Charis Worth
Charis Worth, who has just completed her PGCE in Secondary Religious Education, found her overall experience to be the most incredible year. Throughout her time on placement, she enjoyed the chance to take on responsibilities, step out of her comfort-zone and experience a career where no day is the same.
Working with young people was the career goal for Charis, whose decision to apply for a PGCE was affirmed after spending some time volunteering as a ballet teaching assistant and visiting her high school to watch an RE class.
For Charis, a Sociology graduate, the decision to focus on Religious Education was an easy one, though she was nervous that with her Sociology background, her RE subject knowledge would be weaker than the other PGCE students in her class.
After being accepted onto the course, Charis took advantage of the two day long Subject Knowledge Enhancement course and felt able to start the course with confidence in her own knowledge and having support from her lecturer before day 1 of her course.
"I realised Sociology had prepared me greatly in both subject knowledge and in understanding teaching practice. I also enjoyed having the freedom to explore topics with RE that I found interesting. I could learn about ancient Greek philosophy or the debates surrounding Christianity and the LGBTQ+ community".
From her time spent on placement, Charis enjoyed having the opportunity to design and lead her own lessons and going on school trips with the class, such as visiting a Gurdwara. She could take the subjects that interested her and adapt them into engaging lessons for her class. Outside of placement, she could benefit from the support of her lecturers and classmates alongside learning from guest speakers and visiting schools to experience different teaching styles.
"RE is a fascinating subject and I love the range of topics you can end up teaching. It's also arguably more important to have high quality RE in our schools now more than ever." said Charis.
Charis is now looking forward to starting her first full-time job as an RE teacher in a secondary school and is looking forward to all the new opportunities and experiences that will be available to her.