Culham St Gabriel's

A huge welcome to Maggie Webster, who is leading our newly commissioned research into Religious Education (RE), or religion and worldviews education, in Alternative Provision settings across England.

This important project will explore how RE is currently delivered across registered Alternative Provision settings, identifying current practice, challenges and opportunities.

The findings will help inform future policy, curriculum design, teacher development and support structures, providing valuable insights into an often under-researched area of education.

We're delighted to be working with Maggie and look forward to sharing updates as the project progresses.

Not signed up to our newsletter yet?

From NATRE's fantastic Spirited Arts competition to CPD opportunities for teachers teaching outside their specialism from Oxford Education Deanery Day, our latest editions have been packed with resources, inspiration, events, and opportunities for schools and educators.

This is just a small glimpse of what you've been missing. Stay up to date with the latest news, professional development opportunities, classroom resources, events and opportunities from Culham St Gabriel’s.

Sign up below and make sure you don’t miss the next one!
https://reonline.us16.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=1fb0c29ab731212a3ab5788dc&id=ac766e00fe

Links:

Spirited Arts 2026: Deadline approaching

There is still time to enter NATRE’s Spirited Arts 2026 competition. Pupils can explore religion and worldviews creatively through art, with 40 prizes, an online gallery for winning and highly commended entries, and certificates for every school that takes part!

https://natre.org.uk/spirited-arts-main-page/

Inclusive Schools: Promoting and Protecting Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB)

This new suite of resources helps school and trust leaders, governors and teachers put FoRB into practice across school life. It includes guidance on legal foundations, inclusive policy and culture, and classroom and leadership practice.

https://www.cstg.org.uk/inclusive-schools-promoting-and-protecting-freedom-of-religion-or-belief/

Teachers with other specialisms: Oxford Education Deanery day

This Oxford Education Deanery day on 29 June offers practical support, subject knowledge and greater confidence for teachers leading or teaching RE without a specialist background.

https://www.education.ox.ac.uk/oxford-education-deanery/event/re-for-other-specialists/

Have you booked for our FREE, online conference yet?

Real world research for real world classrooms.

RExChange is a free research-focused online conference, convened by Culham St Gabriel's for all those engaged in the teaching of religion and worldviews in schools, colleges and universities.
Friday 9th October-Saturday 10th October.
Book here: https://www.reonline.org.uk/research/engaging-in-and-with-research/resources-from-rexchange-and-partner-conferences/rexchange-2026/

June is filled with some fascinating festivals, celebrations and remembrances, from Midsummer Solstice and World Humanist Day to Ashura and Islamic New Year!

Learning about festivals is a powerful way to bring religion and worldviews to life in the classroom. They help pupils encounter religion as it is lived and experienced by real people and communities. Exploring festivals enables pupils to engage with lived religion, seeing how beliefs, values, identities and traditions are expressed through celebrations, rituals and everyday practices.

Find out more about them here:
https://www.reonline.org.uk/festival-calendar/

Our festivals calendar is provided by the Shap Working Party

New on the blog, and on our Substack! Romana Meereis (who is doing a doctoral placement with us) reflects on recent government proposals around community cohesion and Religious Education, asking what it really means to “strengthen” RE in schools.

While recent policy recognises the importance of RE in fostering understanding, tolerance, and community cohesion, Romana argues that meaningful improvement must also include sustained investment in specialist teachers, training, and professional development.

Drawing on recent research and policy reports, this thoughtful piece explores the implications of removing RE teacher training bursaries at a time when high-quality RE provision is increasingly needed.

On our Substack: https://substack.com/home/post/p-199441115
And on our blog: https://www.reonline.org.uk/2026/05/28/protecting-what-matters-removing-what-counts/

We thoroughly enjoyed last week’s in partnership with the brilliant NATRE and we hope you did too!

Across the week, we shared a wide range of resources exploring different ways of knowing in the religion and worldviews classroom, including research spotlights, blogs, short films, reading lists, and resources. We were especially pleased to highlight examples of thoughtful classroom practice and hear from teachers about how these approaches are helping to bring learning to life for pupils.

To make everything easy to access, we’ve now collated all of the resources shared throughout the week in one place:
https://www.reonline.org.uk/ways-of-knowing-focus-week/

A huge thank you to everyone who joined us, contributed, shared resources, and took part in the conversations throughout the week. We’re excited to see these discussions around ways of knowing continue to grow!