With government targets for recruiting RE teachers being missed in eleven of the last twelve years, the Religious Education Council of England and Wales and the National Association for Teachers of RE wrote last month to Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson to call for a national plan to prioritise RE and provide sufficient resources.

RE teacher Andy Lewis, deputy head at St Bonaventure's secondary school in east London, pointed out that the national shortage of RE teachers includes Catholic schools. He underlined the need for greater government support to recruit specialist RE teachers.

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The Religious Education Council of England and Wales (REC) and the National Association for Teachers of RE (NATRE) are calling for a "fairer allocation of resources to the subject" and the recruitment of more RE teachers.

The number of RE teachers nationwide has stalled at around 16,200 since 2011.

Deborah Weston OBE, Chair of the RE Policy Unit, said: "Poor quality, tokenistic RE taught by non-specialists without subject training has a knock-on effect on not just our communities, but the depth and quality of a young person's education."

News of the campaign came as Catholic state and independent schools across the UK announced "excellent" GCSE results.

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Domilies's Cambridge examination results were the highest among the 1.5 million students from 150 countries and over 6000 schools.

He has been given a badge and certificate to commemorate his achievement.

"It feels great actually" Domilies says.

"It wasn't the subject I was hoping to get top in the world for, or top in New Zealand even.

"I was happy with top in New Zealand, but to get top in the world in a subject - that's honestly really, really good and I am super proud of myself and everyone who helped me!

"I'm wearing my summer uniform, so I can't wear the badge on my shirt, because it'll come off, but I'll probably wear it on my blazer in winter."

The St Peter's College student spoke of feeling nervous when his principal brought him to stand in front of his peers.

Firstly, they announced Domilies had topped New Zealand in the exam.

Then they called him back - after learning he had achieved the best marks in the world.

The winning exam

Domilies said he chose to write about Islam and Christianity in his paper.

"So there were two papers.

"The first paper was two compulsory three-part questions and one of them you had to show your knowledge of a certain topic."

He says Christian pilgrimages and the Vatican are topic examples.

"And then the second part was to explain and relate it to a certain issue of today, and the third question was answering a scenario, to prove your point."

For the first paper, he thought he was nailing it but for the second one he felt the pressure of time.

"To be honest, I had to write my final three-part question in under 15 minutes, which isn't exactly recommended.

"I felt really nervous and I was thinking to myself that this would probably be an exam that I'd get maybe low 90s [points] but I actually got 97 [points] so I was super surprised."

Domilies says he's doesn't know what the three missing marks were for.

The winning study method

Domilies says his study method involved reading all the materials, reviewing content and then answering the questions from previous exam papers.

His method has paid off: he received A* (the top grade) in every subject, except in economics where he got an A.

Domilies says he's thinking of studying law at university, but is still undecided.

"I'd like to get top [marks] in Classics [this year], because that's one of my favourite subjects, and probably also History ... I'd be fine with any subject" he says.

Source

• RNZ

Called RE Search, the podcast explores key areas in the primary and secondary curriculum in ways that are readily accessible to all students - whatever their faith background.

Sydney's Archdiocese in partnership with Sydney Catholic Schools is behind the new approach.

The weekly 20-minute podcast's presenter is Andrew Martin, a senior RE teacher with over 20 years' experience.

Interviews with special guests explore RE curriculum topics. These include everything from saints' personal stories to interfaith dialogue.

"We're addressing the same questions that students raise in religious education classrooms," Martin says.

Students want to know who wrote the Gospels, Martin says. They ask "How did they know Jesus? Were they eyewitnesses and if they weren't, how can we trust what they're saying?

"They're hard questions and it's not every day that the students benefit from being able to ask those questions of a bishop".

Bishop Daniel Meagher thinks the new delivery method will complement the RE syllabus.

"Teaching isn't a matter of just having an excellent syllabus. It's also about the delivery which needs to be interesting and engaging."

Many RE teachers have great demands placed upon their time, Meagher says. He hopes the podcast helps ease these.

"It will help teachers who are, for example, teaching geography, economics, history and English and also religion and it gives them an extra complement in their suite of classroom tools.

"We need to think creatively and be responsive to the way our students are learning in contemporary society," he says.

This will "more effectively respond to their hungering for knowledge and hungering for God."

The podcast adapts the RE curriculum "to deliver it in a way young people are used to receiving it, so the Gospel can be ever fresh in our times", Meagher says.

Martin hopes to explore wide-ranging topics in upcoming episodes.

"I'm very interested in exploring the whole nature of Church in the modern world and what Church means to young people and how, through the Church, they can engage in the world and do good works," he says.

"Young people have a lot of questions about how to serve marginalised and vulnerable people well, ethically and morally, in keeping with the wonderful teachings that we have in Catholicism, but they've got lots of questions about those teachings and what that looks like in practice. So I'd very much like to explore that further in the near future."

Source

• Catholic Weekly