Above: Bede's World website

As part of a recent LOTC (Learning Outside the Classroom) initiative staff from the RE and ICT departments at Our Lady and St Bede RC School incorporated an outside visit to Bede's World Museum (Jarrow, Tyne & Wear) into the programme of study for Year 8. The teachers chose to focus on the cross-curricular concepts of ‘Identity, diversity and belonging' to explore how people develop a sense of religious and cultural identity and also to enable the students to specifically focus on their own sense of identity and belonging to their school, whose patron is St Bede.

During the visit to Bede's World the students learned about the growth and development of the Christian church in the Northeast of England through the life of St Bede and also reflected upon Bede's importance to the cultural heritage of the North-east, to themselves, and to Christians today and used their ICT lessons to produce audio visual presentations on the results of their research.

The main conceptual focus for RE was ‘Identity, diversity and belonging' (AT2); understanding how people develop a sense of identity and belonging through faith that has been handed down in a particular cultural context, but also related to ‘Beliefs, teachings and sources' contained in Bede's writings and ‘Practices and ways of life' in a consideration of the monastic life (AT1).

For further information, please visit the NATRE (National Association of Teachers of Religious Education) website at www.natre.org.uk to read the full-text of this case study, written by Marianne Flemming. © NATRE, 2007.

Additional information about Bede's World is available online at www.bedesworld.co.uk.