S18 E1: The One About A Brilliant New RE Book

Bringing together the latest research and practical strategies for teachers of secondary religious education, Joe Kinnaird draws on his years of teaching experience and passion for high-quality RE to explore a range of ways to deepen pupils’ understanding of religion and worldviews.

This book presents a vision of what it means for students to truly engage with religious education: grappling with philosophical and ethical questions, engaging critically with beliefs and worldviews, and expressing informed responses with accuracy and purpose. Joe makes the case for the importance and value of RE, alongside tips for effective practice in all areas of a RE teacher’s role, such as approaches to curriculum design, teaching disciplinary knowledge and handling controversial topics.

Whether you are beginning your journey into teacher training, an experienced teacher seeking new inspiration, a non-specialist, a subject leader, or a senior leader line-managing RE departments, this book is an essential guide for everyone involved with religious education in the classroom.

For an EXCLUSIVE DISCOUNT FOR LISTENERS TO THE RE PODCAST use the discount code SRE10

Release date: 17th April 2026

Cost: £16 (£14.40 with discount)

https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/joe-kinnaird-2/secondary-religious-education-in-action/9781915261915/

What is in the book?

What is the subject about? 
What are the challenges, debates and perspectives in RE? 
What does the research tell us about teaching RE?  
What are the different types of knowledge and concepts in RE?  
How can you structure an RE curriculum?  
How can I explain and model in RE?  
What does questioning look like in RE?  
What does writing look like in RE?  
What does assessment look like in RE?  
What does feedback look like in RE?  
How can I use texts and scholarship in RE?  
How can I teach controversial topics and sensitive topics in RE?  
How can I promote RE beyond the classroom? 

Transcript

My name is Louisa Jane Smith and this is the RE podcast. The podcast for those of you who think RE is boring, which it is, and I'll prove it to you. Now, a fantastic new book has just come out, which I think could be the go-to book for anyone leading or even teaching RE. I think it's very hard for RE leads and teachers to find the time to access, read and digest everything out there related to our subject.

But this book summarises all the most important things in one place, and it is an accessible, balanced, insightful, researched-informed summary of what you need to know about RE other than the substantive knowledge. It draws on pedagogical pillars and research-informed practice and shows what it looks like in RE, but also puts everything in the context of what RE is and what it's trying to achieve. So it's entirely subject-specific.

There's simply not another book like it and it's called Secondary RE in Action. And I'm here with its author, Jo Knaerd, to talk more about it. Welcome, Jo.

Joe Kinnaird (01:19.916)
Hi Louisa, thank you for having me.

Louisa Jane Smith (01:21.513)
No, absolute pleasure. Now you've been on before, but just in case anyone's not quite aware of who you are, what you do, just talk a little bit about who JokinEd is.

Joe Kinnaird (01:30.894)
So I've been teaching RE for, I think this will be my 10th year now. So I trained 10 years ago at IOE UCL. And then I have been working as an RE teacher at the Coopers Company and Coborn School in Upminster, where I've had various roles such as head of key stage three RE, CPD lead, and became head of department.

18 months ago. Outside of outside of the day to day teaching. I regularly work with ITT providers such as the IOE in Kings to provide training for the next generation of RE teachers on things such as curriculum design, use of text and scholarship, teaching, writing in RE. I'm also a member of the Natre executive. So a lot of RE things going on professionally and outside of the classroom.

Louisa Jane Smith (02:34.445)
Brilliant. I mean, it's just a phenomenal list of things to do. And I think what's great. I, you know, I know you from the Natrui exec is that actually this is not head knowledge. This is what you're living out every single day that you put into this book. But let's just talk about what it's about, like a sort of brief summary.

Joe Kinnaird (02:52.558)
So I think what I've tried to do with the book is get that fusion between looking at the research on our subject and fusing that with practical strategies. think both within our subject, there's been a lot of focus on the theoretical and the research and discussion of the abstract of what does.

like good RE look like in curriculum design and assessment and so on. And what I wanted to do in this book is bring that all together where you've got a mix of the history of the subject. So people know where we've gone, where we are at the moment and where we could be going in the future. Also looking at some of like the big research and big debates in the subject about the nature of what the subject's for, the

possible introduction of a national curriculum. And then looking at some of the major research papers that come out like the core report, the subject research review, the Austin report in 2024. And having all of that research out there, but then looking at, okay, what does this look like in the classroom? Because I think for a lot of teachers in our subject,

think we engage really well with the research and we're aware of the big debates and aware of the challenges, but we also want CPD that gives us practical things that we can try. And so what I wanted with this book was something that teachers may dip in and out of. So say for instance, they might be really struggling with questioning in the classroom and they could read the chapter on questioning and think, well, I've got three strategies I could try out.

Or they might be reviewing their curriculum and they're not sure where to start. And so they could read the chapter on curriculum design. Now give them a flavor of the latest research, a brilliant case study from Charlotte and one from Nikki as well, exploring how teachers have taken these ideas about curriculum design and applied it to their own contexts to devise a curriculum that works for their students and the needs that they have.

Louisa Jane Smith (05:14.989)
And that's Charlotte Newman, Nikki McGee that might be known to people. And I think that's what's great about it. I think it's not heavy. It's really accessible and it's really practical. And you've got contributions from other people as well. So you've got different ways into the same kind of approach, but it really is very, practical and really accessible. I'm like a big superhero fan, so I love an origin story, but what's the origin of this book? Like at one point it didn't exist and now it does. So tell us.

Joe Kinnaird (05:17.229)
Yes.

Louisa Jane Smith (05:44.845)
tell us that process.

Joe Kinnaird (05:46.83)
I am saw a advert on, um, on X formerly known as Twitter a few years ago, where the publisher John Katz, uh, which is now known as hashey learning was advertising a series of books, which they want to teach us to write, um, like an inaction book for lots of subjects within the curriculum. And I saw the advert online and they're just so happened to be, uh, re inaction.

book, which they were looking for someone to write. And I was crazy enough to think that I could write it. And I had to submit an application with some samples of like previous writing that I'd done or some work that I'd done and put forward a little bit of an argument forward about what I would like to write in the book. And somehow I managed to secure the opportunity to write the book, is

a really exciting opportunity. And that was about three years ago. And I think the vision for the series is yet again, bringing together research on each individual subject, subject specific books, which provide an insight into what the latest research is, and then fusing it with practical strategies about what this looks like in the classroom.

And I think what's really nice about the series as well is that they are written that they, it's the voices of classroom teachers. And I think in all of the big debates in education, both in the, pedagogy, in teaching and assessment, the voices of classroom teachers are often the most powerful because, you know, we're in the trenches every day. And that's what I.

That's what I really wanted to get across in writing the book. This is a vision for our subject from a classroom teacher's perspective. Here is like a range of tips and my thinking having taught the subject for 10 years. And I think that's what I tried to do with the book was to...

Louisa Jane Smith (07:53.751)
Yeah.

Joe Kinnaird (08:08.174)
to put something together, which I think would benefit other people like me, who are in a different stage of their journey of teaching art. From the trainee who's just entering the subject, who's got no idea what's going on, can be quite overwhelming. There's a lot of acronyms in RE, through to the ECT, who's just picking up the first set of RE classes, the experienced.

head of department. The passionate RE teacher is just looking for new ideas through to the person who's actually a geography teacher and have got six hours of year nine RE on their timetable and they're not sure where to start. So I wanted to write a book that would cater to everyone in the RE community.

Louisa Jane Smith (08:56.609)
Yeah, absolutely. And it totally does that. You know, I, found it very accessible and it's, as you say, it's not abstract or theoretical. It uses the theory and makes it very practical and applicable to what you're going to do in the classroom the next day. And actually, as you said, each chapter can be standalone. So if you're focusing on assessment or if you're focusing on writing or whatever it might be, you can just read the chapter on that.

And it breaks down all the latest research and then shows you step by step how to apply that to the classroom and different techniques you can use and really specific examples of what that looks like, which is brilliant. You hinted there that the name secondary RE in action is because there's a series of books. I'm presuming there's a secondary maths in action and et cetera. Oh, and primary as well. So there's a series of books. So actually, you know, we'll share a link to this book. It's out on the 17th of April. We'll remind you of that later.

Joe Kinnaird (09:41.326)
And also a primary, and also a primary. Yeah.

Louisa Jane Smith (09:51.725)
But actually there is, you you can recommend this series to colleagues because I think they're just absolutely fantastic. What you said this sort of all started three years ago. What was the process like of writing this?

Joe Kinnaird (10:04.438)
In all honesty, it was very daunting because it's something that I've never done before. And so it was literally a case of almost, you know, opening a Google doc and thinking, you know, you write the title of the book and they think, okay, what do I put now? It's know, just the nature of like trying to write something at length on anything.

Louisa Jane Smith (10:06.774)
Yeah.

Louisa Jane Smith (10:23.778)
Ha ha

Joe Kinnaird (10:33.452)
can feel quite overwhelming. And then also, you know, as you and I both know, and listeners, podcasters, our subject's quite messy and complicated. It's not the easiest subject to write about at times. Even if you're like someone who's passionate and feels like they know a lot on it. And so doing justice to the complexity.

richness and nuances of the bait things within our project felt quite overwhelming at the start. And so at the beginning of the process, what I tried to do was to almost like, think of like the, the essentials of like, okay, if I was reading this book, what would I want to know about? So I tried to map out

what I thought would be the major foundations of things to cover. And yet again, thinking back to what I said earlier about the theoretical and the practical, I wanted those two threads going throughout it. And so I wanted to sort of start with setting the scene of the subject, why the subject matters, the history of the subject, which I think when I was writing...

when I was writing that chapter, brought me back to my training year and the reading that I'll have done for that. in thinking of where things are at now, you can see the threads of where we've come from, where we're going. And then I just continued doing that for all the chapters of thinking what was the foundations of things I wanted to cover. So the key areas and debates and the subject, which, you know, could have been a book in itself.

to the big.

Louisa Jane Smith (12:31.201)
I think because it's not, you've summarized it really succinctly. So we get a sense of the history of our subject. We get a sense of the debates. And I think that's the thing. It's not a dogmatic book. It's not saying there's one right way to do things. It's looking at, know, here is this approach and here's this approach. And this is, you know, the approach that most people are using now. And, you know, it's quite balanced. It's not trying to say there is absolutely one way to do things, which I think it means that,

Joe Kinnaird (12:35.319)
Yeah

Joe Kinnaird (12:43.842)
Yeah.

Joe Kinnaird (12:48.824)
Mmm.

Joe Kinnaird (12:56.013)
Yeah.

Louisa Jane Smith (13:00.053)
whoever's reading it can take ownership of what you're saying and think about what it looks like in their context and in their style of teaching, which is great. So you said it starts with a history of RE, which I think is really fascinating because it sets what we're doing now in context, rather than just in isolation. This is just, you know, what we do. We now know kind of why we do it. You've talked about the sort of different debates in RE.

Joe Kinnaird (13:08.514)
Yeah.

Joe Kinnaird (13:16.27)
you

Louisa Jane Smith (13:28.501)
So I kind of want to then, as we've sort of started this, kind of go through like what is contained so that people, when they pick it up, they know what they're looking through, they know what they're looking for. So we've started with the history. You also kind of talk about why the subjects are important today. Kind of summarize why you think it is so important.

Joe Kinnaird (13:51.673)
think there's so many reasons. I think at a fundamental level, it's a central part of the human experience. All societies, past, present and future religion has been, is and will be a part of them. I think it allows students to engage with the big questions. And we could talk later on about some of the complications with looking at those big questions and how it might...

sensitive for some people. But, this comes into my own vision of the subject. I think students enjoy looking at those big questions about life, death, morality, nature of existence. I think students are genuinely, genuinely interested about exploring answers to those big questions and hearing different ways of thinking about and answering those questions.

I think our subject plays an essential role in that.

Louisa Jane Smith (14:55.543)
And not only not just, it's not only about that, it's the process by which you want to answer those questions is very applicable. So even if they're not interested in how we got here, what happens when we die or the meaning of life, because actually not all kids like to deep it as they quite often tell me, the process by which they're considering different points of view and critically analyzing different answers, that is applicable outside of big questions, that kind of idea of critical thinking, which I think is important.

Joe Kinnaird (15:00.355)
Yeah.

Joe Kinnaird (15:06.19)
Yeah.

Joe Kinnaird (15:10.146)
Yeah, yeah,

Joe Kinnaird (15:17.55)
Hmm.

Joe Kinnaird (15:24.012)
Yeah. I think, you know, build upon what you said is, you know, even if they're not interested about those big questions, they, each student will have their own identity, their own value, their own personal worldview. And by exploring those big questions, it's further informing their own sense of self. And I think that that's another role that the subject plays. think it, you know, there's

Louisa Jane Smith (15:35.307)
Mm hmm. Yeah.

Louisa Jane Smith (15:42.413)
100%. Yeah.

Joe Kinnaird (15:53.389)
I think just, you know, studying RE is essentially like the study of what it means to be a human being. We have links with other subjects like history, politics, art, literature. But I think, think his real essence is getting at what it means to be a human being. I just find it fascinating to teach. And I also think as well.

Louisa Jane Smith (15:57.835)
Yeah, yeah.

Joe Kinnaird (16:20.191)
know, in the 21st century and, you know, we look at some of the issues and problems that we have as a society, I think ARIA quits them to live well in to be well-informed citizens of the world.

Louisa Jane Smith (16:32.269)
100%. Yeah.

Joe Kinnaird (16:43.225)
There's a lot of things going on in our way in terms of like the aims of the subject and what we think it's for. But I think all of these things feed into why I think the subject.

Louisa Jane Smith (16:53.185)
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that you're absolutely right. It's so empowering as a subject because it's not this power struggle of we have knowledge and we're going to give you that knowledge. It's here is some knowledge, let's look at it together. And I think that there is a lot of, and certainly in the last few years, a move towards empowering students, you know, and maybe it's a bit of metacognition, but I think it's bigger than that. It's thinking about

Joe Kinnaird (17:02.19)
Yeah.

Joe Kinnaird (17:05.572)
Yeah.

Louisa Jane Smith (17:16.877)
what do you think about this text? And actually, let's think about what they think. And it's empowering students to be comfortable with difference. And I think that's definitely something that is maybe missing in some of the kind of mainstream stories that we're seeing, is people being comfortable that people think in different ways. And I think we provide a very structured framework for creating that nuance and creating that dialogue, that respectful dialogue, you know, and

Joe Kinnaird (17:23.983)
Mm.

Louisa Jane Smith (17:45.515)
And you're absolutely right, equipping students to navigate the world that we're in. It's essential that they have certain skills that we teach in RE in order for them to flourish in the world that we're in. think, yeah, you're absolutely right. But actually, one of the things that you talk about is the challenges in RE. So, you know, we've got this rich history, we've got this really important role, but there are some challenges. So you kind of go through some of the main challenges, just sort of

Joe Kinnaird (18:13.795)
Thank you.

Louisa Jane Smith (18:13.975)
talk about what you mentioned in that chapter.

Joe Kinnaird (18:16.877)
Well, I think the big one and this, you know, this has been one I think has been a major challenge for last year is that, you know, current time speaking, there was no national curriculum. And obviously I was writing this, writing this book prior to the publication of the curriculum and assessment review. And obviously, you know, it's recommended the introduction of a national curriculum.

But I thought it was really important just to emphasize why I felt that was a major of not having it. You know, the quality of RE provision is almost like a postcode lottery. You could have two students who live five miles apart that receive a very different, very different quality of RE. And I think it's some...

I think we have a moral imperative to provide all students in the country with the best RE possible. I really do think that a national curriculum would raise up the standard, would raise up the standard. you know, the nuances and all of the arguments for and against national curriculum is a different podcast. But I did feel that's a major challenge of the subject in the last few years.

You know, so I wrote in the book about subjects not meeting their legal obligation to teach RE. You know, we've got that trade data suggests to us that 40 % of schools are not fulfilling their statutory duty to teach RE to all pupils. It's not right, know, schools are delivering RE through the back door, through assemblies, or not at all.

All students deserve high quality RE and they're not getting it. The amount of teaching time for the subject is another major challenge. There's huge inconsistencies with the RE provision that is provided in schools. 13 % of schools are delivering less than the Ofqual recommended teaching time for the full course RE GCSE. That wouldn't happen for maths.

Joe Kinnaird (20:41.547)
That happen for English or science. So why is it happening for our subject? And we see RE, you know, as I mentioned earlier, you know, RE through the back door, through drop down days or through assemblies, you wouldn't deliver a core part of a geography curriculum through an assembly. I'm not sure why there are people in our sector who think

RE can be delivered in that way. You know, other challenges that I think the subject faces, the recruitment of teachers, it's been an ongoing, an ongoing challenge for our subject. And, you know, as we've spoken about before, you can have all these amazing developments in our subjects and all these brilliant conversations about curriculum design and, and the

the richness of debate and discussion you can have in a classroom. But if you don't have qualified RE teachers to deliver and all of the things we were talking about earlier about the aims of the subject, why we think it's important in 21st century, it's not possible if we don't have the teachers to deliver. And so, you know, yet again, the RE policy unit,

Louisa Jane Smith (22:00.717)
percent.

Joe Kinnaird (22:07.343)
you know, reveals they're in 23, 24, only 285 needs enrolled. That's 44 % of their goal. It's not enough. And then, you know, yeah, yeah.

Louisa Jane Smith (22:14.987)
Yeah, no. And that's year on year. That's not just a one-off. That's been for the last 10, 11 years, isn't it? And I think this is the thing, isn't it? Is that, you know, I genuinely believe bad RE does more harm than good. And so if we, you know, and I don't think a national curriculum is the answer to all of our problems, but I think it's part of the reason it's not valued. It's not invested in. It hasn't got, you know,

Joe Kinnaird (22:31.151)
Hmm

Joe Kinnaird (22:42.02)
Mm-hmm.

Louisa Jane Smith (22:45.075)
subject enhancement courses anymore, there's no bursary, you know, it's been completely underfunded, underlooked and not recognised and not and actually what the curriculum assessment review said is, is its importance is not recognised in its current national standing. And so this has a lot of problems for recruitment and staffing and training and CPD and resourcing and consistency and high quality RE, you're absolutely right.

Joe Kinnaird (23:00.111)
Mm.

Joe Kinnaird (23:07.759)
Yeah.

Louisa Jane Smith (23:10.753)
And I think it's important people understand the challenges in the 21st century for the subject in order to make an informed decision about, you know, how we move forward as a subject and understanding the importance of it. So therefore, what is the consequences of not having high quality RE? And it actually does more harm than good. And I think that's really important. The next thing you talk about is different approaches to RE.

And you kind of have a look at, sort of weigh them up and look at the sort of strengths and weaknesses of them. Now, one is, my gosh, and I can never say this word, phenomenological approach. I had to practice that first time, come on. You know, where it's kind of very much based in sort of ninnian smarts that, you know, that there are very specific phenomenon that are found in all religions. So there is a story and there is a ritual and there is ethics.

Joe Kinnaird (23:50.457)
Well, those fall.

Louisa Jane Smith (24:09.303)
Talk to us about some of the other ones.

Joe Kinnaird (24:12.559)
So with the other ones which we have spoken about phenomenological, the interpretive approach put forward by Bob Jackson, this is the idea that religion is not just an academic construct. We want to look at the lives of people different to our own and make sense of that lived experience. Alongside that, we have the human development pedagogical approach.

This is the idea that RE is grounded in questions of making meaning, big focus on ethics and morality. And with this pedagogical approach, we want to provide students with a space to reflect on how these ideas relate to their own lives. Critical realism is another pedagogical approach where

students are looking to assess evidence presented by statements of belief and make judgments about competing truth claims. It's really encouraging students to critically assess whether there's any, whether there's any truth in the claims presented by one religion that they're looking at or a multitude of religions depending upon the topic. And then

Concept cracking is this idea that, you know, when we're teaching our re, we're developing students ability to, to explore the phenomena of a religion. They're looking at universal concepts that underpin ideas within religion. So justice, worship, or it could be a specific concept within a religion like the Trinity or the imamate.

And yet again, students are exploring the concepts, you know, substantive emphasis on the substantive knowledge approach. And then the final two that I spoke about are deconstructionalism. I struggled with that one. It's about the individual, the individual student constructing their own worldview based upon what they're encountering in the RE classroom.

Louisa Jane Smith (26:24.095)
Yes.

Joe Kinnaird (26:37.023)
and finding their own meaning from what's being explored. And then the experiential approach uses activities such as meditation or drama to move the student beyond the academic towards the emotions and spiritual development that religion can provide. And, you know, when I was writing that, that section of the book, I was thinking back to

I thinking back to my own RE lessons like of that week and thought, you know, have I used any of the, where have I used any of this pedagogical, this pedagogical approach in my classroom or is the one of them that I, doesn't really align with my own vision of the subject. And I did want to emphasize for balance is that, you know, all visions of RE are valid and all across

Louisa Jane Smith (27:34.391)
Yeah.

Joe Kinnaird (27:36.215)
a teaching day across the teaching week, across teaching year, you will use a variety of pedagogical approaches. And I think it's, I think it was just important just to give teachers an awareness of like the research of pedagogical approaches out there that is sort of like, you know, in, in, the background of what they do. We've spoken earlier about like,

Louisa Jane Smith (27:44.684)
Yeah.

Louisa Jane Smith (28:02.369)
Yeah, absolutely.

Joe Kinnaird (28:06.487)
students finding meaning and their own personal will. You can see that in the pedagogical summaries. And there is no one approach that we use. We draw upon a lot based upon what we think is most important for what we're teaching and the aims of the lesson or the scheme of work.

Louisa Jane Smith (28:29.099)
This is it.

Yeah. And so actually you don't want the tail to wag the dog is that you don't just choose an approach and you always use that one. You have to select the approach that's going to most effectively teach whatever it is you want to teach that day or within that section of the lesson. And I think that's important to understand the different approaches, understand the strengths and weaknesses of them so that you can make an informed selection of which one is the most effective.

The other thing it does, which I think is nice and just let me know if I miss one out, it looks at the sort of main documents that sit behind RE. So over the last five or six years. So it looks at the national content standard. looks at the core report to the commission on RE. It looks at the curriculum and assessment review, and it looks at the Ofsted subject report, deeper meaningful. that they're the kind of main ones. And I think that, you know, as I said before, teachers don't often have

Joe Kinnaird (29:08.195)
Yep. Yep.

Joe Kinnaird (29:18.575)
Thank

Louisa Jane Smith (29:25.323)
the time to read everything or know what they have to read because there's a lot of stuff out there. And what you've done is selected the most important documents, summarized them, but also put a link to them so people can read the full one because they know that actually that's a really important one to read. And I think that's really, really helpful. So thank you for doing that. The other thing that I found really helpful, because as you said,

Joe Kinnaird (29:28.267)
Yeah.

Joe Kinnaird (29:41.581)
Yeah. Okay.

Louisa Jane Smith (29:49.591)
We're quite a messy subject and I think partly we haven't had a national curriculum. So there's lots of stuff out there. Really helpful table that's like, here's all the places that you can go for different types of support. And this is what they offer. So, you know, whether it's RE hubs or whether it's, know, Natre, RE online, you know, all of those different things you've selected the ones that are the most important for teachers to engage with and just given a really helpful summary of what they offer.

Joe Kinnaird (29:55.471)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Kinnaird (30:02.029)
Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Kinnaird (30:14.799)
you

Yeah, I found that helpful for me. Yeah.

Louisa Jane Smith (30:19.381)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So then it talks a bit about multidisciplinary RE. So we've just been teaching about talking about different approaches to RE and sort of the latest thing is this multidisciplinary RE. Just sort of summarise what that is.

Joe Kinnaird (30:32.643)
Yeah.

Joe Kinnaird (30:38.639)
Well, I think in recent years, we've had a lot of discussion about different types of knowledge in our, and I think as, you know, as the, as we've progressed, we've got a, you know, a far better understanding of the different types and they're becoming quite regular conversations in our, in our subject. The first would be substantive knowledge, which is essentially like the stuff.

Louisa Jane Smith (30:45.677)
Hmm.

Joe Kinnaird (31:08.779)
or the substance of RE. that's like key beliefs of a religious or non-religious tradition, sacred texts, holy buildings, concepts that relate to religious or non-religious traditions. It's essentially the things they need to do that we want or need them to know. And then in recent years, there's been a lot more development on

disciplinary knowledge and it really is like an ongoing area of debate and development in our subject. Richard Quay has produced a lot of great work on this alongside of us thinkers in our community and it's sometimes referred to as like ways of knowing, more how to know and it's this idea that it can provide us with a way into the substantive.

There are lots of disciplines that can further inform our teaching of the substantive, but the multidisciplinary approach often draws upon theology, which is exploring the nature of belief, how beliefs have changed, where they have come from, their authority and consistency. We often draw upon philosophy, which focuses on thinking and the process of reasoning.

And we also have the human and social sciences and this can explore the lived experience of belief itself and how that impacts upon the individual community and wider society. What's really nice, I think, about the disciplines is that they provide they provide us with ways of asking different questions about the substantive. And so, for instance,

theology can get us asking questions such as, what does it mean for something to have authority? What is the origin of this belief? What are the diverse ways that this concept can be understood? Philosophy gets us asking questions such as, does this argument make sense? Is some types of evidence more convincing than others? The human and social sciences discipline allows us to look at how might

Joe Kinnaird (33:33.775)
belonging to a particular religion impacts someone's identity. What do we mean by the term religion? So it's getting us to think about the substantive in a different way, which is really exciting development for our subject. And with teaching the disciplinary, what I tried to do in one of the chapters was just give the reader a few pitfalls to avoid.

because it is new to us. we make mistakes along the way when, when thinking about subjects in different way. so some of the pitfalls we want to avoid, we, we want to ensure that we don't blur the boundaries. so, you know, when talking, when using like ways of knowing within a classroom, I think it's really important to emphasize like, if we looked at this from a theological perspective or from a philosophical perspective, does this idea make sense?

I also think it's important to avoid...

to avoid oversimplification. You know, just giving an opinion is not thinking like a philosopher. You know, and so it's really important that we look at the disciplines and we take our time to think how are we using this in a curriculum to really drive student thinking. And the third type of knowledge is personal knowledge. And I got

Louisa Jane Smith (34:47.02)
Yeah.

Joe Kinnaird (35:08.783)
Arabella Saunders to write a case study on this because with my case studies in the book, I really wanted to use RE teachers who are either really passionate about some aspect of teaching RE but also can bring it to life in a way that I've not thought about. She's done a lot of great work on personal knowledge in the classroom and she explores what it means to encounter.

Louisa Jane Smith (35:27.168)
Yeah.

Joe Kinnaird (35:36.673)
interpret, understand and engage with the world. And then she speaks about various ways in which we can bring it into the classroom.

Louisa Jane Smith (35:46.317)
And I think this is what I love about the book is there's an intellectual humility on your part, whereas you're going, actually, I know someone who's really good at this or has done this really well, that's going to offer a different perspective, because this is not just your perspective. There's loads of collaborators, which you've mentioned earlier. think the other important thing to realize is that RE is not the only multidisciplinary subject. And if you have a look at other

Joe Kinnaird (36:08.079)
Hmm.

Louisa Jane Smith (36:09.997)
I mean, I don't know very much about this, what this looks like outside humanities, but I history and geography have multidisciplinary approaches to the subject. So they'll have their substantive content, but then in history, might do like change of continuity or whatever. know, in geography, they might do mapping or whatever it might be. So I think this is not unique to RE. And I think what this does is it brings equity between the subjects that there isn't one way, you know,

RE is not special or unique in this way, in that this is what isn't seen as the best approach to effectively teaching your subject is through disciplinary lenses. So this is kind of, guess, that then is the first third of your book, really, isn't it? Because that's really looking at what sits behind RE in terms of its history, the approaches and the kind of multidisciplinary sort of lenses.

The next chapter is really, really good, really good. Because what it does is it pulls everything together that you've said. And what it does is it tells you step by step how to write a good RE curriculum. So it's, that's what you were saying earlier, that this is not just theoretical or abstract. It actually applies what the theory and the evidence and the research says and what it actually looks like in practice. It's...

Joe Kinnaird (37:16.611)
Hmm.

Louisa Jane Smith (37:37.513)
It's brilliant and people are going to have to go away. We're not going to be able to do it justice. But if you could kind of maybe give your three top tips or maybe things to avoid when you're creating a curriculum.

Joe Kinnaird (37:48.687)
Just three. I think the first thing I would say is, you know, in the book, what I tried to do in that chapter was to start with the latest reading on there. So I wanted to do justice to the REC, Religion and Worldviews project, which has got a lot of great

tips and strategical guidance in there for curriculum design. So I wanted to do it for that. And so I started with that. My first tip would be don't look at what others do and think you have to do the same. I see so much great RE practice. I see so much great RE practice from other teachers in other schools in another context.

with different needs. And that last bit of the last bit is the key bit to focus on. They have their own context, their own needs. And that's the curriculum that they devised, which is going to best support their students. And that's a really important thing to bear in mind is that, you know, you don't have to do exactly what others do. Because you can't take the you can't take the end result.

And just think that's what you need in your context. I think, first thing is to think about your own context, your own needs, and start from there. I think the second thing is to just be really clear on the core concepts and golden threads in your own curriculum. There's a case study in there from Charlotte Newman, know, loads of loads of questions about the

curriculum choices in our own context. And the question there on the core concepts of golden threads is, you know, what are the things that run throughout your curriculum? And I think doing that with your own department, where you sit down and think, well, what are the threads that run through our scheme of learning and almost in a way, start at the very end and what one way

Joe Kinnaird (40:17.708)
I don't really get chance to write about it in the book, but I really like this idea of like the curriculum as like a narrative of a TV show. Think about your favorite TV show. You often think of it as a TV show that has plots that run across the whole series. You've got plots that run throughout an episode. You've got plots that will end, but were for a few episodes.

few episodes, you've got plots that run across series. You know, almost like, you know, there's a lot going on there, it's threads and concepts and ideas, continuously explored and revisited with increasing nuance and complexity. What you don't want.

Louisa Jane Smith (41:04.076)
So it's almost looking at the curriculum holistically, isn't it? It's like not looking at each individual unit and we need to teach them this, then we need to teach them this and we need to teach them this. It's taking your students on a journey where there's a beginning, a middle and an end where, you know, concepts and knowledge and skills are building logically and building on each other so that you've got, what's the word I'm looking for? Coherent, it's got to be coherent.

Joe Kinnaird (41:06.83)
Yeah.

Joe Kinnaird (41:10.287)
Mmm.

Joe Kinnaird (41:16.238)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Joe Kinnaird (41:24.367)
Mm.

Joe Kinnaird (41:29.826)
Okay, yeah.

Louisa Jane Smith (41:31.02)
And it's got to show them what it looks like to get better. And they've got to build on previous units. So you have to know where they're ending up. So you know how to get there. And I think in the past, what we've done is like, we have to do a lesson on Judaism. We have to do a lesson on CQ. You have to do a lesson on Christian, you know, or a unit on each of those things. And actually what they're not doing is seeing the connection or seeing the threads or building knowledge logically. And I think that's, that's almost what you're saying, isn't it?

Joe Kinnaird (41:44.516)
Yes.

Joe Kinnaird (41:53.487)
Yeah.

Joe Kinnaird (41:58.055)
Yeah, yeah, think, you know, a curriculum is a narrative that's told over time and almost going to the end and thinking, well, what what would you want a year nine student to know about a range of religious traditions? What would you want them to be able to do? By the end of year nine and then using that summary and then and then

Louisa Jane Smith (42:02.526)
Yeah. Yeah.

Louisa Jane Smith (42:10.763)
Yeah.

Louisa Jane Smith (42:17.45)
Yeah.

Joe Kinnaird (42:25.767)
using that summary to think, okay, what are we doing within year seven in the autumn term to help fulfill that. And so I think being really clear on the concepts and the golden threads within your curriculum is something that's really important. think another thing, well, it's never done. It's never done. It's, know, this is a living document.

Louisa Jane Smith (42:48.332)
Yes.

Joe Kinnaird (42:54.531)
This is something that is constantly tweaked and revisited, quick tweaked and revisited, throughout the academic year, throughout teaching of the scheme of work. And I think like having those constant conversations with your teachers who are teaching it of what, what's working well. what's working well, what do we need more of? What do we need? and you know, it's really hard to do that times when it's something that you've worked on for a long time.

Louisa Jane Smith (43:23.788)
100 % you feel very protective over it. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And actually one point that you make very effectively is that you have to select, you can't teach everything and that kind of goldilocks zone between breadth and depth. And an example from my own practices. So I've been part of writing a curriculum for a multi-academy trust in London, which has been incredible. And I wrote a unit on SICKI and I'm very aware having

Joe Kinnaird (43:24.217)
was very frankly, very violent. He got me brutal.

Joe Kinnaird (43:35.769)
Yeah.

Hmm

Louisa Jane Smith (43:52.063)
written it and taught it, there's too much in it. The balance is not right. And so I'm having to now take some bits out. So a really good example is I've got a lesson on the unit is all about service. No, the unit is on equality. And so we're looking at all the ways, different ways that equality is shown within SIKI right back to its sort of, you know, creation, its origins, all the way through to the lived experience of SIKS today. And I've got a lesson on

Joe Kinnaird (43:56.942)
Yeah.

Louisa Jane Smith (44:21.6)
that includes stuff on the 5Ks, which is kind of your classic stuff that you teach with SICKI. And when looking at what I need to now take out, I actually don't need to do all of the 5Ks in order to teach the students about the importance of quality. I could just take the CARA and I could just focus on one of the 5Ks, which is the one that most SICKs tend to wear.

Joe Kinnaird (44:26.243)
Yeah, yeah,

Joe Kinnaird (44:36.303)
Mmm.

Mmm.

Joe Kinnaird (44:46.03)
Yep.

Louisa Jane Smith (44:46.238)
not all six-wear, all five Ks. That's the one that is most worn if you look at this data. And that's why we're using a multidisciplinary approach because actually we can look at data of lived experiences and look at that as a symbol and connect it to Waheguru, connect it to equality, connect it to unity. And actually they're going to have a much richer experience of Sikhi by just looking at one rather than looking at an overview of all five, which then is going to be unnecessary and complicated.

but I think we're almost sometimes completionists and that we have to complete the set. So we have to do all five. We actually don't. And it's making those curriculum choices of what to leave out is really important to get that balance between breadth and depth.

Joe Kinnaird (45:20.814)
Yeah.

Joe Kinnaird (45:29.967)
Yeah, and also as well, think, you know, building upon that is, you know, we want space to explore things in depth, but also where are we getting significant levels of challenging? You know, I think, you know, Nikki McGee spoke, spoke about it before of like, you know, it's very easy if we're teaching. don't know. So say if we're teaching Buddhism and we, and we do the life of the Buddha and

Louisa Jane Smith (45:42.303)
Yeah.

Joe Kinnaird (45:57.621)
exploring that in an hour's lesson. Is there better use of time in that lesson where a homework task could be set where they recap the story and in lesson we look in far more detail at aspect of the Buddha's life and thinking of, know, we can cover material in different ways and are we using our lessons to challenge students more and develop that higher order thinking.

Louisa Jane Smith (46:28.534)
So think it's a great chapter. The case studies from Charlotte and Nikki are brilliant because they show different approaches, different questions. They ask how they did it. But there is literally a step by step, you know, like look here, look at this, do that, think about that, plan this. You know, it's brilliant. Try not to do that. Do this. It's great. So we've got the history, we've got the challenges, we've got the importance, we've got the approaches, we've got curriculum design. The next sort of section, the next few sort of chapters look on

Joe Kinnaird (46:40.431)
Yeah.

Louisa Jane Smith (46:58.326)
sort of pedagogical practices. And it takes that sort of science of learning and all the research that's being done and, know, Rosenstein's principles, et cetera. And it shows very, very clearly what that looks like in an RE classroom today. So it goes through explanation and modeling, questioning, writing, assessment, feedback, using texts and scholarships. So it's a chapter on each of those.

Joe Kinnaird (47:00.303)
Yes.

Joe Kinnaird (47:27.087)
Hmm.

Louisa Jane Smith (47:27.966)
Now we are going to do a further episode on questioning because I saw your talk at Strictly and it was one of the best talks I've ever been to. I don't, and it was just very, again, just accessible and practical and balanced and researched informed. And I'm talking from someone as someone with ADHD who really struggles in CPD sessions, but I was engaged and I, you know, it's brilliant.

Joe Kinnaird (47:38.191)
Thanks very much.

Joe Kinnaird (47:51.759)
Yeah.

Joe Kinnaird (47:55.545)
Thank you.

Louisa Jane Smith (47:56.225)
What we're not going to be able to do in this podcast episode is go through each of those chapters and give people a sense of how to do each of those things. They're going to have to read the book. But what I would be great for you to do is maybe talk about your experience. Which of those or which technique in any one of those kind of areas do you feel has been the most impactful in your classroom?

Joe Kinnaird (48:24.929)
that's a good question. You know, when I ended at this point in my teaching career, I think one of the best compliments I could get from a student is if they said to me, can explain stuff really well. And if I ever got that compliment, I would think I'm doing something right. And...

You know, we've spoken about RE being complex and messy and there's so much going on in our subjects and you know, kids are seeing a lot online. They're hearing a lot of conversations outside of the classroom. And I think if we have a safe space where the teacher can explain things well, can explain things in a way that it prompts further questions from kids.

or it really answers a question that they've got, or we can really explain the origin and significance of a belief or the importance of a practice. I think that's gonna, I think that does wonders for our subjects and that's, you know, our value a lot. within, within explaining, there's so many things that you could, they could look to draw upon.

I've become a big fan of frayer models. I remember from, from your session at Strictly, just to return the compliment, was, think the, you know, frayer models, I think are really helpful for like explaining key piece of vocabulary, especially for, um, quite abstract concepts. So the way a frayer model works would be that you give a new piece of vocabulary.

Louisa Jane Smith (49:58.253)
That's very sweet.

Joe Kinnaird (50:18.529)
alongside its definition and potentially its etymology. You provide examples of that. You give characteristics of that concept and then you give some non-examples. So the example that I include in the book is monotheist. So we give a definition of it. A person who believes in the existence of God. We give the etymology of it. Mono-one, theist, belief in the God.

We give examples of it. So Christian, Muslim, Jew, we have characteristics of being a monotheist. So the belief in a Supreme being that possesses qualities such as omniscience, omnipotence, whatever they may be, and then non-examples. So we give the non-examples of polytheist and atheist. And it works really well, I think, as a way for explaining and giving that initial teaching of abstract concepts in our subculture.

Louisa Jane Smith (51:17.238)
Yeah, I think it's brilliant. And, you know, although I've said, and we've both said this, and I think this is true, that each chapter is a standalone. So if you're looking at assessment or you're looking at writing skills, you're looking at questioning, you can just read those chapters. I think the other thing to say, but actually as a whole, each one feeds into another. you know, in terms of like writing a curriculum and we're talking about those endpoints,

how you assess and what you're going to assess is going to inform your curriculum design is going to inform the lessons. And so, you know, I will say you can read them standalone, but actually you should also have a holistic look at everything you do feeding into sort of the same journey that the students go on as well. You know, and I think you do that very effectively. One bit that really stood out to me, and this is because of the number of conversations that I have with teachers.

Joe Kinnaird (51:50.339)
Yeah.

Louisa Jane Smith (52:14.848)
is about writing. How do I get my children or my students to write more? They're writing badly or they don't want to write or they're struggling with 12 markers. I think the section on extended writing, because it teaches you how to write in RE. And it also focuses on Key Stage 3, which I don't think we often do. I think we focus an awful lot on our 12 markers or on our, you know, AO1, AO2 essays at A level.

I don't think anyone's really looked at step-by-step instructions and techniques to get your key stage three students to write and how to write evaluatively. And there's some really practical tips on how to do that. So if you have got students and I know there are people listening that are going to share this same problem. My kids are not writing. I don't know how to teach evaluation. You know, my kids are struggling with 12 markers. That section of the, extended writing is, is absolutely brilliant.

Joe Kinnaird (52:54.863)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Kinnaird (53:13.228)
Thank you.

Louisa Jane Smith (53:14.42)
And I think what I really like is that there's lots of tables. It's not just chunks of writing. So, you know, for a brain like mine, I'm not very good at learning through reading paragraphs. And what you quite often do is just like look at the information in tables and it's all organized really nicely. It's absolutely fantastic. So, so then the last section really deals with two quite important topics.

Joe Kinnaird (53:18.253)
I love a type.

Joe Kinnaird (53:26.735)
Mm.

Joe Kinnaird (53:34.158)
Thank you.

Louisa Jane Smith (53:43.693)
One is how to teach controversy and the sensitive topics in RE and you mentioned that earlier when you've got teachers with other specialisms teaching RE, that nuance of how to teach those subjects, those difficult, sensitive, controversial topics is such a skill that you really do need to have training on how to do that. So there's a section on that and then also how to promote RE beyond the classroom. So let's get some final tips based on those two things just as we close.

What are your top tips for teaching controversial and sensitive topics?

Joe Kinnaird (54:19.993)
think with the top for teaching a controversial and sensitive topic, you must want to break it down into two. think firstly, you got to think about prior to the lesson. with prior to the lesson, think really focus on with a controversial topic, why are we teaching it? It needs to be for learning, not just engagement or relevance. know, bad RE is

is something's happened on the news recently and I think, we can, we could do a lesson on this. Or use this as a start, you know, controversial topics, you know, as, as I, as I show in the book are ones that are emotionally charged. we should not be teaching, controversial topics purely for engagement. the focus needs to remain.

Louisa Jane Smith (54:54.902)
Yeah.

Joe Kinnaird (55:15.843)
the focus needs to remain on thoughtful, intellectual discussion in a respectful environment. And it's a topic we need to approach academically. So I think those are things to bear in mind prior to the lesson. I also think it's super important to plan ahead with any controversial topic you're teaching and almost anticipate what sensitive questions could you get and

having answers for those questions. I'm trying to think of an example. So say for instance, if it's abortion, for instance, they might ask you about the legal status of abortion in the UK. They might ask you about statistics of abortions in the UK. And you don't have to know these word for word, but it's about being prepared for what you get. And also as well, not just questions that you get, but what might the opinions be of

on the room. What responses might you get if you're teaching about animal rights or if you're teaching about pacifism? What are the common thoughts that kids might have in the classroom? So I think just being aware of that. And then the second part of the tips is, think, during the lesson. And there's various things that you might want to bear in mind.

during the lesson when teaching a controversial topic. Something I do a lot of, I sort of like preface the lesson with like an initial speech about the importance of open-mindedness. And I will say, you know, I'm not, you know, we're teaching about X and this is a, you know, a controversial and contested topic. I'll tell them in advance what we're gonna do. So we're gonna look at the...

We're going to look at some data surrounding it. We're going to explore a range of religious attitudes to it and arguments for and against. Say for instance, assisted dying, but really emphasize that it's not, I'm not trying to change your mind. I'm not trying to convince you of a certain way of thinking or tell you that you're wrong. And just really promote open-mindedness. I also think it's important to challenge vague views. Sometimes I hear people say that

Joe Kinnaird (57:39.309)
you know, RE is just your opinion. I don't agree with that. think it's, it doesn't mean you can just say what you like on the grounds that it's what you think. think RE classroom provides me the opportunity to have an informed opinion. We hear vague views. I think we have, I think we have a responsibility to, to challenge them. And I think it's very important for us to also think about how we challenge them.

So when you're counterpoints or you're challenging views, it's really important to stay neutral and respectful, especially if it's a topic that you care personally about. But I think it shows to the student that you're not telling them what they think is wrong. Because with certain topics, think if we go in saying, no, you're wrong to think this, I think that could be.

Louisa Jane Smith (58:15.852)
Thanks.

Louisa Jane Smith (58:19.98)
Yeah.

Joe Kinnaird (58:38.543)
put a barrier on that we can, we want to remove. Asking open-ended questions, asking open-ended questions to students so you get them to explore their own positionality a little bit further. then like showing benefits of counterpoints, benefit of knowing something from a different point of view, because, you know, even if you think X about assisted dying, it's beneficial for you to know why someone would think

Louisa Jane Smith (58:54.08)
Yeah.

Joe Kinnaird (59:07.971)
differently to you. Or if you changed your mind, here's why, here's why other people think differently to you. And then just teaching them like, think, you know, effective discussion skills, like how to add to their line of thinking, how to build on a line of argument or, or challenge a line of argument. And, know, there's a lot more in the book of how we can further support ourselves when teaching challenging topics.

Louisa Jane Smith (59:38.003)
Even the choice of words we use in a question. So if you said to somebody, why might somebody disagree with you, then it's much less antagonistic than go, well, what do other people think? Because it's what it's saying, you know, it's saying that there might be another alternative and you could explore that. And I think that kind of language is great. I think you're right. I think the bit about not choosing controversial

Joe Kinnaird (59:44.247)
Yeah.

Joe Kinnaird (59:50.607)
Hmm.

Louisa Jane Smith (01:00:07.18)
subjects in your lessons in order to engage, I think is really important. And that stood out to me because that's a mistake I've made in the past, that I've believed that certain topics in RE are more engaging and I want to try and do those. I think that's really important. One other thing you said is about creating that space for people to have different opinions. And I think the phrase that always sits behind that is that, you know,

there are more than one right, although there are wrongs. And I think you talked about that sort of responsibility we have to sort of kindly challenge ideas that maybe are not founded in reason or compassion or, you know, are not informed. I think we have a responsibility to do that. And there's a bit on Karen Still, who's been on the podcast before about intellectual humility.

Joe Kinnaird (01:00:37.124)
Yeah.

Joe Kinnaird (01:00:41.679)
Hmm.

Joe Kinnaird (01:00:54.318)
Yes.

Louisa Jane Smith (01:00:57.578)
And that's really hard because for us, we've often done all the research, we know everything, we've thought about it, we know what our opinion is. It's really hard to take a step back from our own thoughts because they're so well thought through and create a space for other children and other voices to be listened to. And it's hard not to have an agenda when you're talking about certain controversial issues.

Joe Kinnaird (01:00:57.615)
Yeah.

Joe Kinnaird (01:01:11.842)
Yeah.

Joe Kinnaird (01:01:16.555)
Yeah.

Joe Kinnaird (01:01:21.443)
Yeah, I think as well as this, think I did include it. I did include it, but often, you know, you might get the question of Miss, what do you think? And that's a really difficult one. And I think first of all, it's really important to be to provide that DOV guidance on political impartiality needed in there. But, you know, I do think there's some intellectual merit for students of like

Louisa Jane Smith (01:01:32.074)
Yes. Yes.

Louisa Jane Smith (01:01:42.581)
Yes.

Joe Kinnaird (01:01:50.283)
hearing the positionality of a teacher of here's why I think this is a contested area without feeling what you think. Another great compliment you can as a teacher is students not knowing what you believe or think. If I can make it to end of year 11 without them knowing what I think, I've done a great job. And I think that can really help promote that intellectual humility where a teacher. So this is why

Louisa Jane Smith (01:01:57.461)
Yes. Yes. Yes.

Louisa Jane Smith (01:02:05.472)
Yes. Yeah.

Louisa Jane Smith (01:02:10.7)
Yeah.

Joe Kinnaird (01:02:20.483)
I and many other people struggle with what to think about the use of nuclear weapons or why we should adopt a pacifist approach.

Louisa Jane Smith (01:02:32.448)
Yeah. So you're almost showing them how you think, not what you think, which is really powerful, isn't it? But there's actually a brilliant table in this chapter, which I think is so helpful. And it's basically the advantages and disadvantages of sharing your own opinion. So you're saying the, you know, the advantages of sharing your own opinion is that, you know, all of these different things, and then you've got a list of things that actually by doing this, here are the kind of pitfalls that you can fall in.

Joe Kinnaird (01:02:35.149)
Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Kinnaird (01:02:44.995)
Yes.

Louisa Jane Smith (01:02:57.504)
So it could be that students feel that they have to have the same opinion as you, or if they disagree with you, it could affect the relationship you have with that person. And so it, but it actually looks about, you know, sort of the advantage of doing it because, know, you are an adult and they're a child and they want guidance and they want support and they want ideas that they can kind of wrestle with. But actually I quite liked that idea of showing the showing the students how you think not.

not what you think and that actually that becomes, you know, your actual opinion becomes vague. I think that's great. So it's a brilliant chapter. The final chapter is so rich and I think, you know, we've been chatting as I've been reading it, you know, and I've really enjoyed it. But one of the things I said to you is it almost kind of gets better. And I think the last chapter is so rich, you know, it kind of goes out with a bang.

I mean, it covers so much. It talks about trips. It talks about visits. It talks about speakers. It talks about using film in your classroom. It talks about how to raise the profile of Ari in your setting. So it's really looking at the sort of like periphery of not just what happens in the classroom, but also what else is happening around the subject. And it's sort of, hold on, I've just lost my notes now.

Louisa Jane Smith (01:04:21.5)
And it's what I think what's interesting if you speak to a lot of RE teachers at the moment, one thing they really struggle, and we kind of mentioned this at the beginning, is the status of the subject in the school. What do you think for you has been the most effective way to promote RE and raise the kind of profile of RE?

Joe Kinnaird (01:04:48.847)
think the things that have helped me are making your voice heard. a classroom teacher and as a subject, making your voice heard so you're part of the conversation about the importance of your subject. think regular contact hung. I think something's been really beneficial, in positive ways.

Louisa Jane Smith (01:04:54.901)
Yeah.

Louisa Jane Smith (01:05:16.32)
Yeah.

Joe Kinnaird (01:05:17.295)
in positive ways. You know, I think about the recent parents evening and a boy who like based on the description, you would not think would enjoy already. And dad said, I don't know what you're doing in those lessons, but he absolutely loved it. I think it's just, you know, regular contact over pray really well because

Louisa Jane Smith (01:05:35.572)
Ha ha ha ha!

Louisa Jane Smith (01:05:42.892)
Yeah.

Joe Kinnaird (01:05:46.255)
I mean, I'm not a parent, but I don't know if the phone goes and it's school. imagine that the positive is quite nice. think positive, I think positive phone calls are really good. think, I think as well, like just linking in with the extra quick to like providing opportunities for trips. think.

Louisa Jane Smith (01:05:57.101)
It's gonna be so much fun!

Joe Kinnaird (01:06:12.943)
really helps promote the subject because it brings the subject to life in a way that I think is essential. We've spoken a lot about the lived experience of religion. You're not gonna really get to grips with that unless you go to a place of worship or unless you go to a museum where you can come into contact with artifacts or if you are able to have guest speakers or go to a talk.

And I think those things all go to a place of worship. And I think those those those experiences offer the opportunity to give students, you know, a really rich in science, religion and can promote this beyond beyond the classroom. Because I think, you know, people see the links with this is something that we see in society. Or this is something that's relevant to our lives right now.

and you know they see it when they walk to and from school, they see it when they go into the city, they see it on the news and I think that can really help promote that religious literacy and that aim of the subject of being an informed citizen which I think most students want to be, most students want to be and most parents will want that for their children too.

Louisa Jane Smith (01:07:36.831)
It's dinner. What it sounds simple, but it's really radical because I think often we try to promote RE from the top down. So we're trying to get maybe SLT to evaluate more or get more curriculum time or employ a specialist. And actually what you're almost suggesting is, it's kind of bottom up. Actually start with the students and start with their parents and provide a rich curriculum, provide excellent teaching, give them those kinds of experiences. And actually that will then feed up. Isn't it?

Joe Kinnaird (01:07:42.351)
Hmm.

Joe Kinnaird (01:07:55.31)
Yeah.

Joe Kinnaird (01:08:01.194)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Kinnaird (01:08:05.441)
Yeah, yeah.

Louisa Jane Smith (01:08:07.788)
So it's almost, I mean, it's my economic policy as well. I don't believe in trickle down economics. It's like, let's push up, you know, but I think, you know, I think that's a really, it's a really accessible, simple answer to a problem many of us have in schools, which is, you know, a lack of support for the subject. That's really, really lovely. Your mom is dedicated, sorry, your book is dedicated to your mom. Why is that?

Joe Kinnaird (01:08:11.663)
Thank

Joe Kinnaird (01:08:31.629)
Yeah, she's just an incredible human being and you know, she's done an amazing job of raising me and my brother and she's such a role model in how she carries herself and she's always supported me in every aspect of my life, both personally and professionally. And like from a young age, she's always encouraged me to read.

and she's always pushed me to explore new opportunities and it was just one way in which I could show my gratitude and thanks for being an incredible mother.

Louisa Jane Smith (01:09:08.352)
so that's so beautiful. What's her name? we allowed to just know her name and give her a shout out or not? Gina. Canard as well with the same surname. Gina Canard. Big love to you for producing, Joe. Thank you so much. Now, just where can we buy it? When can we buy it? How much is it?

Joe Kinnaird (01:09:10.703)
Thanks.

Gina. Name's Gina. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Kinnaird (01:09:29.153)
You can buy it from various places. You can buy it from Amazon. You can buy it from Hachet directly. I believe it's available on Waterstones and Foils. And if you buy it through Hachet, I believe you can receive a discount.

Louisa Jane Smith (01:09:47.413)
Yeah, we've got an exclusive discount for RE podcast listeners. So if you put in the code SRE10, that's SRE10, you'll get a 10 % discount from Hashay Learning. So if you're trying to boycott other places that sell books, that will give you probably the biggest discount that's available out there on the books. That's exclusive to you guys. And it's out on 17th of April. So we're going to release this episode on the 17th of April, which is the day that it is released. So please, please, please grab a copy.

Joe Kinnaird (01:10:08.111)
17th of April.

Louisa Jane Smith (01:10:17.206)
for your department. And I think this is gonna really, really nourish you and equip you and empower you to be even better than you already are guys. Joe, thank you so much for spending the last three years researching, writing this book and providing this for us. It's phenomenal. It's one of the best books on RE that I've ever read. I've only read two and this is one of them. But that says a lot that I managed to get from the beginning to the end.

Joe Kinnaird (01:10:38.383)
That's right.

Joe Kinnaird (01:10:45.743)
Mmm.

Louisa Jane Smith (01:10:45.894)
know, if I can read it, it means that it's accessible to anybody. And you know, I wouldn't, I'm not, you know, trying to, what's the word, I'm not trying to, it's not just, you exaggerate things hyperbole. This is not just hyperbole. This, know, genuinely is a brilliant book. And so we really appreciate you, you know, doing this. Thank you so much.

Joe Kinnaird (01:11:02.403)
Not that.

Joe Kinnaird (01:11:06.933)
Thank you very much.

Louisa Jane Smith (01:11:08.172)
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. It could make us the best teachers of the best subject in the school, but certainly the most needed one. But thank you so much for letting us bore the life out of you.