Following the success of SCoJeC's participation in last year's inaugural conference of the new Scottish Teachers' Association of Religious and Moral Education (STARME), JCoS was delighted to be invited to take part again.  This year's "Festival of Learning" was hosted by the Edinburgh University School of Divinity in New College, and the programme included talks, demonstrations, and discussions about the principles and practice of religious education in Scottish schools.

JCoS Senior Community and Education Worker, Sydney Switzer, gave a talk based on her experience of teaching about Judaism, looking at which topics and traditions work best, and discussed challenges that can arise when teaching about Judaism to non-Jewish pupils. She also demonstrated how resources available from JCoS can be used in a classroom setting, and discussed how to support Jewish students and families in the classroom.

JCoS Director, Ephraim Borowski, was also invited to take part in a panel, along with representatives of Interfaith Scotland, the Scottish Bible Society, the Scottish Association of Mosques, the Humanist Society of Scotland, and religious education teachers from a Roman Catholic and a nondenominational school. The discussion centred on why Religious Education matters in today's schools, and what can be done to improve it.

STARME Chair Stuart McKinlay commented: "Seeing so many Religious Education teachers gathered together, passionate about improving education in Scotland in our curricular area, was an inspiring experience, and having contributions from a range of partners in workshops and discussions, ensured a wide and varied opportunity to engage with key voices with an interest in high quality RME in Scottish schools."

Throughout the day we also had a stall showcasing a number of Jewish religious artefacts and displaying some of the Judaism and the Jewish Community banners that we developed with the Board of Deputies of British Jews specifically for use in Scotland. We also distributed samples of the some the educational materials available on our website, and our stall attracted a lot of interest from the participants - as happened last year it was certainly the only one with a queue of people wanting to ask us questions and sign up to join our teacher mailing list!