Surrey SACRE | Open House: welcome to 'my place'! - Buddhism 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 will have a tour Woking Dhammakaya Buddhist Temple, hear from Patrick and the temple volunteers, with an opportunity to learn more for ourselves how to support learning about Buddhist beliefs and ways of life in the classroom – and of course, please do bring any questions that you have!
The Buddhist Centre in Woking is a former hospital chapel, so is a very interesting ‘conversion’ which has hosted a Buddhist community since 2007. The Dhammakaya movement is a distinct tradition of Theravada Buddhism that has had a pioneering role in establishing Buddhist practice in England since 1954. This unusual temple is a very calming and peaceful place, and they have since also built a beautiful garden in the temple grounds.
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 Woking Dhammakaya Buddhist Temple
Code of conduct for Buddhist places of worship.
- Shoes are removed on entering the temple
- Attendees should be dressed modestly, with arms and legs covered
- Please don’t bring any food, especially meat products, into the temple
Primary and Secondary RE leaders and class teachers.
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Without SLA Price
Universal
Free
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GDBE elevate CORE
Free
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Venue
Tutors
BC (before children!) Rachel taught in the primary phase, as RE subject leader in community school settings for much of that time, with additional responsibilities for Collective Worship and SMSC. She has been involved as a writer in the past 4 reviews of the Surrey RE Agreed Syllabus, leading the Primary teams for the revisions in 2007 and 2012; and most recently, co-ordinating the complete review of the new Surrey Agreed Syllabus 2023-2028. She has also reviewed the Diocesan Guidelines for VA Schools and the Diocesan Collective Worship Guidelines (both twice!). In addition to her Diocesan role alongside Jane Whittington, Rachel is currently the RE adviser to Surrey SACRE, and leads RE subject leader training sessions for both the Diocese and Surrey RE networks.
When not reviewing syllabi, Rachel also writes assembly materials and is a regular contributor to the BBC Schools’ Radio Collective Worship programme ‘Something to Think About’.
Areas of specialism:
Statutory RE provision; RE in primary classrooms; supporting RE subject leaders; practical ideas for collective worship
Role within the Diocese:
Associate Consultant for RE (Primary)
Adviser to Surrey SACRE