RE on the Other Side: One Year Out of the Classroom

Sarah March is a Co-ordinator within the Education and Learning team in the West Midlands. She joined the Faith & Belief Forum in 2025 after nearly two decades years as a secondary school Religious Education teacher and Head of Department, where she led the planning and delivery of the RE curriculum across the school. She writes about the jump to another form of education.

After just short of 20 years of lesson starters, exercise books and the familiar rhythm of the school day, my classroom quietly changed in February 2025. I didn’t leave Religious Education; I stepped into it from the other side.

After gaining a BA in Religious Studies from the University of Wales, Bangor, I stayed on to complete my PGCE as a specialist RE teacher. Most of my career was spent as Lead Teacher of RE in a school I loved. But life shifted, and after the birth of my second child I began looking for a change from classroom teaching. I was ready for something different, but I never wanted to leave the world of RE. It has fascinated me from an early age, the dialogue, the stories, the profound difference belief makes in people’s lives, and above all, the understanding that grows when we take the time to encounter others properly.

In March 2024 I discovered the Faith & Belief Forum. The organisation immediately resonated with me. For the first time, I realised there were ways to stay rooted in RE while working beyond the classroom. I tentatively sent some emails, though no roles were available, and I wasn’t sure how to leap from the security of a job I’d always known into something so different. Then, in November 2024, an email arrived from Amy (now my manager) about a new role. I decided it was time to take the plunge. It was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

Moving from working in a school to working with schools was a huge change. I had to adjust to working from home to days not divided by bells, and, perhaps most surprisingly, to being able to go to the toilet whenever I wanted! But, what hasn’t changed is the central importance of faith and belief. If anything, that has become even clearer.

I now have the privilege of working with incredible people across the RE world, people whose names I knew for years as a teacher but had never met. Most of all, I work with brilliant RE teachers around the country: passionate specialists who are often the sole champions of the subject in their schools, just as I was for many years. I carry that experience with me daily. When creating resources, one of my key criteria is simple: make it realistic for a busy classroom teacher to pick up and use. I know first hand the time pressures, the competing priorities, and the countless initiatives teachers want to engage with but simply can’t.

What has struck me most powerfully this year is just how deeply interfaith education and school RE are connected. RE is not only about knowledge about religions and beliefs; it is about preparing young people to live well with difference. Interfaith work brings RE to life by moving learning beyond the textbook and into encounter, dialogue and lived experience. It creates the space for pupils to hear directly from people of faith and belief, to ask questions, to challenge assumptions and to recognise shared humanity alongside real difference.

In a diverse society, these skills are not optional extras, they are essential. Interfaith engagement helps young people develop empathy, curiosity and the confidence to navigate a world where they will meet people whose beliefs and identities differ from their own. This is where RE shows its real power, not just as an academic subject, but as a cornerstone of social understanding and cohesion.

As I mark one year since leaving classroom teaching, I feel incredibly proud. Proud of having the courage to make the leap, one of the bravest and most daunting things I’ve done. Proud of delivering CPD to teachers and community leaders. Proud of designing and launching the first Interfaith Week poetry competition. Proud of helping to create Interfaith Week for Schools resources that support teachers to bring meaningful dialogue into their classrooms.

But the part I still love most is delivering workshops in schools alongside our volunteer speakers. Seeing the curiosity, warmth and openness of children as they hear personal stories of faith and belief, and how these shape people’s lives is something that never fails to move me. In those moments, you can see learning shifting from information to understanding.

I may no longer teach six classes a day, but in many ways, I feel closer to the heart of what RE is truly for. Dialogue skills are as important as subject knowledge, and interfaith work provides one of the most powerful ways to nurture both.

Moving from being an RE teacher to working in interfaith education has felt less like closing a door and more like walking into a wider version of the same room. The questions are the same, belief, identity, belonging, difference, but the space they live in has grown beyond four walls and a timetable.

This year has confirmed what I always knew: RE doesn’t stop at the school gates. It lives in dialogue, in communities, and in the confidence, teachers have to help young people make sense of a diverse world. I’m still an RE teacher at heart, just working in a different part of the same landscape, and I’m excited to keep building bridges between classrooms and the wider interfaith world.