PGCE Secondary Religious Education with QTS (11-16) course preparation

Educating young adults and being able to inspire them to share your passion for a particular subject is one of the main reasons why people choose to train as a Secondary teacher. Imagination is crucial, as is the need for patience and the ability to develop and sustain excellent relationships with pupils, communicating clearly with them and breaking down complicated concepts into manageable building blocks for learning.

This PGCE will equip you with a range of academic, professional and vocational knowledge, understanding, skills and values necessary to become a high quality and effective teacher of Religious Education.

The programme aims to develop reflective and analytical skills as well as providing practical experience in planning effective lessons, helping pupils to learn, and effective teaching and learning strategies.

Suggested texts

Below are some suggestions for academic reading, this list is not exhaustive, however it will allow you to choose the books/articles/documents to read in relation to your programme.  Please note, we do not recommend rushing out to buy texts before you arrive, however you may be able to find some second hand or online.

• Beadle, P. & Murphy, J (2013) Why are you shouting at us? The Do’s and Don’ts of Behaviour Management, Bloomsbury Education
• Sobel, D and Alston, S (2021) The Inclusive Classroom: A new approach to differentiation, Bloomsbury Education
• Barnes, P (2017) Learning to teach Religious Education in the Secondary school: A companion to school experience, Routledge
• Holt, J (2015) Religious Education in the Secondary School, Routledge
• Hutton, L and Cox, D (2021) Making Every RE Lesson Count: Six Principles to Support Religious Education Teaching, Crown House Publishing
• DfE, (2020) ITT Core Content Framework [online] 
• Hays (2022) A Summary of Ofsted’s RE Research Review for Leaders and Teachers (Religious Education)

Subject knowledge

Now is a good time to develop your knowledge further, focusing on the major world religions, to help prepare you for the specific requirements of your course. Look back over your subject knowledge audit from your interview. A good place to start with this is RE:Online.

The ‘A very short introduction to…’ (e.g., A very short introduction to Hinduism) books are also good starting point and relatively cheap.

GCSE specifications

We recommend to familiarising yourself with some of the GCSE specifications for Religious Studies (e.g. Edexcel, AQA) for guidance on the ‘type’ of knowledge you will need.