Cumbria SACRE and Cumbria Development Education Centre

Grant Awarded 2020-21 £10,000

Cumbria SACRE and Cumbria Development Education Centre were awarded a grant to create a facilitated virtual platform for teachers to access local religious and non-religious representatives, both for classroom use and as an opportunity for teachers to develop their own subject knowledge and understanding. Cumbria SACRE representatives have committed to the provision of facilitated events on a regular basis for up to 18 months –potentially on average fortnightly. The events allow pupils to question representatives about how and why they live a religious or non-religious life. This focus on the lived experience of individuals enables the project to engage with the national dimension of RE outlined in the proposed Statement of Entitlement in the CoRE report (2018). Other strands of the project include a new online network and resources as well as providing a project template for other SACREs to consider in their own contexts.

Details of virtual visits to Year 7 and 8 by five Christian ‘voices’ and three Muslim ‘voices’ as part of this project can be found here.