Loreto RE Teachers and Chaplains
Dr. Gareth Byrne, Associate Professor of Religious Education and Director of the Mater Dei Centre for Catholic Education, gave the keynote address at the Loreto Education Network’s annual conference for religious educator teachers and chaplains at Leopardstown, Co. Dublin, on Thursday 12th October.
Dr Byrne addressed two burning issues for religious educators in his address: Looking to the Future of Religious Education: What do the Framework for Junior Cycle and a recent CPD survey tell us?
The Loreto teachers were very engaged on the issue of the new Framework for Junior Cycle and its impact on how Religious Education as a subject will be taught into the future. The discussion that followed emphasised the need for RE Departments to stimulate conversations in their schools about the significant place that religious education can play in the holistic development of young people.
The Loreto teachers were also fascinated to hear about research, undertaken by Dr. Byrne and colleagues at the DCU Institute of Education, investigating the views of religious education teachers, primary and post-primary, on what content and skills they feel would be a useful focus for any continuing professional development (CPD) they might want to participate in. Dr. Byrne indicated that a paper on this will be published with Springer in the new year.