Life of an F&BF School Speaker

Simon Chambers, Volunteer speaker
Simon shares his experience of being a volunteer speaker for F&BF in a range of schools. From training to delivering sessions in class with diverse sets of students, he explores what makes F&BF’s approach to religion and worldviews education unique.

Reflections – February 2025

I’m sitting at a school reception. Only seconds after the break-time bell rings, the corridors flood with a mix of order and chaos as hundreds of young people attend to the priority tasks of re-fueling, finding course-books (or PE kit), speeding to reach another classroom in time, and exchanging banter (or worse) with peers.

They’re used to the occasional external visitor – typically one of the school’s illustrious alumni (featuring stories like “My journey from Year 8 classroom to success as actor / entrepreneur / explorer /” etc.). I’m here not to talk about achievements, but about day-to-day attempts to follow a specific faith and set of beliefs. An unusual invitation: Tell us about how you live your life – but very welcome.

Let’s rewind a little – what comes before this? What needed to happen for me and two other volunteers (each following the teachings of a different faith or belief tradition) to be here sharing aspects of our life-stories with large groups of schoolchildren? The Faith and Belief Forum (F&BF) has developed close relations with the school (perhaps initiated by a direct approach, recommendation from the local authority or open call) and with its Religious Education leads, in particular. Consultation has included curriculum requirements, school ethos and the range of faith traditions represented in the local community. Together, staff from F&BF and the school have agreed the areas (and age-groups) where access to volunteer speakers can make a difference – and open new horizons of thinking for students. These sessions are all about going beyond the textbook and seeing faith and belief, first hand, as lived experience.

How about preparation for the volunteer speaker? F&BF’s initial training, plus feedback from early speaking assignments, emphasised that I have no formal representative role. My contribution is not based on any religious authority. But it will convey my authentic and unique story; my lived experience. The overall approach is, I’m an ordinary person – I could be a near neighbour, or someone you see queuing at a bus-stop or the supermarket check-out. My life is shaped by the teachings of a specific faith tradition. I’d like to share some examples with you…

And I’ll talk about challenges too – about how we deal with life’s random and sometimes difficult events. Setbacks, in other words. Nobody expects them, everybody has them. They can prompt feelings of being helped, hindered or even abandoned by faith and belief – at the times when they’re needed most.

I’ll keep my talk real (no room for pretence – the issues involved are too important) and I’ll try to keep it simple (basic sign-posting is usually enough, not the standard RE style detail of dogma or ritual), while also doing my best to address the more penetrating questions raised by some students. I’ll certainly acknowledge limitations: this is my personal perspective – an attempt to make sense of aspects of my life, with reference to faith and belief. It’s a work in progress.

The difference made? Participants’ feedback (immediate reactions, qualitative comment and longer-term results) is shared with F&BF. Analysis by F&BF of results across age-cohorts and localities is shared with statutory authorities – helping to build the evidence-base for external inputs of this kind. From my first cycle of F&BF assignments (half a dozen to date), I have seen:-

• Improvements in young people’s levels of engagement and interest. There’s no doubt that in most areas of learning, the novelty factor helps. Having opportunities to test out knowledge and understanding, by asking questions of someone with relevant experience, helps even more. 
• Increased confidence and competence in communication skills. Individual young people who may often be relatively quiet or withdrawn, can feel motivated by the presence of an external speaker to express their natural curiosity without inhibition.
• Capacity to consider bigger-picture issues. While much of Religious Education can still be focused on external signifiers, young people often show interest in the big questions of life (Why are we here? What happens next? Why is so much that happens in this world NOT FAIR?) beyond the level expected for their age. In the presence of the usual teacher in the usual setting, and with the usual group of peers, this can easily be suppressed. Access to an external speaker helps in overcoming these barriers. 
• Development of inter-cultural competence. Much of F&BF’s work seeks to answer the question: how can we respond positively to difference (or, What can we learn from difference?)? The programme for schools, Encountering faiths and beliefs, which frequently includes testimony from volunteer speakers, highlights the importance of active listening and encourages young people to continually demonstrate respect and empathy in their own interactions. It can be difficult to see these qualities reliably evidenced in a busy school environment, but I have been impressed by the interest and respect shown by young people equally to volunteer speakers from different faith traditions. This is a strength of the F&BF approach – using volunteers’ lived experience to help familiarise young people with different faith and belief traditions. In this way, young people are supported as part of their formal education to develop the attitudes that build understanding and trust – within families, in local communities and in wider society.
• Acceptance of nuance and uncertainty in matters of faith and belief. F&BF’s use of volunteer speakers to contribute insights clearly drawn from real-life experience is also helpful to young people in demonstrating that no faith tradition is well served by unequivocal statements or assertions of absolute truth. The common theme in the individual testimony provided by volunteer speakers is that faith and belief become for each of us a kind of working hypothesis, our guide on life’s journey. Sometimes it’s the unexpected question from a young person – driven by curiosity, informed by their own experience, and unhampered by the conditioning of religious discourse – that suddenly brings clarity to the issue at hand.

In my F&BF experience to date, every volunteer speaker is asked to address questions of this kind and – however challenging – welcomes them. I like to think our responses – often brief and provisional only – have prompted fresh thinking and further questioning for that young person and for their peers.

Simon Chambers

February 2025