Experiential RE supdocs.indd - SfE

Experiential RE 

Sue Phillips

Experiential RE 

Teaching RE with the Theatre of Learning 

Sue Phillips 

Here you will see me teach a group of 22 mixed ability Year 11 pupils in a double lesson on a 

Thursday afternoon at the end of November. 

Bognor Regis Community College, where I have developed this method of teaching over the past 

ten years, is a school of 1500 pupils on a split site. 40% of its pupils have special educational 

needs. It is currently a school facing challenging circumstances having recently come out of 

special measures. The active experiential methods we use meant that the RE department was 

graded one for ‘behaviour’ and ‘attitude to RE’ during the inspection that placed the school in 

special measures. These methods have seen our results rise from 15%-32% A*-C to 60%-75% 

A*-C. 

The class you will watch are learning about Religious Experience for the Edexcel paper, 

Christianity and Philosophical Perspectives. At the time of filming, they are due to take their mock 

exam in two weeks time. 

They have already completed the topic on Religious Experience. Today they will reinforce their 

learning with a re-enactment of Orthodox worship, which they have not done before. They have 

prepared for this lesson over the previous three lessons, learning about the features of the church 

and this style of worship, with the set representing the church in the classroom for them to see. 

The re-enactment that you will see them take part in to sum up their learning is their first handson 

experience of Orthodox worship. This lesson, taken from Teaching Christianity with the 

Theatre of Learning, normally takes place in a candlelit classroom which is otherwise completely 

darkened to represent the death of Jesus on Good Friday. The highlight of the lesson comes 

when the doors of the iconostasis open and the “priest” brings the single lighted candle to the 

waiting “congregation” whose candles are all lit from his, gradually filling the classroom with light 

to represent the resurrection of Jesus on Easter day. It was not possible to film in the dark, so an 

important element of this powerful lesson is unfortunately missing. 

This DVD shows two lessons; the first is an experiential lesson which sums up a period of 

learning about Religious Experience. The aim of this is to reinforce not only the memory and 

understanding of what happens in order to prepare for the examination but also, and very 

importantly, to enable the pupils to evaluate religious experience. In this case, the religious 

experience is that of worship, and it is evaluated through this religion neutral exercise. How much 

more ably will they be able to discuss the effect of worship on a believer after a lesson like this? 

The second lesson is designed to prepare the pupils to write an essay on Religious Experience. 

In this lesson they revise previous knowledge and are introduced to the concept of verification. A 

series of fun and engaging practical activities prepare them to write a Caterpillar essay. My thanks 

go to my colleague Julie Woodward for developing this idea. This essay will enable pupils to 

organise information into a well structured argument using response levels to raise achievement. 

It will provide a useful revision aid and a structure for planning on the day of the exam. It uses 

active and spoken literacy concluding with a traffic lights discussion. This is more fully described 

in my article in RE Today, January 2007. 

Traffic lights discussion and Caterpillar essays are explained in more detail in Teaching 

Tolerance, published by Tribal in 2007. 

2 Experiential RE: Supporting documents

If you are new to the Theatre of Learning you will find the following introduction to the five 

techniques and how they work useful before watching the film. If you are already familiar with the 

concept, you can skip to the two lesson recipes at the end. 

What is the Theatre of Learning? 

Theatre of Learning is a process not a place 

It is a process that I have developed over many years to make RE make sense. It is about using 

circle work and experiential learning techniques in a multi sensory setting with music, artefacts 

and displays to motivate, engage, and improve behaviour and written work. Most important of all, 

these techniques can change the way young people see themselves and others. 

Ten years after I began to develop the techniques and share them with other teachers, there has 

been an unforeseen benefit, the effect of these methods on the teachers themselves. For many, 

it has rekindled their passion for the subject, tapping into their own spirituality and creativity. It 

is enabling them to find RE teaching more satisfying and rewarding as they discover their pupils 

from all kinds of backgrounds engaging in the lessons and in many cases being moved by them. 

Not only has it enabled the pupils to understand and empathise with traditions and ways of life 

very different from their own, but teachers, also, have engaged with the traditions differently, 

as relating to the spirituality of the traditions has deepened their appreciation of them, both 

intellectually and emotionally. 

“After teaching the lesson on the Atman (the Hindu idea of god) the way you showed 

us, I felt I understood it properly myself for the first time.” 

Jenny, Head of RE in a Manchester school 

“You have completely changed the course of our careers – two weeks into our teaching 

practice Emma and I were on the point of giving up; the children just didn’t want to 

know. After we left your session on Saturday we hit the charity shops buying music 

and fabric, candles and plants. It changed everything; my head of department couldn’t 

believe the effect it had on the children.” 

Jill Blanchard a trainee at Manchester Metropolitan University in 2001 

Five years on, following a Theatre of Learning course on RE and Global Citizenship in March 

2006, Jill’s trainee, Andrew, writes: 

“I felt revitalised and energised; it reminded me that I too am a creative and energetic 

person who wants to enhance the learning of the pupils using other methods than 

textbook and worksheet. I had been feeling negative about the notion of teaching for 

the exam, but the ideas have helped awaken and enliven my passion for the subject 

again. It certainly gave me killer confidence to try new ways of working.” 

Following a day with the Roman Catholic Schools Partnership in Birmingham at the beginning 

of March, Theresa Edge from Cardinal Wiseman Catholic School tried the methods and wrote to 

say: 

“I tried The Island [one of the the Theatre of Learning techniques] and watched my 

children learning RE for the first time. I had so much fun that I will definitely do more.” 

A month later she wrote again: 

“I wanted to do something different for our Year 5 taster days and Year 6 induction 

day. I thought I would have a go at your fabulous experiential teaching about Christian 

Experiential RE: Supporting documents 

3

prayer. We set the scene with a beautiful centre display and music as listed. I still get 

goose bumps, Sue, I had teachers with tears coming down their faces and by the time 

I put the music on (“Praise You”), the darling Year 5s were dancing! What a day. When 

the pupils went into the hall at the end of the day they were bursting to tell the deputy 

head what they had been up to. On every day, four in total, RE was what the kids 

enjoyed most!” 

Theatre of Learning creates awareness, compassion and empathy with people whose way of life 

is very different from the pupils’ own. Theatre of Learning transforms the classroom experience 

for both pupils and their teachers, making the whole enterprise more satisfying for them both. 

Teachers, like ourselves, came into this profession to make a difference; Theatre of Learning helps 

us to do that because it creates young adults who will go out into the world with the desire to 

make it a better place. 

Theresa wrote earlier in her email about a visit from Ofsted. For her observed lesson, she used the 

story I had told of an Indian woman who suddenly finds herself homeless; forced to make a home 

for herself in the car park outside Calcutta station, where she walked past the beggars every day 

in better times, on her way to market. 

“We were on tenterhooks. All staff were being observed and I was next. I wanted to do 

something from the Cardboard City book but was not sure whether I should play it safe 

with a lesson I knew they could cope with. Up until the morning, I had not made up my 

mind but I thought if it goes wrong at least I have tried! 

“I told them Sarita’s story of living on the street draped in fabric and bare feet. I asked 

them to choose a colour to describe Sarita’s life and then put it into a piece of poetry. 

Their poetry was amazing. We’ve got a huge display in the corridor.” 

Theatre of Learning also boosts pupils’ academic achievement. Motivated by engaging lessons 

which boost understanding and memory and leading to lessons aimed at improving literacy. 

How did Theatre of Learning come about? 

Theatre of Learning began as a result of my struggles to motivate disaffected 16 year-olds 

who said that RE was “nothing to do with us or anything else we know“. They were fed up with 

cramming facts and drawing ground plans of churches. That summer in 1996 only ten of my class 

of 22 pupils took the GCSE, The others refused because it was “so boring”; ”a waste of their 

time”. They wished to spend precious revision time on “something more useful”. I think they were 

right. 

The day I sat them down in a circle, using my student-centred learning training and my 

experience as a counsellor, to give them the opportunity to tell me why they were so fed up and 

why their mock results were so bad was the worst moment of a twenty year career. What they 

told me hurt; it hurt because I knew they were right. What I was teaching them really didn’t have 

anything to do with them or anything that they knew. 

Getting real with pupils can often be painful but it is a vital part of effective education. When I took 

the decision, on that occasion in January 1996, to put the desks against the wall, sit the class in 

a circle and ask them what was wrong, I was using the techniques I had established for teaching 

Personal and Social Education. We didn’t teach like that in those days, or indeed any other 

subject. 

I made a decision that day which, although I could have no idea of the consequences, completely 

changed my life. I vowed that I would never teach the same way again. At that moment, I had no 


idea what I was gong to do instead! 

That decision began a journey of experimentation and innovation, which has transformed the way 

I teach, giving me and my pupils enormous satisfaction. It has: 

• Increased motivation 

• Improved behaviour 

• Improved recruitment to GCSE 

• Involved all pupils, whatever their academic ability 

• Delighted parents 

• Raised the profile of RE throughout the school 

Theatre of Learning boosts emotional intelligence, empathy and compassion 

Most surprisingly, the methods I gradually developed, step by step, began to develop the pupils 

emotionally as well as academically. It was their growing awareness of their own inner selves and 

the change to their attitudes and values which became the most important aspect of this work. 

Not only were they becoming more compassionate, caring individuals, but their understanding 

and motivation to complete their academic work was also transformed. It is this dimension which 

I believe can make a real difference right across the curriculum. All the time, in those early days, 

I was asking myself “why?” It was, I believe, because the whole teacher is teaching the whole 

child and allowing the whole child to respond. 

What is Theatre of Learning and how does it work? 

We work in circles, creating a class “family”, as several groups have described it, through trustbuilding 

and listening exercises and creating a safe place to share personal thoughts, feelings and 

experiences. “Making RE Make Sense” (also published by SfE – see www.sfe.co.uk) explains this 

in more detail. 

We work in a multi-sensory environment, using displays in the centre of a circle of flowers; 

plants; candles; driftwood; scent; pictures; fairy lights; and fountains, together with photographs, 

quotations and artefacts to help pupils remember the lesson. All Theatre of Learning books on the 

various traditions will give you lots of ideas for creating an inviting and pleasant environment for 

your pupils which they will respect and you will all enjoy. 

Literacy is never the starting point 

This means that it cannot provide a barrier to learning. Every pupil takes part equally in the 

experiences and the discussions that follow. When the reading and writing does begin, after 

the learning takes place, pupils are more confident. They approach it with considerable 

understanding already and, as a result of the engaging, sometimes powerful experiences, they 

are motivated to write. They are able to read and write at a more demanding level than they would 

normally attempt because their level of motivation and understanding is so much higher. The 

writing frames and carefully structured levelled essays that follow each Theatre of Learning lesson 

recipe allow all pupils to write to the highest levels of the National Curriculum. 

Theatre of Learning boosts exam results 

British children follow the National Curriculum in all subjects. The framework for Religious 

Education is non-statutory, allowing each area to have its own locally agreed syllabus, which can 

take account of the traditions of the local population. 

Assessment levels with accompanying level descriptors exist for all subjects but are not statutory 

for Religious Education. Using the levels to assess progress is a sensible and useful measure to 

RE teachers; most use them. They have done much to raise academic standards in RE. 


5

The important issue for raising academic attainment in RE is to set questions at the highest levels 

in order to enable pupils to reach them and to develop their critical, analytical and evaluative 

skills. Government inspections have shown that, in the past, RE has not been good at doing 

this. There have been far too many low level activities, eg drawing, colouring and poster work, 

accompanied by short descriptive written work. The levels have enabled all of us to think hard 

about the questions we ask pupils to respond to. 

Theatre of Learning lesson recipes are all accompanied by structured, levelled writing frames and 

essays. The multi-sensory, experiential and enactive techniques used by the Theatre of Learning 

develop a deeper understanding and provide a more effective basis from which to evaluate the 

effect of belief, ritual and ceremony than the use of textbooks alone. They motivate pupils to read, 

research and write at higher levels than they would otherwise have attempted. 

I have summarised the levels in my resource files so that they can be a useful tool for teachers 

and pupils in discussion about written work. 

Level Three (average attainment for age 7) facts 

Level Four (average attainment for age 11) why and because 

Level Five (average attainment for age 14) the effects of religion upon an individual, a family or 

a community 

Level Six (attained by many at age 14) the variety of belief within a tradition 

Level Seven (attained by some at age 14) critical analysis 

Level Eight (attained by a few at age 14) comparison between traditions,; development of a 

tradition through history 

Answering the more difficult evaluative GCSE questions is so much easier for pupils when they 

are writing about experiences they actually took part in. 

After being taught using Theatre of Learning techniques, pupils are able to deal so much 

more effectively with Level Five questions about the effects of religion upon a person, family 

or community, Level Six questions about the variety of belief within a tradition, Level Seven 

questions requiring critical analysis, and Level Eight questions about the comparison between 

traditions, because the answers will come partly from their own experience and reflection, as well 

as being accompanied by real, motivated thinking and research. 

Joe, a very bright and articulate 16 year-old, was coming up to GCSE exams when he made the 

following statement. He was supported by Helen, also very bright. They both planned to read 

philosophy at University. They studied RE to A Level. Now graduates in English, they argued 

forever about which one of them made the statement to a research student who had come to look 

at our way of working: 

“In my other lessons, everything just goes straight out of my head the moment I walk 

out the door, I have to look back over my books to remember what I have learned, but 

RE is a memory, it becomes part of your life.” 

What they were saying is that these lessons affected them and changed them as they 

experienced, imagined, reflected, became aware and articulated; it was so much more than 

information learned from a book. This is what we need to do to bring the citizenship dimension of 

our work alive in whatever area of the curriculum we are working. Here is an example: 

In the early days I discovered the transformative power of this way of working almost by accident. 

After a lesson in which pupils were asked to think about a relationship that needed healing in 

preparation for a GCSE examination question on the effects of prayer on Christians, I invited 


the pupils, if they wished, to write about what they had thought of during the exercise before 

answering the GCSE question. I thought that this might help to add depth to their answer. 

I had done the exercise many times before, but not suggested they share any of their personal 

experience. Pupils wrote at length and some of these responses can be seen in “Teaching 

Christianity with the Theatre of Learning” (see www.sfe.co.uk). One pupil realised how much she 

pushed everyone away, fearful of being hurt. She went home and “sorted out her relationship 

with her stepfather” telling him for the first time how much he meant to her and, after a long 

conversation with her mother, her “feelings about her real father.” Another pupil, realising how 

much she was going to miss an aunt dying of cancer many miles away, went home and told her 

mother how she felt. Together, they rang the aunt so that Sarah could ”tell her how much she 

really cared”. Her aunt died three days later. 

Examples like this occur all the time. 

Using Music to increase engagement and understanding and create pace 

Music is a vital ingredient of every Theatre of Learning lesson, creating atmosphere, soothing and 

engaging the pupils, marking transitions (when this track finishes in three minutes I would like you 

to have …), creating excitement and anticipation or calming and aiding concentration. Not only is 

it having a powerful effect in RE but it has enormous potential across the curriculum, especially 

where we are working on values education through the citizenship dimension of our work. 

Music has a powerful effect on mood and emotion. Whilst I was obviously aware of this because 

I use it in my work all the time, I am rarely on the receiving end of this kind of work. I don’t know 

how it feels to be taught like this. 

The power of music was very evident to me during a presentation by Marion de Souza who is 

working on spirituality with teachers in Australia. She was talking about the importance of using 

the imagination in teaching. She had prepared a PowerPoint presentation about war. It was 

designed to be used in English, RE or Citizenship lessons. It contained powerful visuals from 

Vietnam, together with quotations and poems. 

The point was simply to play it at the beginning of a lesson. The teacher would say nothing. 

However, when we met in Canberra the day before her presentation, she was most concerned 

to find some music to accompany it. Unable to find the piece she wanted, she settled on the 

soundtrack that accompanied the film Alexander, hoping that there would be something suitable 

on the CD. 

The result was extraordinary. It was the music filling the room as the images and text moved 

across the screen that made it so powerful and moving, filling one with a renewed passion for 

the avoidance of war. The music she chose was not martial, but emotional and moving, full of 

the sadness of war. I wonder what the effect would have been had she chosen a rousing military 

band? 

As I watched the “teacher” doing nothing, but in fact so much, I was reminded of a lesson taught 

by a student teacher, also on war, that I had observed a few days before, in England. I will call her 

Katy. 

It was a good lesson, very workmanlike. Katy’s planning had focused on the development of skills 

needed for answering the exam question. The content of the poem she used was delivered to 

serve that purpose, rather than also bring out the author’s aim which was to provoke an emotional 

response to the horror of war. 


7

Katy read a poem to her class without expression or emotion, just got it out there, so it could be 

discussed and compared with another one. She focused on the vocabulary and the keywords 

pupils were learning to use. She tested their understanding of these terms and their ability to 

recognise where these techniques were being used in the poem. She fulfilled her aim very well in 

bringing out the salient points the pupils needed to make in order to write about the poem in their 

GCSE exam. The lesson was crisp, pacy and clear. The pupils showed evidence of having learned 

the terms and skills she had set out to teach. I gave her a grade two. The lesson was very good, 

it had fulfilled the stated learning objectives, and I had evidence that the pupils had learned them, 

but I felt an opportunity to look at the deeper moral issues had been missed. 

It was a bright Year 11 class. They were well behaved but not very engaged. They were reluctant 

to answer her questions – they were perfectly polite, they just couldn’t be bothered. I am not sure 

I would have been either. 

I felt that had Katy used some music and read with feeling that she could have got so much more 

out of the learning experience because she might have touched them emotionally – ie tapped 

into the spiritual dimension – and turned it into a powerful piece of citizenship teaching. The 

pupils would have been more likely to engage with the issues, which would heighten attention, 

focus, concentration and awareness. How much of our time in the classroom is spent recalling 

disengaged youngsters back to attention? How much teaching time is lost because pupils are 

bored? 

I have no idea how the pupils were feeling in this particular lesson but I imagine some of them 

were wondering why they needed to know these terms for analysis, some would have been 

thinking “yes, that’s easy. I know these, I don’t need to demonstrate this to you but I may or may 

not show you that I do know them.” If the pupils had been fired up by the issue at the beginning 

of the lesson, they might have been motivated to talk with each other and the teacher – using the 

terms they needed to know and discovering that these had equipped them with the keywords and 

skills they needed in order to have a satisfying discussion that they wanted to have. 

Pupils may well have left the room better able to answer an examination question, but also with 

values and attitudes and beliefs forming, developing and changing. Music could have gone some 

way to achieving this. 

It didn’t happen because it is not what Katy would expect to do in her planning. I think that had 

she introduced the lesson in this way, she would not have had to change a word of what followed: 

it’s not about cutting out what we need to fulfil our assessment targets in order to fit in more 

exciting things, it’s about thinking about our method of delivery in a more exciting way. 

It reminded me of how often our inspectors, while my school was in special measures (ie deemed 

to be a failing school), asked us to take risks in the classroom to engage our youngsters; but 

how many of us can be bold enough to take the risk when there is so much assessment at 

stake? I believe, and in fact I have demonstrated, that multi-sensory experiential methods boost 

achievement, because they boost engagement. They boost engagement because they introduce 

enjoyment and satisfaction, for teachers as well as pupils. It is about motivating people to learn 

and motivating them to care. It is about changing from passive learners to experiential learners, 

which is in fact how we learn naturally. 

The experience of watching that brief PowerPoint with music in Australia is not a new one; we 

do it every day when we watch television and go to the cinema. It was the context that made 

it so powerful – it is not what you expect in a lecture room – or in a classroom. Our pupils live 

in a multimedia age. They receive information at tremendous speed, decoding symbols and 

interpreting subliminal messages in adverts ,music videos and video games. They are surrounded 


y sophisticated information technology – except in school. 

No wonder they switch off when we come up with our information packages delivered in an 

archaic fashion which was interesting and exciting, in the past – to us. 

Those two experiences of learning about war underline my belief that it is not the information 

that fails to engage but the method. That is why we find ourselves angry and frustrated when 

young people do not seem to respond to issues that we feel are important. We need to find a way 

in through imagination and emotion, to “light the fire in their bellies,” as Anita Haigh, Advisory 

teacher for Citizenship and PSHE in West Sussex, puts it. 

Creating engagement, atmosphere and pace with lighting in the Theatre of Learning 

We work in soft lighting, provided by lamps and spotlights, which creates an atmosphere in the 

classroom, every lesson, which is more powerful than the pupils’ own agenda. Entering the circle 

to music which is gently faded, along with the lights, timed to their gradually ceasing chatter 

means I no longer start lessons frazzled and cross, or shouting – and neither do they – it is like 

the lights going down in the cinema. Everyone waits to see what is going to happen. 

The pupils may enter a brightly lit room to lively music for the introduction to the lesson which 

may be fast paced and energising, for example a true/false exercise testing previous knowledge. 

Then there may be a change of pace and atmosphere to set the scene for an emotional story, soft 

music fills the room, soothing the pupils and enabling them to change gear emotionally. The lights 

will be faded so that the room is lit by spotlights or table lamps, or perhaps simply the overhead 

projector shining on to the board to pick out the keywords that will appear in the story. There 

will be gentle fairy lights woven throughout the centre display so that the pupils have something 

attractive to look at and focus on. The music and the lighting, together, invite the children into 

the story, shutting out the outside world, their own thoughts and distractions from each other. 

The atmosphere allows them to focus, to concentrate, to feel, to think and to imagine. In this 

atmosphere the potential for learning is maximised as the subject information is delivered. It may 

be through a visualisation, a mind movie (see p12), or a short story, all of which I have written 

myself, both as a vehicle for the subject content and to provoke an emotional response. 

Often I find, when supporting other teachers as a mentor, following observations or having been 

called to a classroom to settle a disruptive class, I am faced with a frustrated, often angry teacher 

who says “They just won’t listen! They won’t give me a chance.” 

We need to put ourselves into the shoes of the pupils entering a normal classroom, not 

necessarily through choice, to listen to information that they do not necessarily wish to know, in 

an environment that might not be very attractive and which is full of distractions (ie each other), 

and ask ourselves: “is this how people in advertising would work? What are you going to sell in 

circumstances like these? And if you have to work in these circumstances (which we do!) then 

what is the best way to grab the attention of your customers?” 

We need to ask ourselves: “what can we do to change the way we deliver the core content of our 

lessons?” 

We have looked so far at creating a multi-sensory environment. We have begun to look at the role 

of emotion and imagination in engaging the whole child. Now we need to think about the methods 

we might use within our engaging, multi-sensory environment. Here are two techniques, which 

have had the most profound effect on the pupils’ spirituality and moral development. What I call 

religion neutral exercises and participatory symbols. 


9

Religion neutral exercises and participatory symbols 

Over the years in my RE lessons, these have become increasingly important as a way of making 

RE make sense and most importantly to enable pupils to enter into the experience of someone 

very different from themselves. 

Religion neutral exercises are activities that are planned to parallel the aspect of a tradition that 

you are teaching. They are religion neutral because they are not directed toward a divine being 

and are, if you like, tradition neutral. For example: 

A religion neutral exercise to help pupils understand the meaning of the Christian Eucharist 

Passing bread and water round a circle and reflecting on the symbolism of passing them to 

each other, together with tasting the bread and touching the water, enables pupils to reflect 

on the symbolism of sharing, being nourished, being cleansed and given life. When pupils are 

then asked to read the Eucharistic words of institution and think about what Christians believe 

is happening when they take bread and wine at Holy Communion, all the complicated theology 

suddenly makes sense. Together, with their community, they are being nourished, cleansed and 

given life. Answering a GCSE question on the value and effects of Christian worship suddenly 

becomes something that pupils can respond to meaningfully, as opposed to greeting it with blank 

incomprehension: ”How could anybody find that valuable?!” 

What also happens is that pupils are able to reflect on the transforming power of symbol and 

ritual. They begin to make sense, rather than remaining these rather bizarre activities, which other 

people do, and which have “nothing to do with us, or anything that we know”. 

A religion neutral exercise to help pupils understand the meaning of the Tefillin for Jews 

Show a group of Year 8s (age 12/13), for example, a picture of an Orthodox Jew in Tallit (prayer 

shawl) and Tefillin (small leather boxes containing special pieces of scripture and strapped to the 

forehead and arm) and they are liable to laugh. 

Explaining what is happening in the picture and/or reading from a book or worksheet is not likely 

to improve the situation. It is not just about information but also about prejudice, racism and 

being different. 

However, when asked to write on a strip of paper, something very important in their lives, a hope 

or wish or a special person and to fold it carefully and place it in a small box which is then placed 

for one minute against the forehead where they think about the person, the heart, where they feel 

loving thoughts for the person and finally held in their hands, where they think what they can do 

to help the person, there is a dramatic change. Pupils no longer find the idea of Jews wearing 

Tefillin amusing; they have usually been deeply moved by their own reflection during the religion 

neutral activity; their own spiritual awareness developed a little. Empathy is developed, racism is 

being eroded. Emotional intelligence is developing. Their ability to evaluate, answering a GCSE 

examination question, such as “It is silly to dress up for prayer. In your answer give more than 

point of view” is greatly enhanced. 

Participatory symbols 

This is a term used by Paul Tillich in his book Religious Language. In it he says that there are 

some symbolic actions (things we do), which we humans take which enable us to understand 

something at a much deeper level than if we simply described it. These actions, like eating 

symbolic food, giving gifts, wearing special clothes or giving a ring, help us feel changed. We can 

actually experience the spiritual change of a rite of passage, for example, through these actions. 

In class we can recreate this, enabling our pupils to experience spiritual growth spurts through 

developing awareness and promoting change. We can do this by inviting them to reflect and then 


write down or throw away regrets or special thoughts, light candles or simply eat symbolic food to 

help them remember an aspect of a festival or ritual. In planning lessons it is helpful to think about 

what we can ask pupils to do or take part in that will aid their learning, as well as bringing in the 

kinaesthetic dimension, so important in engaging pupils with different learning styles. 

Theatre of Learning works because it uses all the learning styles but is also a process that 

engages the feelings and the imagination as well as the mind. Theatre of Learning is a 

holistic process developing the spirituality of teachers and pupils. 

Without realising it I was unconsciously transferring to RE, a formal written subject, many of the 

communication skills I had learned as a counsellor and introduced into PSHE, when I began 

teaching it twenty years ago. Step by step I tried things out, gradually refining what I did into a 

number of techniques that could be applied to any age range, for any programme of study. It was 

unconscious because, at that time, I no longer taught PSHE and was not aware of the influence 

its active approach was having on the changes I was making to the way I taught RE. 

Applying Theatre of Learning techniques to PSHE and Citizenship 

Ten years on, the process of Theatre of Learning in RE is being shown to teachers all over the 

UK, Australia and New Zealand. During the period of its development I became an Advanced 

Skills Teacher working on in reach in my school. In this role, where I mentored and coached 

teachers in a number of departments, I had the opportunity to see how the Theatre of Learning 

could be applied in other areas of the curriculum. Striking results occurred in geography, for 

example, where two NQTs transformed behaviour and motivation in their classes by applying the 

techniques to some of their lessons. 

A turning point occurred in January 2005; the day before I returned to school for the spring term. 

I wrote the last sentence for a series of teacher resource files on RE which had taken five years 

to complete. It was a significant moment, one that I will always remember. It was filled both with 

immense satisfaction and also a sense of loss. What now? 

Then I realised what a pivotal moment it was. 

The next day, in one of the many unplanned twists of fate that occur for all of us, I was returning 

to school with an additional role. Deep in the trauma of special measures and with HMI (Her 

Majesty’s Inspectors) concerned about the personal and spiritual development of our pupils, we 

had found ourselves without a head of PSHE and Citizenship. I had come full circle. 

Focusing on PSHE and Citizenship again, with all the techniques I had developed in RE, 

presented me with the possibility of extending them to these areas. The concept of multi-sensory 

learning with its potential to engage, motivate and promote memory and understanding, was 

something I was keen to do, but most of all I wanted to use them to change pupils’ attitudes, to 

enable them to care, and to care enough to change their own behaviour and do something about 

injustice. 

I mounted a two stage campaign: Step One is about ‘Making the Connection’, raising awareness 

of citizenship across and within the life of the school. How I did this is not relevant here, but 

during the second stage, Step Two, which was about using Theatre of Learning techniques 

across the curriculum to develop an awareness of Citizenship, I discovered and developed 

techniques for promoting positive moral values, attitudes and beliefs in young people that made a 

difference to my RE teaching. These are: 

Confidential feelings visualisations in which pupils can explore alternative feelings in tempting 

situations. 


11

Anonymous thought sharing circles in which classes can share safely what they did and felt in 

their visualisations. 

Mind movies in which pupils listen with eyes closed, using their imagination to enter a scene or 

historical time period, or imagine themselves as part of a process described by the teacher. 

Storytelling in role in which the teacher or pupils tell “their story” in the first person allowing 

pupils to imagine what it might be like to be homeless or a refugee, for example. 

What’s in the bag? in which the teacher removes artefacts, objects, surprising facts and 

statistics one by one to intrigue and motivate the class as the lesson content is delivered and to 

aid recall and discussion. 

Traffic lights discussions in which pupils vote with coloured cards on whether they agree, 

disagree or are not sure about provocative statements made by the teacher concerning the moral 

issue discussed that lesson. Pupils are invited to explain their opinion, developing their skills in 

evaluation. 

So this is where I am now, ten years on from that painful day in January 1996 when Lizzie said to 

me so angrily “What has this got to do with us or anything that we know?” teaching, writing and 

developing lesson recipes using these techniques to develop values and concern for our fellow 

humans and our planet for use in RE and across the curriculum. 


Lesson Recipes 

Lesson One: Re-enacting Orthodox worship 

What you need: 

• Five desks, or seven if you want to create a larger edifice 

• Four pieces of A3 card, with a hole punched in each corner. They are tied together to form 

the royal doors 

• Gold effect wrapping paper to stick over the doors. Any richly patterned paper will do, but 

gold will flicker best in the candlelight. 

• Icons photocopied to stick on the doors 

• String to tie the doors together and to suspend the doors from poles 

• Two pieces of dowling or two bamboo canes 

• One curtain or piece of fabric for the altar in the sanctuary 

• A cup, spoon and some bread mashed up with real wine for real taste and smell, placed on 

altar 

• Two long pieces of fabric or curtain (velvet is best) to form the iconostasis 

• Two or more curtains or fabric to put over the side pieces of the screen 

• One candle for each pupil. 

• Tin foil to put round the base of each candle to catch drips. 

• Candles and tea lights (as many as you can find) to put on the side altars near the screen 

• Scented candles and/or incense 

• Music 

What you do: 

• To create the church: place one table at the back of the room for the altar, cover with fabric 

and place objects for communion on it. 

• Place two tables in front of the altar, leaving enough space for people to move around in 

the sanctuary. 

• Leave a gap between the tables for the royal doors, sufficient for the priest to pass 

through. 

• Place two tables on their ends on the two tables that you have placed to form the base of 

the screen. These will form the upright part of the screen. 

• Place tables at the side of the base tables to create space for candles and artefacts. 

• Cover the tables with fabric or curtains. 

• Suspend the doors from the table legs. (During the service two pupils will be needed to 

stand behind the screen with the priest. They will need to lift the doors off the legs and 

place each door on a set of legs, out of sight of the congregation.) 

• Place a chair for the bishop’s throne in front of the iconostasis. Cover this with fabric. 

• On the opposite side of the chair make a side altar. If you can, place on this a large Bible or 

an icon. 

• Place chairs for the pupils in a half circle around the iconostasis. 

The lesson: 

1 Light candles and put on music quite loudly. Use blackout if you can. 

2 Put the projector on. The projector should be directed at the ceiling, displaying an icon of 

Christ Pantocrator, if you can get one. 

3 Pupils come in to music and sit quietly 

4 Fade the music 

5 Ask them to remember previous lessons they may have had on the special place and 

remember the feelings they had. This is how Christians feel here. 

6 Ask the pupils to imagine how Christians feel about these icons. 


13

I sometimes do the introduction to this lesson in the role of the priest, welcoming them as visitors 

to my church. I then describe to them the features of the church, reminding of the previous lesson 

in this way. In this role, I can ask them questions about the previous lesson’s learning, referring to 

the lessons they have had on the Orthodox Church in preparation for their visit. 

Now you should conduct a visualisation to help the class empathise with how Christians might 

feel in this place. Ask pupils to close their eyes and relax. Turn the music up a little to enhance the 

atmosphere. 

In order to engage the pupils’ feelings and empathy and develop their own spirituality, have a tray 

of tea lights ready and invite each student to light one for someone or something special to them 

or that they wish to think about. I remind them that Christians call this a visible prayer. 

Visualisation: 

It is Easter time, when Christians remember how Jesus died on a cross, was buried in a tomb and 

on the third day rose from the dead. It is Saturday evening. Your grandmother has taken you to 

this church to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus. She is Russian, and although she has lived in 

England all her life, she attends this church every week, where she meets other members of the 

Russian community. 

This is the most important festival of the year. Imagine that you have just entered this church. You 

have never been here before. You are struck by how beautiful it is. You walk quietly to the side 

and sit on one of the chairs and look around you. You can hear the sound of the choir singing. 

You can smell the incense. You can see the candlelight flickering on the gold of the icons. Your 

eyes settle on a picture of Mary nearby. You see her sad eyes looking sorrowfully into the future, 

thinking of the suffering of her son who she holds tenderly in her lap. 

Your grandmother has arrived early to tend the flowers. As you sit quietly by yourself in the corner, 

near the sad icon, the door opens slowly with a creak. A lady who is leaning on a stick walks over 

to the icon. She approaches the icon and kisses it. She reaches out and slowly strokes the figure 

of the child. She steps back and gazes prayerfully at the figure of Mary. She lights a candle and 

places it in the holder by the icon. 

As she stands before the icon, her lips moving silently in prayer, two tears slide slowly down her 

cheeks, splashing onto her hands. You wonder what, or who, she prays for so fervently. 

The priest’s voice begins the liturgy. People begin to fill the beautiful church. The smell of the 

incense drifts through the air as your grandmother leads you to stand near the iconostasis. “Her 

son is a soldier,” whispers your grandmother as you turn back to look at the woman. “Perhaps 

he too prays for her on the other side of the world,” she adds. “On this special day when we 

remember how our Lord defeated death and rose from the darkness of the tomb. Look the lights 

are going out, we are almost ready.” 

Ask pupils to open their eyes and come back to the classroom. 

Now it is time for us to re-enact the service. 


Re-enactment: 

• Blow out the candles on the altars and around the church, asking the pupils to imagine the 

sadness at the death of Jesus and the desolation of the world as he lies in the tomb. 

• Ask for four volunteers to come behind the screen. 

• While that happens each pupil can take a candle and wrap a piece of foil around the base 

to catch the drips. 

• Behind the screen, allocate two pupils to move the screen back and rest it on the table 

legs. 

• Allocate one pupil to come through the screen carrying a single lighted candle. All the other 

candles will be lit from this one, gradually filling the classroom with light. 

• The other pupil will come through the screen giving each pupil a tiny piece of bread and 

wine from a long handled spoon, without touching their mouths. 

• Tell the pupils behind the screen to open it and begin the re-enactment when they hear the 

music raised. At that point the class should stand and move forward in front of the screen 

to form a horseshoe. 

• The first priest comes through the screen and goes round the horseshoe, lighting each 

person’s candle. 

• The second follows, giving each person some bread and wine. 

• When everyone has a lighted candle and taken some bread and wine, fade the music and 

ask everyone to return to their seats. They can either blow out their candles or sit quietly 

holding them. 

• Debrief: ask the pupils what they think it is that they have just acted out. Ask them why 

they think Christians do this and what they might get from the experience. 

You may wish to follow up the lesson with an Orthodox wedding and an Orthodox baptism, 

making use of the set and building on what the pupils have learned so far. 


15

Lesson Two: What is Religious Experience? Can it be verified and how far is it a proof of 

God? An active literacy lesson. 

This lesson follows a period of learning about religious experience using a variety of methods. 

The learning has culminated in an experiential re-enactment of Orthodox worship. Pupils have 

also had, as part of the term’s work, an experiential lesson on Prayer, the Eucharist and a reenactment 

of various forms of baptism, including Orthodox Baptism and Chrismation (the lesson 

recipes for these can be found in Teaching Christianity with the Theatre of Learning). 

Pupils have studied the arguments for the existence of God and examples of religious experience 

using active and experiential methods (see Teaching Philosophical and Abstract Concepts 

with the Theatre of Learning). They have written very little. The learning shown in this film is the 

product of activity and oral work rather than reading and writing in class. 

In this lesson they will prepare for writing an essay at home using the Caterpillar technique 

developed by my colleague in the RE department, Julie Woodward. She is our school literacy 

coach and this technique is now being used by many departments in the school to raise 

achievement in examinations. 

Aims: 

• To prepare an essay on religious experience 

• To reinforce learning about religious experience through: 

1. Revising key words 

2. Introducing the idea of verification 

3. Using academic quotation 

4. Using a traffic light written exercise 

5. Creating a Caterpillar essay to be completed for homework and used for revision 

6. Summing up the learning through a traffic light discussion essay. 

Outcome: 

A twenty mark essay written from a Caterpillar framework; the Caterpillar will provide a useful 

revision tool as it is quick and easy to read and retain unlike an essay. The structure will be used 

on the exam day to provide a quick planning tool. 

Starter: Balloon activity 

This activity reinforces knowledge of key words and develops thinking skills and critical faculties. 

1. Have enough balloons for each pupil 

2. Put vocabulary on card (easier to insert than paper!) in one half of the balloons and 

definitions in the other 

3. Pupils blow them up and burst them on a signal and find their partners and sit with them 

4. Share keywords and their meanings in a circle 

5. Draw out deeper knowledge with questioning during the sharing. 

Activity One: Caterpillar exercise 

1. Pupils collect a sheet of coloured A3 and a felt tip and draw four large circles to represent 

the topic for and against and the conclusion 

2. Caterpillars are explained 

3. The pupils learn to describe the topic in a way to gain maximum marks 


4. As the first circle, the topic, is explored pupils are reminded of the response levels: 

One – a single word answer 

Two – a sentence 

Three – the preferred response, a sentence with key words 

Four – the most desirable response, sentences with keywords, links with history Biblical 

quotations and or examples to illustrate the point being made. 

Activity Two: Learning to use arguments for and against 

1. Pupils have a list of points for and against arguments for the verification of religious 

experience on a sheet of A4. The text is demanding. 

2. In pairs or groups they discuss these, underlining each one in red (stop) if it is against and 

green (go) if it is in favour. 

Activity Three: Learning to write conclusions 

Spoken literacy. Here the pupils practise expressing themselves. They need to be able to speak 

the ideas before they can write them. The class discuss how to express a conclusion. 

Plenary 

The learning is summed up and reinforced through a traffic lights discussion (as opposed to the 

true/false factual check seen at the beginning of the first lesson) 

1. Pupils have three cards: red for ”I don’t agree”; green for “I do agree” and amber for “I am 

not sure”. 

2. They vote in response to a series of statements. 

3. There is no right or wrong answer but this facilitates real thinking and reflection before the 

vote and an inclusive and full discussion, deepening the learning after the vote. 

Traffic lights discussion questions and statements 

• If religious experience is ineffable then it cannot act as proof of God 

• Arguments for the existence of God work (to convince people of the existence of God) 

• Every person agrees that if there is a God that he is omnipotent; omniscient and 

benevolent 

• Religious upbringing leads people to believe in God 

• Parents should not make their children go to church 

Theatre of Learning techniques have made RE make sense. Pupils have used multi-sensory, 

active and experiential techniques which have motivated and engaged them in their learning, 

raised their academic achievement and helped to promote their own spirituality and ability to 

empathise with people whose experience is very different from their own. 


17

Sue Phillips 

Sue teaches at Bognor Regis Community College in West Sussex where she is Head of RE, 

Professional Tutor and an Advanced Skills Teacher working on in reach within her own school. In 

her AST role Sue supports a number of departments through coaching and mentoring. A trained 

counsellor, she delivers CPD on communication skills together with multi sensory learning and 

assessment. 

Over the past ten years she has developed an approach to RE which she calls the Theatre of 

Learning. 

Pupils work, using music, in circles within and around huge multi-sensory sets representing 

whatever aspect of the religious tradition she is teaching. The active and experiential activities 

which take place in the Theatre of Learning enable pupils to develop their own spirituality, 

empathise with beliefs and practices different from their own and promote high quality written 

work, enabling and inspiring pupils to write up to level eight. The techniques of the Theatre of 

Learning can be adapted to any programme of study and any age range and are being used by 

teachers in both primary school and to teach sixth form. 

Sue now demonstrates the techniques of the Theatre of Learning in courses she runs regularly in 

her own classroom for teachers on the south coast and, as time permits, at venues around the 

country. 

In schools where Theatre of Learning is being used, the techniques have transformed motivation, 

behaviour and recruitment to GCSE, improved examination results and enabled teachers to 

experience more job satisfaction and fulfilment as their own creativity and spirituality is developed 

alongside that of their pupils. 

Sue has an international reputation through her presentations at the International Conference on 

Children’s Spirituality and her writing in their journal. She has written a chapter for an international 

handbook on RE and spirituality to be published in Australia later this year. She has demonstrated 

her work at the National Symposium of Religious Education in Australia and New Zealand and 

presented Theatre of Learning in RE and Citizenship throughout Australia to teachers in the 

Catholic and Lutheran church in August 2006. 

Articles on Theatre of Learning have appeared in the TES, the SHAP Journal for World Religions, 

RE Today and the International Journal for Children’s Spirituality. 

A series of five teacher resource files containing lesson recipes for all aspects of RE are available 

from SfE - samples can be viewed on the website www.sfe.co.uk/theatreoflearning. 

Sue can be contacted at njphillips@supanet.com 


Further RE resources available from SfE/Sue Phillips 

For more information and to order any of these resources, please visit www.sfe.co.uk, call us on 

0117 3115276, fax 0117 3115421 or email sfe@ctad.co.uk. 

Making RE Make Sense: 

Bringing RE to life 

£56.90+vat 

This resource file by 

internationally-acclaimed author 

Sue Phillips provides an exciting, 

practical approach to teaching 

RE. 

Successive annual reports 

for RE state that many pupils 

receive mechanistic and undemanding activities. As a 

consequence, pupils have difficulty in describing accurately 

the main features of different faiths and understanding how 

religious faith can affect the lives of believers. They have 

little knowledge of religions and have poor analytical and 

evaluative skills. 

This introduction to Experiential RE (using Sue’s awardwinning 

Theatre of Learning techniques) enables teachers 

to use five methods to engage, motivate and instruct their 

students. Comprehensive textual discussion is illustrated 

by photographs, an ‘in action’ video and examples of 

students’ work. 

This is a complete guide to using experiential, enactive 

and multi-sensory techniques to help pupils empathise 

with believers, understand abstract concepts and ultimate 

questions, and produce high-quality written work. 

This resource costs just £51.21+vat when purchased with 

one of the other four resources. 

Teaching philosophical 

issues and abstract 

concepts: 


£56.90+vat 

This resource covers the key 

concepts forming the framework 

upon which the understanding of 

religion is based. It will help your 

students to engage with ultimate 

questions on a personal level, while 

each section is based around the 

three part lesson and the literacy strategy, enabling pupils to work 

up to level 8. Packed with ideas for the specialist, non-specialist 

and NQT alike, the file includes sections on: 

■ 

■ 

■ 

■ 

■ 

■ 

Early religion 

Myth 

Life after death and how we cope with death 

Arguments for and against the existence of God 

Science and religion 

Verification of religious experience 

Religion-specific resources 

Comprehensive and eLC-eligable, these provide thorough 

set of lesson ‘recipes’ which will: 

■ Help pupils to understand the abstract concepts through 

■ 

■ 

personal, religion-neutral experiences 

Support the literacy strategy, with cloze passages and vocabulary 

sheets for follow-up work 

Stretch the most able whilst raising general academic standards 

using the structured, levelled tasks and mark schemes 

Teaching Christianity: 


£56.90+vat 

Covers topics including: 

■ The evil planet: the concept of the 

Fall of Man 

■ Christian Prayer 

■ Spontaneous and liturgical worship 

■ Church leaders 

Teaching Hinduism, 

Buddhism, Islam and 

Sikhism: 


£66.90+vat for 4 sections 



£36.90+vat for 1 section 


■ Hinduism: God in image; 

Reincarnation 

■ Buddhism: Meditation; Tao and Zen 

■ Islam: Islamophobia - dealing with 

stereotypes 

■ Sikhism: creating an ideal 

community 

Teaching Judaism: 


£56.90+vat 


■ Teaching about the Holocaust 

■ Death and Jewish funerals 

■ Jewish prayer 

■ All the major Jewish festivals 


19


Publications Dept 

Tribal 

1 Portland Square 

Bristol BS2 8RR 

T 0117 311 5276 F 0117 311 5421 

E sfe@ctad.co.uk www.sfe.co.uk

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