We recently held a worldviews panel for our Year 9 students as part of our RE curriculum. The RE department at Wickersley Partnership Trust believe that visiting speakers can afford students the opportunity to broaden their knowledge and understanding of different beliefs beyond what we learn about in the classroom.
The panel members presented both religious and non-religious views as it consisted of representatives from Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Baháʼí and Humanist communities. The panel spoke about the following topics:
⭐ Briefly describe your worldview and explain a couple of beliefs you hold.
⭐ How does your worldview affect your daily life?
⭐ Tell us about an interesting/your favourite object linked to your worldview.
⭐ Tell us about an interesting/your favourite day of the year linked to your worldview.
Following the panel held in the main hall, there was a Q&A for the students. After this, the speakers met with our RE ambassadors to discuss their experience of RE lessons in school. RE ambassador Isla said, “It was an amazing experience to meet and interact with a diverse group of people. It really helped us to understand their beliefs beyond what our teachers can describe within the classroom.”
Headteacher, Mr Hardcastle, said: “It was great to see our students immersed in the talks yesterday morning. The students genuinely enjoyed exploring worldviews. A number of students commented to me that they were surprised how much they learned from it and how interesting it was to consider different viewpoints. I also thought that our RE ambassadors did themselves, our RE team and our school so proud. A really successful event.”
The RE department would like to extend our thanks to the visiting speakers who gave up their time to help enrich our student’s learning outside of the classroom.
Here are some of the groups that came to the talk:
Rotherham Interfaith Group
Sheffield Buddhist Centre
Humanism UK
Herringthorpe United Reform Church
