Introduction to the Bradford Interfaith and Diversity Education Service

Bradford Interfaith and Diversity Education Service Offer 2024-25

About us: We aim to promote religious literacy by understanding & celebrating diversity.

Overview

Our Faith Tutors are able to cover the six major world faiths by offering a range of interfaith and diversity services to help promote respect, tolerance, equality and understanding, by dispelling myths and misunderstandings.

Our Purpose

The Ofsted Education Inspection Framework 2019 refers to “developing understanding & appreciation of diversity; celebrating what we have in common and promoting respect for the different protected characteristics.” Our service helps to fulfil this requirement by promoting critical thinking celebrating diversity and British values.

Our Clients

We are able to tailor our services to any key stage group as well as teacher groups. Alongside schools we can also support other organisations including adult groups. Previous clients include the BBC, Ministry of Defence, Job Centre Plus, universities,colleges, NHS and the Police among others. 

The Effect

Our sessions enable learners to explore:beliefs in action worship, pilgrimage & sacred places. symbols and religious expression. religion, family and community. Our sessions enable learners to explore: Schools have reported a change in children’s behaviour following our visits or assemblies, feeling they appear calmer and more peaceful with an enhanced spiritual awareness.

Guided visits to places of worship (Available as part of our value-for money subscription package)

Schools have fed back to us that meeting a practicing Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, or Sikh person really brings to life the religion and the beliefs within it. Visiting a real life place of worship is not only an exciting, unique trip but also further strengthens this impact. The team has been leading visits for over 30 years with an excellent working relationship with sacred places of the six major world faiths. You can choose the length of your visit to maximise the cost of travel including combining a workshop at the end of the visit or why not have a multi-faith day with visits to several settings?

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Visit our skills4bradford website for a sneak preview of our virtual visits.

Your whole visit will be co-ordinated by a named Faith Tutor who will send you information with guidance on dress-code / protocols & risk assessment for the place of worship and you can discuss any learning objectives & appropriate outcomes. If the cost of travel is prohibitive, we can also deliver virtually with a pre-recorded visit to a place of worship for example coupled with a live session with the tutor with your choice of activities, stories, questions and answers etc. tailored to your organisation’s needs.

Workshops (Available as part of our value-for-money subscription package) Visit our skills4bradford website for a sneak preview of our virtual workshops.

www.skills4bradford.co.uk    

To consolidate the visit experience, learners can participate in one of our workshops which will reinforce learning in an entertaining and engaging way via a selection of faith related initiative workshops including Hindu dance, Sikh music, Muslim prayer mat, Islamic Garden, Lotus flower, story telling and drama. Through drama, music & art, pupils explore stories from faith & culture to discover the importance of our shared human values. All our workshops have clearly defined learning outcomes. They can also be booked as a stand-alone event without having a visit.

Virtual Faith Topics - NEW (Available as part of our value-for-money subscription package)

New for this year, we have recorded a range of topics with a faith angle including caring for the environment, food in Islam, making the right choices and meditation. They are an excellent resource to build a lesson or whole project around and represent excellent value at just £35 each or some are free as part of your subscription package.

RE lessons (Available as part of our value-for-money subscription package)

Faith tutors can visit your school to support learning in religious education, citizenship and related curriculum areas using a variety of media and resources to ensure effective learning. Each session is planned to suit your school’s needs but a typical duration is one hour although could be longer if required. The faith tutor will liaise with the class teacher to ensure that learning objectives are met and appropriate teaching strategies are used.

Collective & Separate Faith Worship Visit our skills4bradford website for a sneak preview of our worships

www.skills4bradford.co.uk    

A daily act of collective worship, as well as being a legal requirement, offers a special and important time in the school day in which pupils and staff can experience and celebrate the combination of qualities and values that create the ethos of their school. It makes an important contribution to the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of pupils and also offers opportunities to develop an appreciation of shared human values whilst providing a vehicle through which pupils can understand and respond to local and global events. The team can support schools in meeting the statutory requirement to deliver a daily act of collective worship by:

share in or lead Collective Worship

celebrate a festival

lead ‘Inclusive’ worship lead Separate Faith Worship

advise and support school staff leading worship teaching children how different faiths live alongside each other. 

The team is experienced in planning and delivering collective worship to all group sizes from a whole school to a small group. Materials have been developed to promote Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural outcomes through collective worship and Faith Tutors are happy to discuss your requirements with you.

Community Faith & Diversity Sessions - NEW

We are pleased to announce a new service for this year - our Community Faith and Diversity Training. This is an introduction to the key elements of each of the 6 major world faiths and would be useful for new teachers or diversity training staff in organisations in the private or public sector. It is run as a scheduled course over 2 sessions with each hour and a half session covering 3 faiths Abrahamic (Christianity, Judaism and Islam) religions and then Indian religions (Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism). This course can also be delivered on demand for a school, group of schools, MAT or any other organisation.

Bespoke group training for staff

We are also able to offer bespoke training for your staff which can cover any area of faith-based work according to your requirements for any type of staff. This can be for the whole school, phase or year group, curriculum based or on a wider issue for example support for settling in new year 7 pupils into a diverse school community. Bespoke group training is a cost effective way of ensuring all staff are up-to-speed with this area of work & are delivering in a consistent way. It can be delivered for an individual school or group of schools as part of a MAT, federation, LAP, cluster.

Celebration Assemblies - NEW

Many faith celebrations take place across the world each year. Would you like to mark these celebrations but not sure how to? If so, we can help. We have created special assemblies for each of the 6 major world faith celebrations. The assemblies are in the form of a pre-recorded Collective Faith Worship which you can stream into all your classrooms to celebrate whichever special event(s) you choose!

Faith Resources Library

Once Covid restrictions are lifted our Faith Resources Library will once again be operating. This is a great opportunity to access a varied and very useful pack of resources from the Interfaith Team covering the major world faiths to support your RE curriculum work. Resource boxes provide the stimulus for the development of critical thinking. They can be used to create a classroom display or as a source of information and exploration. You can choose from a mixed resource pack or focus on a particular faith and from 2 packages - ie to swap your box 3 or 6 times a year.

PRICING

Subscriptions In order to get the best value-for-money from our service, you could opt to purchase a subscription of Faith Tutor Time which can be used flexibly for visits to places of worship, workshops at your school, group training for your staff or one-to-one tailored support for your RE Curriculum Leader. You can purchase any number of hours from 4 upwards and choose how you use this time in terms of the length of sessions. NEW The packages now come with added benefits in terms of downloadable classroom resources and videos available free to members only.

Subscription Packages

To ensure all pupils have the best experience and greatest impact on their learning during a place of worship visit, group sizes are limited to 35. If parents would like to accompany, they can do so FREE OF CHARGE. A package of Faith Tutor time to be used for any combination of visits, workshops, RE lessons, 1-2-1 planning sessions etc. If you are interested in any other number of hours please email for a quote. Please click on the link below for all our offers and prices:

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If you are interested in any other number of hours please email for a quote. To ensure all pupils have the best experience and greatest impact on their learning during a place of worship visit, group sizes are limited to 35. If parents would like to accompany, they can do so FOR FREE.

What our customers say:

"Students found it so useful. We were sorry not to have done the visits in reality but in terms of their understanding I don't think they lost out at all and it was great for them to have that time with you both today." Leeds Trinity University (Virtual Visit) February 2021.

"Thank you for the work that went into the session and your time today." Sheffield Hallam University (Virtual Visit) February 2021.

"It was fantastic for the children to get to ask all their questions to an expert." Heaton St Barnabas ( Virtual Workshop) December 2020.

"A good collective worship. Clear speaking, professional video and cool editing. Linked video was of high quality. Pause points throughout were useful. They could relate the quotes to how they were feeling at the moment." St John's CE Primary, (Virtual Assembly) November 2020.

"Session was so carefully put together, with such high quality resources and you dealt with the children so well! We all really enjoyed it and took so much from it. It was great how you tailored the session to allow the children to interact with first the video (they loved the little quizzes which really kept them concentrating on what they were learning) and then with your Q and A session (they loved coming up to ask you their question). Your brilliant resources and approach genuinely offered us an insight into the faith that we would otherwise not have had." East Morton Primary (In School Workshop) Oct.2020.

"Your video was spot on. Sound quality and content were excellent. The method of posing questions for the teachers to pause at and have discussion is working. I would heartily recommend other schools to partake." Newby Primary (Virtual Assembly) Sept. 2020.

"A fantastic visit. Very informative and interesting. All children were engaged and enjoyed the experience. Many expressed their dismay when it was time to leave. We had two children with severe SEND with us and they were fully included and got to touch the artefacts and benefited from the visit in their own way. A wonderful learning experience." Bankfoot Primary School (Place of Worship Visit) November 2019.

“The buzz from the children was really good. Our children gained so much from the visit and produced good work from their experience.” Merlin Top Primary Academy (Place of Worship Visit) January 2020.

"Children have been keen to learn more and make decorations in school. Faith tutor visits are a valuable resource for our school." Eldwick Primary (In School Workshop) November 2019.

“A fantastic session that really captured the imagination and engagement of our children. We thoroughly enjoyed our afternoon and had a good discussion after.” Fagley Primary School (In School Workshop), November 2019.

For enquiries: This is an outline of our services, however, if there is anything else you would like to purchase please contact us at interfaith@bradford.gov.uk and we would be happy to discuss your requirements. To make a booking: Please visit our website: www.skills4bradford.co.uk/Services/5192

Please click for more information on all our service offers:

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Enquiry Form:

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The Interfaith Education Centre
Margaret McMillan Tower
Prince's Way
Bradford
BD1 1NN
Email: interfaith@bradford.gov.uk

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Guidance Documents

Guidance for Ramadan - /userfiles/file/Interfaith%20Education%20Centre/MCB%20Ramadan%202020%20Guidance%20pdf.pdf

Guidance for Schools - Ramadhan

Guidance for Schools - Ashura

Collective Worship

Bradford SACRE has produced a new guidance and model policy document for collective worship it can be found here.

If a headteacher considers that collective worship ‘wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character’ is inappropriate to the school community they may approach SACRE for a Determination.

NB For separate faith worship please complete the application for a series of determinations.
There are three types of Determination:
Whole School Determination      Exempting the whole school collective worship from being wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character. (Inclusive Worship)

Part determination                        Allowing one faith/ belief group to meet for Faith Worship, other pupils will meet for worship which is wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character.      
Series of determinations            Allowing a range of faith/ belief groups (to be specified) each to meet for faith worship, other pupils will meet for inclusive worship.

Applying for a Determination
Headteachers wishing to apply for a determination must consult with their governing bodies and are strongly advised to consult with parents and pupils.
Applications must be made on the standard Bradford SACRE application form which can be accessed by clicking on the type of determination that is required from the list above.

Schools Converting to Academies

When a school converts to an academy any determination granted by SACRE becomes invalid.  If the school wishes to continue collective worship which is not wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character they must apply to the Regional Schools Commisioner for a new determination.  This should be done in readiness for conversion to an Academy, schools should not wait until their existing determination requires renewing.