At the meetings of the board members of the EFTRE board will be offering seminars in the host country of the meeting. These will be free of charge to students, teachers, teacher trainers and academics who may be interested to see how, "things are done" in other country's RE classrooms and seminar halls.

The third of these will be in Helsinki [Helsingfors], Finland in November, 2008. There will be four seminars on Saturday 14th November, 2009. These seminars will be in English.

Paul Hopkins (UK): RE across Europe

Paul introduced the idea of RE across Europe as a complex model developed in each country according to their own religious, educational, political, geographical and historical background and explored the idea from the works of Hull, Schreiner and Schweitzer that there is a possibility of an European RE rooted in the principle of the Toledo Guidlines. If you would like a copy of this presentation please contact Paul

Marit Svare (Norway)
What is important when using film to teach the Christian gospel?

Download her presentation - Resources for film and RE

This session will consider the most important films to use when teaching RE. Then using a range of film to stimulate a discussion related to sources, topics and the theological questions raised. The session will also consider the special consideration that needs to be taken when making a film of a holy text. The Key Question for this session is "What are the most important things to consider when choosing films to teach the Christian gospel?"

Lesley Prior is a Religious Education (RE) Advisor and Lecturer. For many years, she has offered advice, help and support to RE teachers working in schools in the London Borough of Hounslow. Lesley has also lectured on RE in a number of colleges and universities and is currently teaching teachers on the Secondary teacher training course in RE at Roehampton University. She is recognised as one of the key figures in the UK involved in training teachers of RE.

In her seminar, students will learn to identify different types of thinking skills, explore their generic characteristics and evaluate some of the ways in which they are used in RE. There will be an opportunity to participate in some workshop activities.

The book Lesley used, "The mountains of Tibet: A child's journey through living and dying" can be found on Amazon at the following link

Paul Hopkins (UK): New technologies for exciting RE - link to seminar website

Paul Hopkins is an independent academic and advisor in the use of technology in education especially in the use of technology in Religious Education. He has written and lectured widely on the topic including books, articles, CD-ROMs and websites. He is recognised as one of the leading figures in the UK on the use of information and communication technology in RE and is currently the tutor for secondary teacher education in RE at the University of Hull.

In his seminar students will look at some criteria for making judgements about the use of internet resources, at some of the resources that can be found on-line at some of the ways of using technologies more creatively in the teaching of religion and at ways in which the technology can be used in assessment. For more details about Paul see his website at www.mmiweb.org.uk

In this interactive workshop I will give a selected overview of artefacts and symbols that can promote creative and critical thinking in relation to religious topics, spirituality and citizen education nowadays. We will then try to find answers to the following methodological questions:

• What kind of vocabulary / grammar do we need to decode religious art or the religious dimension in art?
• Which didactic tools can we use in the classroom to work with masterpieces within an intercultural and interreligious context?