A' levels at a FE college. I enjoyed it in schools, but you have to be good at classroom discipline as it is often the subject all students have to do and you always get the 'what's the point?' question. Many students don't see the point of RS and therefore don't want to work very hard. I got round this problem by being very creative in my teaching and making lessons fun, so they wanted to do the work (we made videos, used the digital camera to make storyboards and so on...) then they want to do the work. But you have got to get the kids to enjoy class, otherwise it can be hell. Good side is that you only see the students for one hour a week, so if you do have a tough class, you know its over soon. bad side is that you will have far more reports, parents evenings etc to do than any other teacher because most classes are taught for more than one hour a week.

It is often a cinderella subject, but I love it because you can open up students' eyes and get them thinking - there's no right answers in RS, and that is the joy of the subject.

Could go on forever, but must get back to my exam marking....

thanks for that.

Most kids dont take a GCSE in RE do they?

anyone???????

Depends on the school. Technically, all students have got to take RE/S until they are 16 (although this is starting to disappear now that Ofsted are not supposed to comment on that anymore). Therefore, given that most students have to take soem form of RS, most schools think they might as well get something for it and so sit the students in for the shortcourse RS - worth half a GCSE, which they then often put together with another shortcourse (PE or ICT) to make a full GCSE. However, some schools make all students sit the full course GCSE (although this is predominantly religious schools).

On top of that, most schools offer it as an option and usually have smallish classes (IME).

But as I say, I am hearing that this is becoming less popular and schools are increasingly combining RS with other subjects like citizenship and PSHE.

Hope that answers your question.

Actually, thinking about it, I have also seen lots of schools who are now teaching the full GCSE for all students but they start it in Year 9, and so students study for the GCSE over three years but in less hours a week. That seems to becoming more popular too.

I teach it and love it but you do need to be an excellent classroom practitioner to survive. Having a philosophy or ethics background is a great help if you want to do a level.