session two - RE blogpost

1. THE BENEFITS OF
VISITS AND VISITORS
Religious Education – Session two

2. Pre-F2F
◦ As part of our pre f2f learning, we were asked to look at the checklist
provided by NATRE. This was to enhance our own learning and
understand that using visits and visitors in religious education takes a
lot of careful planning and consideration of all adults and children
involved.

3. The benefits?
◦ It became clear that there are a wide range of both visitors and educational visits
as resources to back up the teaching of religious education. Religion becomes
interactive and engaging for the children, it becomes personal and real.
◦ There are many ways in which visitors can enhance the children’s enquiry; for
example what they wear and special artefacts that the children can visualise. This
brings the religion to the classroom and arises all sorts of enquiry from the
children. It engages them in a way that they are not used and therefore can be
seen as highly beneficial!
◦ We agreed, as a group, that visitors benefits both the children and the teachers. It
allows for a different insight and gives them an unusual experience. It also builds
upon the teachers knowledge for future.

4. However…
◦ It is important to remember that there are a range of factors that the
teacher needs to consider whilst planning visits and visitors for a variety of
reasons.
◦ Religious education can be a sensitive subject and therefore when
introducing new religions it is important that other religions are not
discriminated against when visiting other religious places.
◦ For the benefit of the children’s learning it is also important to remember
that it is still the teacher’s responsibility to keep the class under control and
remind them that they must remain respectful for the visitor.

5. ◦ I believe that it is crucial for children to learn in different ways,
interacting and engaging them throughout a variety of learning
techniques. Allowing the children to experience visitors and
educational visits lets the children to relate to the real world, rather
than just learning from a book.