From RE Today - Spring 2005 This book is the third in a series of story books aimed at helping children aged 6-10 develop moral values. It contains thirteen chapters, each of which provides a story and questions to talk about on issues such as fairness, making mistakes, teasing and bullying, behaving sensibly, stranger danger and living with separated parents. It is explicitly Christian, as might be expected from an imprint of the Bible Reading Fellowship, including quotations and prayers which might be used in a Christian context - but aims to have wider appeal as a stimulus for circle time and PSHE activities in the mainstream school context. To this end it identifies links to the PSHE non statutory guidelines in the English curriculum. A short paragraph at the start of each chapter, the 'Bible link', gives useful guidance about the general theme of the story and the Christian values it explores. No links are made, however, to RE expectations or possible agreed syllabus themes. This is a shame, as many of the stories could provide engaging starting points for children to think about the relevance of biblical teaching to everyday life within RE. This is a book with good potential for use in RE for the teacher who is clear about their RE learning objectives. Teachers using it for RE will need to avoid the trap of doing a PSHE lesson thinking it's RE because the story comes from a Christian source. Clear classroom activities linked to syllabus requirements will need to be developed to ensure pupils are thinking not just about the values in the story - but also about the beliefs which lie behind them.
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