Making Every RE Lesson Count is a valuable addition to the Making Every Lesson Count series. Each chapter begins with a classroom scenario to contextualise or provoke reflections and the significance of the principle being advocated. Significantly, each chapter also features a set of reflective questions to support the interrogation of the six key pedagogical principles “ challenge, explanation, modelling, practice, feedback and questioning “ from the viewpoint of praxis. Furthermore, there are diagrams, tables, illustrations and other helpful presentation techniques which make the text reader-friendly and appealing. An extensive bibliography adds further value to the text.

The authors, both experienced RE practitioners in secondary schools, recognise that religious education is in a period of transformation and set out some of the challenges that this important subject is currently facing. They emphasise two factors that might lead to strong student outcomes: pedagogical content knowledge and quality of instruction. Hutton and Cox are quick to point out that RE is a multidisciplinary subject and provide an excellent account of how three disciplines “ theology, philosophy and the social sciences “ can provide both teachers and students with specific lenses through which to study religions and worldviews.

Making Every RE Lesson Count is based on one of many conceptual frameworks which is concerned with responding to the changing educational landscape. Notwithstanding the fact that RE itself is experiencing crises and calls for reforms, overall, this wonderful and easy-to-read book is a positive contribution to the subject which takes account of research and contemporary concerns about raising the quality of RE.

Written for new and seasoned practitioners, the book is guaranteed to leave readers with thought-provoking and inspiring ideas about the subject. In other words, thinking about RE will be influenced and, simultaneously, practice will be affected. The book is interspersed with genuine practical examples of how to do good RE, based on the authors™ framework, which can be transferred directly to classroom teaching. Subject leaders will also find sufficient information to evaluate their departmental practices and offer workshops to their colleagues.



In essence, Making Every RE Lesson Count is an excellent guide that has the potential to refresh the soul of teaching RE, especially in secondary school contexts.

Find out more about the book here.

In ASBO Teacher Samuel Elliott offers no-nonsense principles hewn from the chalkface of the modern British classroom: ideas and approaches that have worked for the author in the most challenging settings and with the most testing pupils. He also provides a set of tips, tricks, and heuristics (rules of thumb) that he has gleaned from his ASBO apprenticeship, his close reading of contemporary educational research, and his first four years of teaching. Watch him introduce the book here.

Discover the book here.

Melissa Kite, Contributing Editor, The Spectator:

For those embarking on a career in the inner-city classroom this book is surely an invaluable resource, an essential guide, and a compendium of ˜everything you need to learn about teaching that the establishment may never teach you™. I hope many new teachers educate and entertain themselves by reading it.

œForget School convinced me about why school teaching and learning need to change if, as a society, we are to meet the needs of the 21st century. It should be required reading for all of us who claim an interest in current and future education.

Read the full review here.

Click here to visit the NATE website.

Discover Forget School here.

In A School Built on Ethos, James Handscombe explores how schooling is more than gaining qualifications, how learning is more than exams, and how academic success comes more readily to those who have grasped this idea. Watch the video here.

Discover the book here.

Mark Enser, Head of Geography and Research Lead, Heathfield Community College, and author of Teach Like Nobody™s Watching and Powerful Geography:

Many books about education are purely utilitarian; you open them up in the hope of learning how to do something better. Whilst A School Built on Ethos offers plenty in this regard, it does much more besides too. Furthermore, there are sadly too few education books that work as a piece of literature; however, this book shares a narrative to savour and get lost within as James Handscombe takes you on a fascinating journey of how a school comes into being, in both a physical sense but also as something that transcends its bricks and mortar. It is also a delightfully funny read as James meanders from one digression to another in weaving his captivating story. The scripts of assemblies that pepper the book are particular high points and I turned the page on each one feeling enriched. They also beautifully illustrate the points made in each section of the book and enable you to see the author who walks his talk on a daily basis.

I adore A School Built on Ethos for many reasons. It is wonderful to read about school leadership from someone who clearly loves their job, their school and their students. And as well as giving many practical points on school leadership, James also sets out a clear case that a school is more than a building, a timetable and a budget; it is a community and one that needs an ethos to bring people together and give them a common purpose.



I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

‹Watch the webinar here.

Love Teaching, Keep Teaching:

Written specifically for classroom teachers and school leaders/administrators in both primary and secondary school settings, "Love Teaching, Keep Teaching" is as thoughtful and thought-provoking as it is insightful and inspiring. While especially and unreservedly recommended for school district, college, and university library Teacher Education collections, it should be noted for personal and professional reading lists that "Love Teaching, Keep Teaching" is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $17.99). 

Discover the book here.

15-Minute STEM Book 2:

Unreservedly recommended as a DIY instructional guide and textbook for classroom curriculums, "15-Minute STEM Book 2: More quick, creative science, technology, engineering and mathematics activities for 5-11-year-olds" is a 'must' for school district Science, Math, and Technology Teaching Materials collections. 


Discover the book here.