Gill Vaisey

Gill Vaisey

Gill Vaisey is a Consultant and an Innovate My School Expert in Religious Education.

Gill is a qualified teacher and Religious Education Consultant specialising in primary and early years education. She provides training and support for LAs, Church Dioceses, Schools and Nursery Settings across England and Wales.

Gill has written and produced a range of exciting books and cross-curricular resources (Books@Press) designed specifically to support RE for Early Years and KS1 pupils. For a wealth of free downloadable resources for the classroom and comprehensive teachers’ topic webs and planning material for the EYFS (England) and Foundation Phase (Wales) simply visit Gill’s website below.

Through her training and resources, Gill makes RE fun for pupils and easy for teachers!

Tel: 01594 516490

Religious Education for our younger pupils is often associated with exploring festivals but, with a bit of imagination and some good resources, RE can be much more than that.

Spring is the perfect time to make the most of the outdoor learning environment. With many nursery settings and KS1 classes enjoying topics linked to the natural world at this time of year, it is important to recognise that religious education can make an enjoyable and worthwhile contribution. Popular topics such as Mini-Beasts, Gardens, Our World, The Park, Animals, Birds, New-life and Spring all lend themselves well to RE.

However, to ensure that we are properly including RE in our topic planning, we must first identify what makes RE distinct from Personal, Social, and Emotional aspects of learning and Cultural understanding – areas with which RE often gets confused!

Thursday, 18 August 2011 10:23

"Oh No, Not RE, Miss!"

A supply teacher recently recounted her experience when asked to teach RE to a reluctant Year 6 class in a rural primary school. In introducing the lesson she was greeted with groans of “Oh no, not RE Miss!” Not a great start she thought. However, at the end of the lesson, clearly having won her pupils over, she was told “that wasn’t RE Miss, that was fun!”

So why do many pupils (and teachers?!) groan at the thought of RE? Presumable they think that the subject is uninteresting, irrelevant and disconnected from their own life experiences. Many primary school teachers have had little training in RE and can lack confidence when it comes to teaching about a variety of world faiths. Pupils will easily pick up on this and lessons can lack the same challenge and pace as other subjects.

But, as our supply teacher above clearly demonstrated, RE lessons can be stimulating, vibrant and thought provoking when led by an enthusiastic and inspiring teacher. With the right approach, RE is relevant, meaningful and extremely valuable to all pupils of all backgrounds and abilities. It is thought provoking, enlightening, challenging, stimulating and fun!

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