“What have you learned during the RME inputs?”

When faced with this question I was not 100% certain what I had learnt, until I had todays input. It’s all about the child’s understanding behind religions and their personal journey to find that.

I realised this today after getting to see and touch artefacts related to various areas of RME, including those from the picture at the top. It really made me realise that having objects engages children much more as they can put a visual to what you are saying, additionally gaining more of an understanding.

But you cannot just have the objects alone, there needs to be discussion surrounding them, such as what do you think the object is used for? how do you think we should handle them? These open questions are allowing the children to think deeper leading to a better understanding which is, ultimately, what I would set out to achieve.

Overall, I am much more confident in teaching RME to children and I do not think I will ever know everything to do with all religions! But that’s okay, I think sometimes learning with the children allows them to understand that you are human too and that (as much as I think we find it hard to admit) teachers do not know everything!

Making those mistakes, researching and working with the children will, overall, lead to a more positive ethos within the classroom, helping with other areas of classroom and behaviour management.