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Following on from my previous blog about empowering collaboration, I thought it appropriate to focus on how we can keep connected and support one another at this difficult and challenging time. The word ‘connect ‘comes from the Latin conectere, to join together and in the 19th Century was particularly applied to establishing relationships.

At Culham St Gabriel’s, part of our mission is to support and empower teachers and leaders, as well as establishing and building networks and partnerships. Relationships and connectivity lie at the heart of who we are and what we do.

We have put together some resources and ideas to help teachers and leaders of RE through our RE:ONLINE website. You can find these here  There are being updated regularly over the coming few weeks. If you have any ideas about what you would like to us to provide, please get in touch.

We are working hard to maintain and build relationships during this time. We are exploring ways of bringing teachers of RE together virtually to help each other, utilising our virtual meeting platforms and social media. I’d encourage you to sign up to our RE:ONLINE newsletter as we will be increasing our issues over the next few months. You can sign up here

We are keen to promote and share free resources and support available from all our strategic partners. We are therefore delighted to share these free resources from RE Today/NATRE: https://www.natre.org.uk/about-natre/free-resources-for-you-and-your-pupils/

As a team we are all working from home and are still here to help you. If you would like to contact us we suggest emailing enquries@cstg.org.uk and we will arrange a call with you.

 

Culham St Gabriel’s Trust welcomes the announcement of Dr Richard Kueh as the new Ofsted Subject Lead for Religious Education. Richard is well-known to the Trust through his work on curriculum ( https://www.cstg.org.uk/programmes/research-for-re/) and as a keynote speaker and workshop leader at national conferences for RE over the last few years. Culham St Gabriel’s looks forward to working with Richard in his new role to continue to promote excellence in the study of religion and worldviews.

Many of you will know Culham St Gabriel’s through its programmes such as RE:ONLINE, the Teach:RE Courses, Email a Believer and ResearchforRE. However, I wonder if you have ever thought about applying for a grant? We have recently changed our grant giving approach to focus more on seed corn funding and supporting groups of teachers who wish to collaborate on a small-scale project, as well as giving large-scale grants. https://www.cstg.org.uk/grant-giving/grants/

The Trust aims to empower you. Through both our programmes and grant making we promote approaches which enable and facilitate teachers and educationalists to grow in confidence and bring about change in classrooms and beyond. We are particularly keen to support collaborative working. Could you bring a group of teachers together to work on an innovative project through a local group or hub? Could you connect with a university department to focus on a specific piece of subject knowledge research and apply it to your curriculum?

Some of our recent grant awards have exemplified this collaborative approach. For example, the University of Cambridge plans to bring researchers and teachers together to create resources for GCSE Religious Studies, whilst the Diocese of Bristol and South Gloucestershire Local Authority are working together to provide peer to peer support for teachers of RE. You can find out more about recent grant awards here https://www.cstg.org.uk/grant-giving/grants/grants-awarded/

Some teachers and educationalists I have spoken to are hesitant to apply for a grant as they have never done it before. In my career, I have sat on both ‘sides’ of the process. In my previous roles I fairly regularly applied for grants, so I know what it is like to be an applicant! I now have the privilege of being able to support those who apply. I can talk you through the process, the forms that need to be completed and provide advice. Please do get in touch, I’d be delighted to have a conversation.

Our next grant application deadline for small-scale and large-scale grants is Tuesday 28th April 2020.