Surrey SACRE | Open House: welcome to 'my place'! - Islam as a worldview.

Members of Surrey faith and belief communities warmly invite you to come and experience their places of worship and gain valuable curriculum insight for Primary and Secondary RE leaders and class teachers.

Each experience will include a meet and greet by the community, a tour, a short presentation and plenty of time for questions and answers, as well as the opportunity to take photographs for use in school. 

Booking your place - each person must make an individual online booking so that we can advise the venues of numbers, carefully noting the times and venues of sessions on offer, as they are not all the same.

For this session, we visit the Shah Jahan Mosque, Woking. We will be welcomed by Kawther Hashmi, former Muslim SACRE member, an experienced interfaith speaker and team lead on Surrey Minority Ethnic Forum – but also wife of the Head Imam! During this visit, we will have a tour of the mosque (both ‘small’ and large prayer halls), find out more from Kawther about Islam, and also be given an opportunity to ask questions, so do come prepared!

This mosque is the first in Britain (and Northern Europe), designed and built by Dr. Gottleib Willhelm Leitner in 1889, and is now a grade 2 listed building. The ‘old’ mosque is extremely beautiful, but for Friday prayers, it is too small, and so two larger prayer halls are used for this purpose – one for men, the other for women. There is also a beautiful Islamic garden on the south side of the Old Mosque, created in 2001. More information can be found on their website.

Ofsted say in their recent report: ‘Although a few teachers had received subject-based professional development in RE, the overwhelming majority had not. Given the complexity of the subject and the kind of misconceptions that pupils were left with, this is a significant concern.’ 

It's an ideal way to boost subject knowledge in RE and invest in teachers' CPD and it's all for free.

Visiting Shah Jahan Mosque, Woking.

There is plenty of parking on site. Madrassah takes place from 4.30-6.30pm, so you are advised that arriving at drop off or leaving at pick-up times might mean a queue!

Code of conduct for Muslim places of worship

• Shoes are removed on entering the prayer halls.
• Head covering is required.
• Females should be dressed modestly, with arms and legs covered.
• Please don’t bring any food, especially meat products, into the mosque.