Start from scratch

Summarising your research

Now you have some basic information, you should have a much clearer idea about the school you’d like to begin working in. Let’s take an example of what you might have found:

Harlington Upper

• It’s a secondary school with 980 students. Unlike most of the other schools in the area, it also has a 6th form with 80 students.
• It’s a Foundation School, meaning it’s funding comes directly from national government, and it is run by the governing body rather than the LEA.
• It’s subject to the requirements of the National Curriculum.
• It has specialist status as an Arts College and receives extra funding for drama and art.
• It’s a popular school and draws from a wide catchment area. A lot of pupils come from outside the immediate area around the school.
• It’s successful and has received excellent OFSTED reports, although the most recent report noted that it was failing to meet the requirements for a daily act of worship for all pupils.
• The school had a visit from a Christian drama group a couple of years ago, but apart from that there is no known Christian input from outside visitors. None of the local ministers take assemblies.
• Seven local church members work at the school, including a Deputy Head and the Head of Year 10.
• The local Catholic priest has been a school governor for the last three years.

Developing a more detailed picture

By now you may be wondering if you’ll ever get beyond all this research, but this kind of basic ground work is vital if you’re going to make the right approach. And there’s one more stage to go.

Although the information you’ve got is important, it’s not the kind of first hand picture that those involved in the school will have. To get this, you’ll need to speak to some of the teachers or other staff you’ve discovered are already linked with local churches. If they’re willing, it’s worth sitting down with as many as possible and finding out about what the school is really like and what kind of input from you might be most beneficial. It is often helpful to contact them and ask if they would be willing to advise you, as a potential visitor, about what kind of help and input would be most useful to the school. Even if they teach a subject that may not be directly relevant to you - like Modern Foreign Languages - they will still have valuable insights about the school. Listen carefully and be prepared to shape your strategy and aims to what seem to be the most useful areas.

There are also some practical questions you could ask that will make contacting the school easier:

• Who’s in charge of RE in the school? Do they seem open to Christian input or do they hold very strong opposing views? What about others who teach RE?
• What is the Head Teacher like? Are they open to outside visitors? Do they have strong opposing views on religious input in schools?
• Who’s in charge of other relevant areas of the curriculum like Citizenship and PHSE?
• How do assemblies work in the school? Do Year Groups have their own assembly or is there some other arrangement? Are assemblies weekly? What time of day do they happen?
• Is there a Christian club or group in the school, run by students themselves or a teacher?

Next steps and your first input

Now you have a clear idea of what the school is like, it’s time to get in contact and get going. This is always a bit of a minefield: schools are - and should be - wary of strangers who call and want to invite themselves into the school community! If you want to avoid creating suspicion or simply sounding a little weird, you’ll need to think carefully about where to start.

You’ll also need to think about what you can offer the school. Generally, small steps are the best way to begin. It’s not often wise to introduce yourself to a school for the first time and ask if you can take a series of ten lessons in RE across every Year Group! Often a single lesson or assembly is a good starting point. Assemblies are especially useful as a context where the school can see you in action and get a sense of what you’re like: Are you relevant and engaging to pupils? Do you seem to have a fair idea of protocol and what’s expected of you? Are you someone ‘safe’ and ‘appropriate’ for visiting a school? Assemblies may only last ten minutes, but it’s surprising how much they can reveal about you and you’ll find staff will quickly form an impression of whether they’d like you to do more.

So how to you make contact? Generally cold calling a school and asking to speak to someone you don’t know is unlikely to be successful. Likewise, writing to a school is also problematic: Head Teachers receive a huge amount of post each day and are quite likely to ignore your letter or simply write you off as a weirdo!

A much better starting point is personal contact with a member of staff:

• If you have already met a teacher from a local church who is responsible, for example, for school assemblies, you could ask them if it’s possible for you to come and take an initial assembly.
• If you have met a teacher from a non-relevant area, you could ask them to make an introduction for you. This might be by inviting you in, by arrangement, to meet the relevant staff member during a break. Or simply talking to the relevant staff member about you and agreeing that it’s appropriate for you to make direct contact by phone or email.
• If neither of these are possible, the next most preferable approach would be to write to a member of staff introducing yourself. It’s better to write to a teacher directly responsible for the area you’d like to offer your services to, rather than the Head or other senior management (you can always introduce yourself to them at a later date). Letters may be best if they’re short, and request a chance to meet to outline what you have to offer, rather than long and detailed. Follow them up with a phone call a week or so later if you haven’t heard anything. You could also ask a local minister to include a short letter of commendation: even if the teacher doesn’t know the minister, the fact that they have written to confirm you are working for the church, and may be able to offer something useful, may be worthwhile and add credibility.