The RE Podcast
The RE Podcast
S14 E12: The One About Strictly RE
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If you have never been to Strictly RE before, then it is the biggest RE Conference in the country, organised by NATRE and RE Today, where RE teachers from all over the country, from all settings join together and geek out on all things RE. There are keynote speeches, panel discussions, seminars, resources room and most importantly OTHER RE GEEKS TO TALK TO.
This year was the first face to face conference since before lockdown and we wanted to celebrate this by taking you to Strictly. If you were lucky enough to attend, I hope this episode is a reminder of how amazing it was. If you have never been before, I hope this episode inspires you to come next year. Link below to register your interest.
https://www.natre.org.uk/courses-events/strictly-re/
I talk to NATRE chair, Katie Freeman for some behind the scenes chat about what it was like to put on this event, and Katie Freeman and NATRE Director Angela Hill join me after for a post Strictly debrief.
I speak to some of the delegates at the conference about their experience, you'll hear a few clips from some of the talks and all the sounds from Strictly RE 2025.
Thank you do everyone who made this episode possible;
Angela Hill
Katie Freeman
Paul Hopkins
Nikki McGee
Sarah from Jigsaw
Ria Searle
Lat Blaylock
Andy
Ian Coles
Zoe Higgins
Find out more;
Twitter: @TheREPodcast1
Insta: @TheREPodcast
Webiste: www.therepodcast.co.uk
Welcome to the R.E. Podcast, the first dedicated RE podcast for students and teachers. My name is Louisa Jane Smith, and this is the R.E. Podcast. The podcast for those of you who think RE is boring, which it is, and I'll prove it to you. Now, today is a very, very special episode because it comes from location at the biggest RE event in the calendar, Strictly RE. And I'm going to be interviewing RE teachers from all over the country about what it's like to be at Strictly, what they're looking forward to, their favourite bits, their takeaways. But before we hear from them, I recorded a short chat with chair of Natre, Katie Freeman, to give us an insight into what this conference is and why it's so important for the RE community. So welcome back, Katie. Thank you. Now I think many of our listeners are going to know exactly who you are, but just in case there's one or two out there that don't, just quickly remind us who you are, what you do, and what Natre is.
SPEAKER_09:Okay. So my name's Katie Freeman. I am the chair of Nattree, but I'm also a serving primary school teacher. I teach at Bickley Down Primary School in Devon, and my school's kind of right on the border between Plymouth and Devon, and half of it's in one local authority and half of it's in the other, so that's quite interesting. So I do that in the day and I teach RE across my primary school, and then as a volunteer, I volunteer to be the chair of Natre. I say volunteer and I giggle because it's actually feels like it could be a full-time job. And Natray is the National Association of Teachers of RE. So we are the subject association for religious education, and we are a committee that is made up of serving primary school and secondary school teachers who try to meet the unmet needs of RE by supporting teachers through kind of policy work, resourcing, and just general RE kind of knowledge. And we have a thought executive and a steering group. And I think like the last podcast that we did that talked about the workings of Natre is probably still available, is that right?
SPEAKER_02:Yes. So anyone who wants to find out more, go back and find that episode. What has Natre got to do with Strictly RE?
SPEAKER_09:So uh Strictly RE is Natrey, so our subject association's national conference that is held once every year. Why is it called Strictly R E? I'm not actually sure. I don't actually think originally it was to do with glitter balls or you know the whole dancing competition. There's been kind of a bit of a running joke about glitter and shoes and sparkly dresses over the years, but I think it was probably boringly called Strictly RE because it was just about RE. And so the glitter ball came later. It's the spec stone. I think that might have been a Joanne Harris and I um trying to advertise it over the years that we sort of brought in the glitter ball.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, and just so we're clear, there is no prerequisite that you have to come in ball gowns, you don't have to dance in front of anybody, although I'm sure Gilesy might do that at some point over the weekend. So let's just talk about sort of then when it started, why it started its purpose.
SPEAKER_09:Okay, so the first Strictly RE conference, ironically, was the first time that I ever got involved with Naptrey. So it was held originally in London and Holburn, and I think it was at that point the biggest ever conference that we'd ever have for RE teachers, and it was one single day. And it was kind of this idea, I think, of just bringing together the RE community because we know we're a kind of diverse bunch from all over the country, and we're all quite friendly, but we never really got to see each other in real life. And I think the executive at the time, of which I was not a part, thought that it would be great to kind of bring together those expertise. So for the executive and other RE professionals, kind of leading seminars, and then also gathering the community so that they could network well together as well.
SPEAKER_02:And I think it's such a useful thing. I think a lot of people are teaching RE on their own in their classrooms and actually don't have a whole team of people of RE specialists around them. So to be able to spend some time with their community learning, networking, talking to each other, I think it's just so lovely. When it started, it was face to face. During COVID, it went online.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:This year it's gone back to face to face, but actually, that wasn't an easy decision. Why not?
SPEAKER_09:So this has been a kind of a long standing thing. So we did, as you said, had an annual conference that met face to face. And every year, when we met face to face, it got bigger and bigger and bigger. We had to find new venues in London because it got so huge. And then, as you said, COVID hit, and we were kind of like a lot of us felt that it was the highlight of our year to meet together to hear latest updates in RE and also, like you say, network. It can be, you know, that RE departments in secondary schools can be quite small, perhaps one or maybe two teachers, so it was great for that networking. And in primary schools, if you're an RE leader, it can be a bit of a solo job. So it was great to bring those communities together. And we were kind of looking at during COVID how we could continue to do that, but obviously, socially distance using the old good old Zoom platform. So Fiona Moss, who was our CEO at the time, sort of looked at how we could do this and we kind of investigated how many Zoom platforms we might need for lots of breakout rooms and how many people we could get into the main meeting room, sort of found a way through. And the first year, I remember sitting in my kitchen with a lot of fairy lights behind me, and we just tried to kind of bring that buzz that we got from the conference together, and we did things like holding virtual staff rooms so that teachers could still get that networking opportunity, but obviously from behind their computer screen, and then we did that again the following year, and then last year we did it again online, and I think lots of people were sort of saying they love the online conference, and we stretched out. Fiona had these great ideas which were really successful of stretching out over two days. We didn't even in quiz on a Saturday night, and then we had some run-up sessions, and I guess it became almost two weeks of RE training, which was great, and people could download those sessions. But lots of the feedback we were getting from the executive, just from the wider RE community, was kind of like, can we go back to meeting together face to face? And this year we'd actually planned, Fiona had started planning an online conference. Uh, we had the seminars and the speakers all lined up for an online conference, and we just kind of had a bit of a discussion about the way forward for Natrey, and we were going to go with it online. Then we thought actually it would be really good to get this community, this ever-changing group of RE leaders from across the country to meet together, and we thought we'll test it out. We went for a slightly smaller venue, we've gone for a new location because London is quite hard to get a big venue and get everybody staying in London. So we decided to try Birmingham because we thought that was quite easy to get to. And our wonderful team in the office went and visited all sorts of venues. I got sent all these links of all these different places and possibilities, and then we settled with the one that we've got because it's a fairly quick journey from the station. I guess it's a little bit smaller than it's been in the past when it's been face to face in terms of the capacity of the hotel, but we've done that deliberately just to see how this works, having going back to a one-day conference and gathering people together. But I have to say I'm really excited about just seeing everybody meeting up and you know the in-real life thing and having an exhibition space where we can go visit stands and not have to log into a Zoom account to talk to somebody. And I think all of those things have been really creative and brilliant, and I'm really grateful to Fiona and all the team that came up with it, but it's there's nothing quite like face-to-face, I don't think.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and I think you're absolutely right. There's something very powerful about being in a room with somebody, and I've said this before like for me, with somebody with ADHD, I find it really hard concentrating for 45 minutes on a screen. Whereas when I'm in the moment and there's like sensations and there's people and there's lots going on, I find it much easier to be present in that moment and learn. And it's just so lovely to meet people and you know, network, and it's just so lovely. The speakers that you've got, how are those chosen?
SPEAKER_09:So we kind of have a planning meeting. So, as you know, like Natre works with our CEO, but now we've we kind of changed that after Fiona left. We looked at, you know, how we could sort of work some more capacity into Natre, and we've renamed our CEO role as a director. So we kind of went with the language of the Multi-Academy Trust, and Angela Hill is our brilliant new director. And so she's worked with lots of different people to kind of look at what is it that people really want training on? Who are the people in those fields that would be helpful? We also ask our executive as well if they would volunteer to share their practice. And then we have to do things like looking at do we have an even stretch of primary, secondary, key stage one, key stage two, key stage three, and beyond? Do we have some sessions offer for A level? Have we got some exam board involvement? Are we looking at research as well that's going on? So that there's something for everybody. We don't want anybody to get into one of those three seminar sessions and think, oh, there's nothing here I want to look at. We've got sort of less seminars than we've had in the past, and that's really to do with the venue because as I said, we're triangling things out. If we find everything works really successfully face to face, then we will go back to having more in those seminar slots, but we've still got quite a lot. I mean, I find it really difficult to decide when I wasn't speaking which one I was going to go to because there's lots of really exciting stuff, and also we just want to make sure that we've got some cross-phase working. Like we were talking earlier, like about how brilliant cross-phase working is. And I think those sessions are really powerful and really important that primary school teachers and secondary school teachers can sit down together and look for common ground, but also the differences and celebrate those as well.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and actually, you know, I think that from my key stage one and two colleagues, I learned so much about how to teach that age group, but also what I can utilize because primary pedagogy is different from secondary, and they come to secondary school with a load of skills that we don't necessarily know because we don't understand how they're taught at primary. And if we can have conversations with those colleagues and glean some, you know, nuggets that we can then utilise in year seven to make that transition a bit easier and capitalise on their skills they're coming with, that would be fantastic. Have you got a taste of some of the seminars that are there that kind of I can just give people a bit of a Yeah?
SPEAKER_09:I mean, I'm leading one on pilgrimage, so I'm looking at pilgrimage from different worldviews because I think that at times we've got quite a lot of a focus on the harsh and I realised this in my Key Stage 2 children when I was teaching, and I I was going to introduce Christian pilgrimage with them in year four, and I said something about I'm gonna look at pilgrimage today, and they're like, Oh, we're looking at the trip to Mecca, and I was like, No, no, no, there's loads of different pilgrimages, and it sort of opened my eyes that actually, you know, when we're teaching the five pillars of Islam, we use that word pilgrimage a lot, but we don't talk about pilgrimage for Muslims. And I had taught pilgrimage in Hindu Dharma as well, but I think the children were surprised that you could go on a pilgrimage if you weren't religious too, and that that might be a different spiritual experience that didn't involve God. So I'm doing a session on that for primary, but really it's probably a cross phase. We've got some people talking about different worldviews and subject knowledge and diversity to do with that. We've got a brilliant session of Muslim voices, so it's going to be kind of looking at diversity within Islam and different lived experience. We've got sessions on exams, we've got creative ideas. I think Lant's going to do a lot of creative ideas for age five to sevens, which I think is always very well received. There's just loads, there's something for everybody, and it's really worth having a little look. But yeah, it promises to be really exciting. Brilliant.
SPEAKER_02:Is there anything specific you're really looking forward to?
SPEAKER_09:I think I'm really looking forward to this session on diversity within Islam and having some people share their lived experience and just those voices kind of interacting with each other and talking about what they do, what they believe, and drawing on each other's lived experience. I think that'll be really interesting. We've got Richard Quay as our keynote, and I mean he's always brilliant and really inspiring. So really looking forward to hearing what he's going to be saying as well. Yeah, I just think there's something for everybody, really. And I really just hope that everybody comes and really loves it and really likes just seeing people. But I am massively looking forward to the networking too and just meeting people in real life.
SPEAKER_02:And so actually, if you're out there, if you're secondary, if you're primary, if you're an RE specialist, if you're a teacher with another specialism, if you're new to RE, if you've been teaching RE for 20 years, there is going to be something for you that's going to support you and invigorate you in your teaching. So for anyone who is listening who's got serious FOMO right now and didn't get tickets to this year strictly and wants to make sure that they get to the next one, what would you sort of like practical tips? Do they need to be a member of Nattre? How do they book? All that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_09:So if you are a member of Natre, then every year that we've held this conference, you get a discount with your Nature membership. We also tend to run an early bird offer, and I know that we did that for the first hundred tickets. We did 50 at one price, 50 at another price. And so that's really worth watching our social media because we start advertising quite early. And if you can get one of those early bird tickets and then use your natural membership discount as well, you get huge, huge discounts. So my tip would be to start looking early. And the other thing that I would say is that I know that in my school, my budget runs April to April. And so I know that if I'm going to do CPD and that I know that that's coming up, I need to put that bid in for that money as well. So I think be thinking, looking at the prices that we've had this year, give a bit of a roundabout figure, get that in your budget bid so that next year, when it comes up, you can be quick off the mark with to your business manager and say, can I go on this training? It's going to cost this much. And I've put it in my budget and it's been agreed already. So I'd really, really recommend doing that. Don't be caught out because your budget's set and you haven't put that money aside for your CPD.
SPEAKER_02:And also the earlier you book, if you can book hotels and trains and things in advance, they're much, much cheaper. And what people are finding now is they're now booking their hotels and things like that, and actually the prices have doubled. So actually, the earlier you can get your ticket, you get it cheaper, plus your accommodation and travel will be cheaper as well if you book in advance.
SPEAKER_09:So um and don't be afraid to stay down the road at the travel lodge either. Everyone loves the travel lodge.
SPEAKER_02:100%. Yeah, brilliant. Thank you so much, Katie, for just sharing this. And we're gonna hear from some punters, some delegates.
SPEAKER_03:So it's now the morning of Natre, and uh group of us met last night and had dinner together, which is just it was really lovely. It's just a very beautiful community. Just sitting in my hotel room about to go to the conference. So we've got a keynote speech from Richard Quay, which I'm really looking forward to. I've got three seminars that I've chosen. One is on researching non-religious worldviews, one is on developing oresy, and one is on generative AI, saint or sinner. And then there is a Muslim panel at the end of the day. So really looking forward to the day, and I will speak to as many people as I can to get their kind of thoughts and words of wisdom and takeaways. So off I go. So I'm here with Sarah, part of the Natra Exec. She's just gonna tell us a little bit about your experience of being here so far.
SPEAKER_14:Well, it's my first time coming to an in-person strictly, and already at this early stage I can see how magical it is. So many people networking, so many wonderful conversations in person, and I'm really looking forward to the seminars. And I've seen some amazing resources that I've already sneakily looked at and are now putting on my wish list, but it's looking fab already.
SPEAKER_03:It's really great, isn't it?
SPEAKER_14:What sessions are you going to? I am going to practical RE for primary, I'm going to Ways of Knowing, and I'm looking at the new understanding Muslims resource. Yeah, very excited about that. I think it's going to really enhance my curriculum.
SPEAKER_03:Brilliant. Now just introduce who you are, Paul, and why you are here.
SPEAKER_08:Hi, my name is Paul Hopkins, and I work in technology enhanced learning mostly, although I've been involved in RE for about longer than I care to think about, really. I'm here today doing a session on generative AI, AI more widely, and generative AI particularly, and its implications and possibilities for use for RE teachers. And hopefully someone will turn up, so I'm not just talking to myself.
SPEAKER_03:I will be there. I will be just in the front row of the side.
SPEAKER_08:So it's at least the and me. It will be at least a c a dialogue, if nothing else.
SPEAKER_15:Yeah, absolutely. Nicky McGee, trust lead for RE at Inspiration Trust. I absolutely loved Stephen Pett's session on explaining atheism. So much so I was sat in the session trying to replan my curriculum so that I could include it, which will drive my colleagues mad on Monday. I loved that use of case studies and that exploring just the diversity of atheism, which we don't do. So amazing session, and all the way home to Norfolk, I'm going to be thinking about it.
SPEAKER_11:So my name's Sarah, and I'm a regional advisor with Jigsaw Education Group based in the Southwest. And I've really loved all the discussions about diversity today, kind of reinforcing why we do it, but also really practical ways of doing diversity in diverse ways.
SPEAKER_12:Hi, I'm Rhea. I'm head of RE and PSHC at Northwood School in North London. My highlight of today is the last session I went to of our three optional sessions with Trevor Calling and Critical Responses, the Religion and Worldviews curriculum. And it was really amazing to see how the challenges to the move we are making and actually why we might think about these as positives rather than negatives as I move towards the future of RE. And Trevor's an absolute legend, and he elaborated so amazingly that connected RE, maybe with more passion I have for personal development in schools, about the academic is a spiritual. Ooh, nice.
SPEAKER_05:I'm Lap Black and I used to be the editor of RE today and Strictly RE today. I did two seminars which I really enjoyed, but the best thing was to see 250 teachers behaving in the opposite way to merchant bankers who never do training on Saturdays. 250 excitable religious education teachers enjoying themselves. Fabulous.
SPEAKER_01:Hi, I'm Andy. I'm the head of RE at Meals Cup in Southport. Strictly RE this year has been absolutely amazing. My real golden nugget has to be from Rachel's session looking at deaf and knowledge, especially within the GTSE, and how we can make all them little links or big links between all the different concepts and how we can support our students to do that.
SPEAKER_00:Hi Luke, currently at Birmingham New Street Station, waiting to head home after a fantastic Strictly RE. It's been an amazing day. It's been great to be amongst the RE community and see the enthusiasm and passion in everyone that we've met today. But it's also been brilliant on a sort of CPD level as well. I think when you go to these big RE conferences, particularly as a primary teacher, you tend to worry how relevant it's gonna be. But today's been completely the opposite of that. I think we're having so many different presenters, it's made it really easy to find people that have got ideas that are gonna be really useful straight away. And certainly the three seminars I went to, two of Katie's and one of Stephen's was uh absolutely brilliant. Loads of great ideas to bring straight into the classroom. So uh really looking forward to the next one. Thanks.
SPEAKER_10:Hi, I'm Zoe Higgins. I'm a classroom teacher, RE lead, and lead for religion and worldviews at Capau Educational Publisher. Yeah, I had a great time at Strict Clear RE. I feel like the word kind of problems, challenges, and ways forward kind of come to me from that. I felt like lots of problems and issues and challenges for RE at the moment were discussed. But there was lots of ways forward that I got to think about and chat about with people, which felt really exciting and inspiring. I feel like now maybe I need a week to go through all my notes and re-watch some things and really kind of think about how can I bring some of those things into my practice, into my content writing, and help other teachers to kind of overcome some of those challenges with practical ways and with different things they can read and look into. It was also really great to network and meet lots of people whose faces I'd seen online, on tours, in person. Yeah, just a fabulous day.
SPEAKER_02:So I'm here with lovely Angela Hill and their incredible Katie Freeman, and we're just gonna come back from Strictly and we thought we'd just sort of have a look at what went well, what our highlights were, and sort of feeding forward to next Strictly. So, Angela, just explain what your role is and then talk about your Strictly experience this year.
SPEAKER_04:Okay, so recently I've become natural director, so I work really closely with Casey Freeman as Latury Chair, and so I had quite a big role in organising Strictly as well as doing other things with the executive and steering group and for our members as well. They like to keep me busy, so I also edit RE Today magazine, and I'm a national ARE advisor for RE Today as well, so that's a little bit about me.
SPEAKER_02:It's so funny when you sometimes break down all the things that you do, you're like, I don't even know how this is physically possible to fit into one life, but you do it brilliantly. How was strictly for you? Because this is the first one that you've sort of been part of as Natural Director.
SPEAKER_04:Okay, so until the nerves went, it was a little bit tricky because it's my first strictly and the First time that we've been face to face in quite a while. I think it's been four years since we were face to face. So it took a little while to settle into it and start enjoying the day, really. But when I could see everybody was just buzzing and networking with one another, and that they were coming out of the sessions and saying really positive things about what they'd picked up and their new ideas and uh resources that they were taking away with them, then I started to relax into the day and just thought it was phenomenal. It was just an amazing gathering of so many brilliant professionals, all different stages of their careers, lots of different contexts. And I just started remembering the buzz of the old days when we used to be together face to face a lot more often. So yeah, it was great. I really, really enjoyed it in the end after I got over the initial trepidation.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And it would be weird if you didn't feel that sense of expectation at adrenaline in the nerves beforehand because it's something that you care so much about.
SPEAKER_04:Oh yeah, I'd just be a walking ego if that was the case, wouldn't I? But not me at all. And what for you was your highlight then? The highlight of the day, I think you know what, really and truly, it was the buzz in the exhibition spaces, and so many people just came up to me and you know said how much they were enjoying the day. And we had really great exhibitors, and just the chat and the birds in the room was great, and also there was lots of free food there as well, which is always a good thing, a positive point. Yeah, and just hearing that feedback, I thought Richard's keynote was brilliant. He really engaged the whole audience and he had some really remarkable takeaways that really kind of blended that academic side to him and the practical elements of RE as well. So I think everybody could take away something from that. So that was great, and just to see everybody gathered together in that room was wonderful as well. I think just being there for the day with my colleagues as well, and with the executive, just having those kind of informal chats and discussions, that was all really great as well. So it was it was just a really, really brilliant day.
SPEAKER_02:And did you know what's lovely? I took just like a 10-second sound file of the exhibition room because I wanted to capture that like buzz of like what it felt like and sounded like to be at Strictly.
SPEAKER_03:I'm not sure if you're gonna hear me over the hubbub, but I just wanted to give you a sense of what Strictly sounds like. So we're in the exhibition hall, and there's exhibitions from exam boards, from RE Today, from the Jewish Museum London. There's free food and coffee, everyone's chatting, networking, laughing, and just enjoying being together.
SPEAKER_02:And I've got a little bit of clip of Richard Quay's talk as well.
SPEAKER_06:And how being from the beginning are faithful. No spoilers, please. I haven't seen it yet. I'm dubious and suspect of Angela Hill's welcome. It's such a pleasure to be here with you today. What I'm hoping that we might be able to do together this morning is to reflect. I'm hoping that we might first reflect on where we find RE in the current educational and political landscape, on what might be in store for us in RE as a community of subject specialists and teachers. And then in the second half, reflect on how we might respond in the most general sense, how we might affect the kind of things that are within our grasp to change, to modify and improve our classroom practice on the front line.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you, Angela. That was fantastic. Katie, what went well from your perspective and what were your highlights?
SPEAKER_09:I think that the initial thing at the very start of the day, although it was a bit scary when all these hundreds of teachers started flooding through the doors, but just that kind of feeling of, oh, it's everybody back together again, and you're not just seeing a head and shoulders on a screen and a couple of like blacked-out screens where people don't want their pictures showing and stuff. Because I think that although that online strictly was a huge success and over COVID it was invaluable, I think there was just a real hunger in the RE community for people to see each other again. So just sitting back kind of a little bit and watching those people interact with each other face to face was really lovely to know that you'd been a little part of bringing those people together was really nice. I think going into the exhibition hall and hearing the, oh, that's who you are, I've emailed you, or like we've talked online, or I was in the same seminar as you, that was really nice. And then going into the main hall for the first session, I'm not gonna lie, I was absolutely terrified to stand up there and do my speech. But actually just looking out across the sea of friendly faces was amazing. As your subject association for RE, NATO strives to lobby for RE nationally, taking the voice of teachers, stakeholders, to support individual teachers through the web, social media, and local groups to ensure that you receive the best possible resources and CPD on offer. As a full-time serving primary school teacher myself, I truly feel that what is special about our subject association is that all the work that is done by teachers for teachers, ensuring that you receive the highest quality accident resources and materials for your schools. I think a highlight for me was probably Richard and doing his keynote. I really love the way he kind of crafted it and like Angela was saying, about having that academic side of it, but also talking about the journey that children go on, because I think sometimes when we're in our own phases, we can forget about the phase that comes before or after or to after us, and looking at that whole journey and valuing everybody at different stages was really important, I think, for all of us, whatever phase we are. I think sometimes we can feel like, oh, is what I do really important? But seeing that whole journey really kind of drove that home for everybody, and it was really lovely to hear those kind of informal reflections on that and talking about what other people do and how they move towards their part in that journey as well.
SPEAKER_02:It's really interesting, and it's hard for me to be objective about this because I've never been part of any other education community, but there's something very special about the RE community, and I think because of the history of our subject and not being part of the national curriculum, the wider community has been so valuable in us kind of like creating a space where we can support each other. And so I think that maybe strictly kind of them epitomize that. And there's something very powerful, I think, about standing face to face with somebody and talking to people. I think partly it humanises us. I think there are RV celebrities and royalty and things like that, and actually to be able to have contact with those people it humanises them and then it empowers you because it doesn't feel as though they're on a pedestal and they're menassed. And you do see people that are outside their comfort zone talking is the community that really champions everybody equally and doesn't put the big personalities on all the time, but it gives everybody a space to talk about what they're passionate and what they're expert about. And for me, I think the highlight was the Muslim panel at the end where Yeah, that was amazing. The phrase I use was unity and diversity, is that you've got three Muslims and they all had different ideas, but they respected each other's interpretations of uh personal faith. So I think you know that was a really powerful thing.
SPEAKER_13:In education, and how would you suggest our e-teachers address them? And if I can ask that to each community in place.
SPEAKER_07:I give a five to ten minute session at the end of each lesson as a QA. And I've done this from the last sort of five, six years I've been at a current school. I teach in a Muslim girls' phase school, uh, but we have a students as well, and then Muslims as well, but part of the academy trust. So it's take public school. One of the most common misconceptions I get from my old students, always send into a big debate is why can't, for example, you look at the concept of men being able to marry more than one. Why can't women have more than one husband? If that was the case, I don't think you'd be able to copy more than one husband. But again, it's also like women, for example. None of the people actually knew that there's somebody who wants to write the corner that isn't after women. Women are entitled to keep their own money as when they get married, etc. A wife does not need to give money to her husband or if she's the key. And a lot of people are not aware that women do have a lot of rights and stuff. But if you have the culture of a woman making a car, for example, yeah, people professionally women are professional human rights. So we have to feel about human rights as well. We even specifically give our children a chance to go to the cave, etc. When they get a chance to pray. And there's a Muslim parent. And I said, So why? Somebody can you come in for a meeting? Let's discuss this. And she said, she's never been to a mosque show, but she's not allowed to go to the mosque. So you know, a Muslim meeting, how did you explain to a Muslim parent? But again, what suggested earlier is uh sometimes in the things like cultural can result in a negative perception of this part. And when I explained to her, I don't know what the changes are. And this game, I think I said for it. I should love it. I'm gonna go in again again. She had a nice closer, she got amazing, uh, ideals, etc. And a lot of times in my school, because of nature of BSE was basically almost field school, we do get asked a lot of questions about the topics of a fortune for data. And just the advice I don't want to give up. I think one of the best advices I could give is addressing this perception have our weight is a Muslim, or someone that has a good understanding. It doesn't have to be a scholar, it can be anybody that you like to understand what's available. Someone who has a good knowledge of our reading is a big Muslim, can give certain advice. It can be with somebody at school that's a Muslim that you can approach when you need to, because I think it was mentioned earlier in the keynote speech, like sometimes it's good to just make your own investigations and make the right decisions. And we see in the media, sometimes the wrong decisions can lead to really bad repercussions as well. So I think find the correct information, then tackle the misconceptions. But as I mentioned earlier, sometimes it can be within the Muslim community, there are misconceptions as well. For example, women being able to go to a mosque, etc.
SPEAKER_02:Is there any kind of like behind the scenes story? So anything that, you know, because it was a I'm imagining a bit like a swan in that it all looked very slick and organised and it all worked brilliantly, but actually there was a lot of people running quite frantically underneath.
SPEAKER_09:I think there were a couple of hilarious ones of in the morning when everybody was starting to come in, the nerves hit me a little bit. We had a couple of rooms where we could store bags and stuff, and I went and sat in one of those and I was literally practicing my speech on my own, and then half of the RE Today staff walked in and were just like, You're right in here talking to yourself. So, yeah, that was quite amusing, and also the toilet situation. So, those of us who were staying at the hotel were like lending our key cards out so people could go to the toilet and stuff like that was quite entertaining. But yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I love that. Angela, any kind of insight into behind the scenes?
SPEAKER_04:Well, I mean, we had the storm, didn't we? So that was a little bit of a panic because we were getting phone calls from people saying that they couldn't make it, they might not be able to make it. One of our speakers texted me when I was on the train on the way saying that they might not be able to make it. So I was panicking about what I was gonna do about that. But I think the main panic was the night before everybody trying to avoid seeing the traitors final. So I was at a table with Richard Quay, and he was quite fortunate because he was behind a tree. He's gonna drop me in it now in the hotel. So we were all trying to turn the other way so we didn't see who was gonna win. Um, and he had the most favourable position because he wasn't looking at it. But he did say that he was gonna leave early to get his keynotes prepared, the finishing touches on it. But I reckon he went back up to the people's final. That's why I'm thinking on catch up.
SPEAKER_09:And we uh weren't gonna watch it until the next night, and then I couldn't sleep because I was a little bit nervous, so I actually did watch it on iPad streamed in my room. And she came down. I came down in the morning, we were at breakfast when you watched it, didn't you?
SPEAKER_02:Because I think there's a few people that then went home after strictly and watched it at home. And actually, I didn't get hoped at about one in the morning because you know, life and I had to wait a couple of days. So it was such an interesting thing to like to set strictly into context of the wider world as well, of like storms and traitors finals. So that's great.
SPEAKER_04:I'm glad it looked slick and smooth anyway, because it didn't always feel that way getting to the uh finishing line.
SPEAKER_09:No, no, definitely swans. But also, Louisa, I'm gonna say that you uh did also amuse me with your text message to me when you finally got home, said that you were walking home with a natural tote five flashing at everybody as you walked home.
SPEAKER_02:I tell you what, right, go for the tote bags, you know, because you kind of feel like you know, this is what they do at the Oscars and then they're bags. So no, I love that so much. Let's think forward now to the next one. How is it gonna evolve from 2025?
SPEAKER_04:Oh, that's a really interesting question. Well, it's going to be in Birmingham again. Next year it's gonna be face to face on the 31st of January, which is the very last Saturday of January. There cannot be any other days, can the exit to the 31st? And it's gonna be a little bit bigger, so we're looking for a venue at the moment and hoping to get just slightly more capacity there. We are going to have more time to plan, which is great because just all of a sudden in the summer, we were told that it was going to be face-to-face. A decision was made between us, and we just went ahead with it. So it was all a bit of a rush. So we're going to be making sure that we've got lots of teacher voice there, lots of teachers presenting seminars and utilising our wonderful executive, getting them on board with presenting and telling the rest of the RE community all of the wonderful things that they do in their classrooms day to day. Now, my ambition, one of my ambitions for Strictly next year, is to have a special edition tote bag. So watch this space. That's what my ambition is. I don't know what that is now. I didn't even know about this. I don't know if it's gonna be possible, but you know, that's my goal. We're gonna be thinking about that definitely. Specially designed for Strictly 2026.
SPEAKER_02:Hold on, Angela, could this be a competition? Could we get a student that designs the tote bag? My head is going. Yes.
SPEAKER_04:So I don't know. Couldn't it actually? Yeah. Is that gonna be a teacher's competition or a pupil's competition?
SPEAKER_09:Ooh. Teachers do spirited arts, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So yeah.
SPEAKER_02:That would be great. We'll see. We will see. Okay. But that's gonna be great. Actually, it's gonna be bigger, there's gonna be more capacity for people to be there. Having those teacher voices leading those seminars fantastic. Katie, for you, is there something that you kind of would like to see the next one?
SPEAKER_09:I think Andrew and I have had kind of brief discussions about it, and we're gonna have a wash-up meeting, I think next week, actually. But I think really she sort of covered what I think too. And the big thing for me is that teacher voice. So we knew that this year we had to put something together very, very quickly. And because we made the decision late to go face to face, and it was kind of like find a venue as quickly as we could, how many teachers can we take? Let's advertise it, let's try a new new location. And so we the long-term plan was always let's get more of the exec speaking the second time, we do it if it's a success the first time. So, yeah, I think that's the big thing for me. More of our very talented executives sharing what they do in the classrooms by teachers, for teachers, helping other teachers out.
SPEAKER_02:And can I just say on behalf of uh everyone who attended strictly thank you so much for the work that went in? It would have been really easy to go, let's not do it face to face. And actually, you took a really brave step to do something that completely paid off. And the opportunity to stand a room and talk to other RE teachers at all different stages of their careers and draw on each other's experiences and passion, I think was so appreciated by the community. So thank you for the work you do generally in that trade supporting the RE community, but specifically for the huge amount of work that went into uh organising strictly. Do you want to just do some shout-outs? Because it took a team. Yeah. Is there anyone specifically you want to just say thank you to?
SPEAKER_09:I think a huge thank you to Tia, particularly and her team, Antonino, Mabina, and all the office staff who just worked their socks off. They were the people that were answering all the questions when people were ringing up about venues and bookings and hotel accommodations and stuff, and they just worked around the clock. And every time I sent an email out asking a question about something ridiculous, it was straight back to me within an instant. So they've just been incredible. I think also, you know, huge thanks to Zoe for just letting us do something crazy, and it might have seemed a bit crazy at the time with the time frame, but kind of just trusting Angela and I that it was the right thing at the right time. So yeah, like a huge thanks to her, and then just the people that kind of came and exhibited and wanted to be there, and the people that put stuff in your goodie bags as well, you know, that's it's lovely, isn't it, to come and get that kind of stuff. But just having that support from the wider curriculum community was incredible. And then obviously Angela, who uh sat with bits of paper flying around contacting all these speakers, and and I would go, Angela, I've had an idea about this, and she'd go, Okay. So, you know, she just made it happen, really, because the reality of it is I'm in a classroom full-time, so I did as much as I could, but it was really these lovely people who were sat behind computers whilst they were doing their day jobs as well, like flinging bits of paper around and replying to emails and getting everything sorted out, so and you know, managing things like timetables and stuff as well. But also, I think a thanks to Fiona because before she left, she started to think about strictly. So we used her frame and then developed the conference from there as well. So I think you know, thanks to her for the work that she started and we continued and changed and it evolved from there as well.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, the timetables are such a good thing because I don't know about anyone else. I'm one of those people that turn up to a place and then go, oh, what am I meant to be doing? What you know, what did I choose? Where am I meant to go? So that was really helpful. Angela, anything to add?
SPEAKER_04:Well, all of those people I would like to thank everybody who contributed, anybody who just took the time just to email and feedback to us and you know to fill in their feedback forms, and also obviously Katie, because she's just phenomenal and she's put so much into strictly, not just to strictly, but her work for Nat Trey is just amazing on top of a full-time teaching job as well. I don't know where she gets the time to do everything or the energy, but yeah, she was there supporting the whole process and brokering deals for things to go into goodie bags and discounts for teachers' diaries and all of that sort of thing behind the scene, which nobody would really know about. And she certainly doesn't shout about, so yeah, just all the wonderful work that she's done on top of everything else that everyone else has done for making the conference a success. And it really has been a success. We are you know analysing feedback at the moment, and it's just so overwhelmingly positive, and we're learning from the things that we didn't quite get right as well. We understand that things weren't perfect, of course, and you know, we're gonna learn from that and run with it next year and have just you know an even more phenomenal conference next year as well.
SPEAKER_09:I think the other thing that I would also like to say is the executive, because it's not a big secret, but we've got a WhatsApp group for the executive, which comprises about 35 people all in a WhatsApp group. But I just put in a call like a couple of days before Street Lane was like, Who can go on the welcome table? Who can just be around to talk about membership? And every single one of them that were going were like, I'm happy to do that, I'll be there, and they did it just out of the goodness of their hearts. And lots of them had paid for their own tickets to be there as well. So, like a huge thanks to them, and then obviously, you know, it goes without saying our speakers as well, who are just all phenomenal.
SPEAKER_02:So, you know, just as we close this episode, it's a real celebration of I think the RV community, and I think this is what you both do really, really well, is you always elevate the community and not yourself or your role or the organization. And you know, I know that you say a lot that it's run for teachers by teachers, and I think you really embody that that being your agenda and that shines through everything you do. Exactly why there was lots of things that went behind Strictly that nobody else knows about because you don't promote what you're doing, you promote what it's for, and that's really appreciated. So thank you so much for taking time out of your half term to talk to us and do a bit of a debrief. And I really hope that this uh episode really celebrates what Strictly is, promotes it, gets more and more people going and making the most of this incredible opportunity. So thank you so much.
SPEAKER_13:Thank you.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you. My name is Louisa Jane Smith, and this has been the RE podcast. The podcast for those of you who think RE is boring, but it's not. We get RE teachers on tour and we get to celebrate what is great about RE together as a community and support each other. But thank you so much for letting us bore the life out of you.