NATRE - Key Persons

Angela Hill

Job Titles:

Member of Committee
National RE Adviser and Editor, REtoday Magazine

Angela joined RE Today in 2018 with over a decade's experience of teaching and leading RE and a background in financial services. As well as serving in several middle leadership roles, including Head of RE and Head of Year 12, she was a Lead Practitioner for RE, supporting secondary schools across 5 local authorities. As Project Officer at Wales' longest-established educational charity, the Council for Education in World Citizenship (CEWC), Angela undertook a major successful national project working with primary and secondary schools, and across a variety of subject areas, to enhance children and young people's thinking skills and literacy through Philosophy for Children. Angela has extensive experience as a GCSE RS examiner, and has worked with exam boards in England and Wales to provide consultancy, resources and to lead professional development for teachers. As well as editing REtoday Magazine, Angela works with primary and secondary schools, Academy Trusts, SACREs and dioceses. She has written and edited RE Today publications, authored student-facing online resources for the BBC and provides well-received training and consultancy packages for a wide range of clients.

Catriona Card

Job Titles:

Member of the Steering Group
Member of Committee
Social Media Officer / Berkeley Primary School

Catriona teaches a Reception class at a large community primary school in Scunthorpe where she is RE Subject Leader. She has been a member of her local SACRE for over 10 years and a is a NATRE local group leader. Catriona is a tutor on the Teach RE Course. Catriona has presented on Early Years RE at National and local RE conferences. She is a member of the NATRE steering group. In her spare time Catriona runs a Girls' Brigade company and is a Run Leader at her local Running Club.

Charlotte Newman

Job Titles:

Head of Religion, Philosophy and Ethics & Diversity Champion / Hinchingbrooke School
Member of Committee

Charlotte Newman is a Head of Religion, Philosophy, and Ethics and Diversity Champion at a secondary school in Cambridgeshire. I am lucky enough to have led a large team of specialist teachers here for 7 years now. I am passionate about raising the profile of our subject to ensure it is recognised as academic, rigorous, and valuable by all stakeholders. I have been a member of the Exec for the last term and have thoroughly enjoyed speaking at Strictly, writing for RE Today, attending the Labour Party Conference to lobby MPs, and supporting others in providing great quality teaching. I have delivered much CPD on RE TMRSIcons, at my Local Agreed Syllabus launch, at my local group, and for Eduqas.

Debbie Gresswell

Job Titles:

EYFS and KS1 Class Teacher
Member of Committee

Debbie Yeomans

Job Titles:

Member of Committee
RE Subject Leader

Debbie is RE subject leader at St Margaret's C of E Primary School in Leicestershire. She has experience of teaching RE to the full primary age range. She is a lead RE teacher for the Leicester diocese and runs three support groups for RE leads in the local area. Debbie has led seminars at the Leicestershire RE partnership conference and is part of the Culham St Gabriel RE Leadership program. She is part of Leicestershire SACRE.

Deborah Weston

Job Titles:

Member of the Steering Group
Research Officer
Member of Committee

Deborah is an experienced teacher and trainer who worked in a large inner-city comprehensive school as Director of Spiritual, Moral, Social, and Cultural Development. Deborah advises four local authorities regularly; supporting classroom practitioners as well as middle and senior leaders. She is the research officer of NATRE, a trustee for Culham St Gabriel's Trust, Company Secretary of the RE Council, and the Chair of the RE Policy Unit for NATRE, the REC, and RE Today. She was awarded an OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours list of 2016.

Fiona Moss - CEO

Job Titles:

Chief Executive Officer
Member of the Steering Group
Member of Committee

Fiona is the Chief Executive Officer for NATRE and has been a long-standing and active member of NATRE for over 30 years. Fiona is also a primary specialist RE Adviser for RE Today Services, before this she was a primary teacher for many years and the RE and SACRE Curriculum Adviser for Leicester City. She has written and edited a variety of publications designed to support RE teachers, both locally to support an agreed syllabus and also for commercial publishers. She is currently the editor of RE Today's Exploring religion and worldviews Primary series. She spends a lot of her time for NATRE advocating for support for RE teachers with key stakeholders including politicians, OFSTED, the DFE, and many others.

Greg Parekh

Job Titles:

Assistant Headteacher / Penryn College
Member of Committee

"I am an RE Geek! I love our subject and particularly teaching and learning!" Greg has been teaching for 15 years and has previously been a Head of RE, Head of Year, part of the teaching and learning team and currently an Assistant Head in a school in beautiful Cornwall! Gregg is also a consultant to Cornwall SACRE and leads a LTLRE Hub. He enjoys learning new ideas in the teaching and RE world to share with others and using this to develop his own and others' practice. Greg loves sharing resources and looking for ways to make RE even more engaging to students!

Helen Sheehan

Job Titles:

Member of Committee
Senior Lecturer - Initial Teacher Education / Sheffield Hallam University

Helen has worked in the RE community for over 25 years. She started her career as a secondary RE teacher in schools in Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire before moving to work in higher education. For over 15 years Helen has worked at Sheffield Hallam University leading the secondary RE PGCE course and, in recent years, also leading on the primary RE provision for both undergraduate and postgraduate students. Helen has contributed to other ITE programmes over the years including the Teach First secondary RE programme with which she is currently involved. Helen has published an edited volume about mentoring beginning RE teachers and is currently vice-chair of Sheffield SACRE.

Jenni Rawlinson

Job Titles:

Faculty Lead for RE and Communication Lead / Wolsingham School
Member of Committee

Jenni has worked as an RE teacher at Wolsingham School for 6 years and was made Head of RE in 2019. Before this, she embarked on the New2RE programme between 2017-2019, where Jenni had the privilege of networking with other new RE teachers from across the country. She has continued to attend and enjoy various NATRE CPD sessions, including the Curriculum Symposium, and Jenni currently runs the NATRE Affiliated Local Group for County Durham. At the end of this academic year, Jenni is taking 20 students on an RE and Personal Development trip to Nepal.

Joanne Harris

Job Titles:

Member of the Steering Group
Head of RE
Member of Committee
Secondary Vice Chair - Elect and Social Media Officer / Broughton High School

Joanne is Head of RE and an assistant headteacher at a secondary school in Lancashire with whole school responsibilities for curriculum and assessment and Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion. Joanne is the Secondary Vice Chair of the NATRE Executive and delivered seminars on various aspects of teaching and leading RE at previous Strictly RE conferences.

Joe Kinnaird

Job Titles:

Head of KS3 RE and CPD Lead / Coopers Company
Member of Committee

Joe has been teaching RE for 9 years. He is often asked to lead CPD locally and nationally. He regularly speaks at conferences and has a passion for high-quality RE that enables pupils to have a richer understanding of religion. Joe works with ITT providers to lead sessions for RE trainees on areas of teaching such as writing use of scholarship in the classroom.

Julie Childs

Job Titles:

EYFS / KS1 Class Teacher RE, PSHE, SMSC and British Values Subject Lead. Utterby Primary Academy
Member of Committee

Karen Steele

Job Titles:

Leader for RE
Member of Committee
Subject Leader for Religious Studies / Stratford Girl 's Grammar School

Karen has been a secondary subject Leader for RE since 2000. In that time she has been a member of Warwickshire SACRE, completed an MA in RE, worked as a local RE adviser, mentored trainee RE teachers, and more. Recently, Karen completed the Culham St Gabriel's RE Leadership Programme, which she has said was a rewarding experience that she would thoroughly recommend to others. Karen has a particular interest in post-16 RE.

Kathryn Wright

Job Titles:

CEO / Culham St Gabriel 's Trust
Chief Executive of Culham St Gabriel 's Trust
Member of Committee

Kathryn is the Chief Executive of Culham St Gabriel's Trust which supports and advocates for an education in Religion and Worldviews. After teaching in East London secondary schools, she became a local authority RE adviser before going freelance in 2005. Until April 2019, she worked as a consultant for Culham St Gabriel's leading the Teach:RE course programme and was also the RE adviser for the Diocese of Norwich. She has enjoyed being a RE Quality Mark assessor and a Section 48 inspector. She is currently on the Board of the RE Council of England and Wales.

Katie Freeman - Chairman

Job Titles:

Chairman
Member of the Steering Group
Chairman - Elect / Bickleigh Down CofE Primary School
Chairman / Bickleigh Down CofE Primary School
Chairman of Committee

Katie has been working with Learn, Teach, Lead RE (LTLRE) leading the Plymouth RE hub since area one was first set up and is an SLE with Plymouth Teaching School Alliance. She has worked in both community schools and church schools and is often asked to lead CPD both locally and nationally. Katie regularly speaks at conferences and has a passion for creative RE that helps pupils to dig deeper into concepts. She sits on her local SACRE and is part of the Church of England's working party for RE.

Katie Neill Williams

Job Titles:

Assistant Principal and RE Network Coordinator / Old Ford Primary Academy
Member of Committee

Katie is currently Assistant Principal at a large primary school in East London where she leads KS1 and phonics. Katie has been the RE lead at her current school for 8 years and has taught RE from EYFS to Year 6. She is also the RE Network Coordinator for her Academy Trust which is made up of six primary schools and one secondary school across Tower Hamlets and Suffolk. Her role as coordinator involves creating schemes of work for RE for EYFS, KS1 and KS2, delivering RE training to ECTs and trainee teachers and developing RE subject knowledge for staff across the Trust.

Kelly Keatley

Job Titles:

Head of RE
Member of Committee

Kelly is a well-established Head of RE, currently working at St Peter's C of E Aided School in Exeter. She has recently completed a Farmington Fellowship on improving evaluation responses at GCSE and has also taken on the leadership of the Exeter Learn, Teach, Lead RE (LTLRE) Hub this year. Kelly has long-standing links with the Exeter University PGCE course and has led sessions for the RE PGCE students for several years. Kelly's favourite part of RE is the space that it gives students for reflection and to be able to tackle important ethical questions.

Linda Whitworth

Job Titles:

Consultant - Initial Teacher Education / Professional REflection
Member of Committee

Linda began her career in RE as a secondary teacher, then moved to the middle school age group, before becoming an initial teacher educator for primary and secondary routes at Middlesex University. She has been involved in undergraduate and postgraduate routes, School Direct, and SCITT teaching, in particular developing Primary Religious and Worldviews both as a single subject and through interdisciplinary humanities learning. After 25 years at Middlesex she is now semi-retired, but still works with NASBTT, Middlesex University, and RE organisations to support primary RE. She is currently co-editor of the Professional Reflection section in RE Today and a founder member of Humanities 2020. She has co-authored chapters in the upcoming publication Elton-Chalcraft (2024) Teaching Religious Education Creatively (2 nd edition)

Liz Manning

Job Titles:

Member of Committee
Year One Teacher and Faith, RE and Community Lead

Liz has been a teacher for 14 years with most of her experience teaching in Year 1, although she has also taught in other year groups including EYFS, Year 3/4, and Year 5. She is also a busy Mum of two children aged 11 and 13. The school Liz works at is Church of England with very few Christian children attending making its context both diverse and unique. The school's diverse and unique context has brought many rewards as she has led RE over the years. Liz has recently worked on introducing the new Manchester Diocesan Syllabus and Understanding Christianity units and this is now being taught throughout the school and is supporting the whole school RE progression. As well as Liz's school RE responsibilities, she is also a SACRE member and a Leading Teacher for RE in Bolton.

Louisa Jane Smith

Job Titles:

Member of Committee
Teacher of RE, Head of Life Skills / Reigate School

Originally from Brighton and now in West Sussex, Louisa 'accidentally' did a Theology degree at Birmingham University University in the late 90s and then 'accidentally' became a secondary RE teacher in 2001. 22 years later she is so glad for such a happy accident. In October 2020 Louisa started The RE Podcast, where she writes, hosts, produces, edits, and releases weekly podcasts, and she states is one of her great joys. Louisa feels very privileged that it serves the community I love.

Matthew Pitcher

Job Titles:

Head of RE and Character Development Lead / Priestlands School
Member of Committee

Matt has been teaching RE since 1997 and has been a Head of Department at three large secondary schools in Hampshire over the past 20 years. He has been part of the Hampshire Steering Group for almost as long and has led CPD sessions at conferences and works alongside other schools to develop their RE at KS3 and KS4. Matt has a keen interest in the role of RE in Holocaust Education and also the role that RE has in environmental and climate change education. Matt has also worked alongside one of the major exam boards as a presenter and examiner.

Molly Acharya

Job Titles:

Head of Religion, Philosophy & Ethics / Altrincham College
Member of Committee

Molly has been teaching Religious Studies for over 25 years. During that time she has worked in a range of schools, including comprehensive, private, grammar, and a sixth-form college. Molly has been involved with writing Local Agreed Syllabi, and has often been asked to lead CPD for other RE teachers locally and at a national level too. She is a regular contributor to the RE Podcast and also presents at conferences about the teaching of various aspects of Hindu Dharma. Molly is also a coordinator for TM RS Icons and organised CPD events for other RE colleagues locally. She aims to represent the diversity of all religions and to give authentic voices to believers.

Nicola Bonell

Job Titles:

Member of Committee
Primary School Teacher

Nicola is a Primary School teacher in Cornwall, where I have been teaching for nearly 30 years. She has been a LTLRE Primary hub leader since 2012 which has involved holding local hub meetings, leading CPD, and helping local teachers with the teaching and learning of RE in their settings. More recently, Nicola has been seconded to work as a School-Based Lead for Truro Diocese (one day a week) which has involved delivering training and supporting Church schools with RE, Collective Worship, and preparation for SIAMs inspections.

Nikki McGee

Job Titles:

Member of Committee
Subject Specialist Lead for RE / Inspiration Trust

Nikki has recently moved to Norfolk to take on the role of the Subject Specialist Lead for RE at Inspiration Trust alongside teaching 3 days a week. Her role includes supporting Primary and Secondary RE teachers, curriculum design, and working with trainee primary teachers. She has been teaching RE for almost 20 years at both community and church schools. She can mostly be found on Twitter but has also recently found the courage to start a blog and to speak at both local and national events. She is also a mum to two children and an avid bookworm.

Rachael Jackson-Royal

Job Titles:

Member of the Steering Group
Exams and Higher Education Officer / Edgbaston High School for Girls
Member of Committee

Rachel Buckby

Job Titles:

Member of the Steering Group
Member of Committee
Primary Vice Chair Elect RE Subject Leader / St Johns CE Primary School
RE Subject Leader / St Johns CE Primary School

Rachel is the RE Subject Leader at St Johns CE Primary School in Leicester. She is a specialist in early years and Key Stage 1, however she is currently teaching in Year 6. She is part of a working party on her SACRE writing RE Agreed syllabus and has worked with RE Today developing their ideas for the Talking Pictures publication. Rachel has led seminars at the conferences locally and nationally. She has an interest in RE that encourages creativity. She is an RE lead teacher for the Leicester Diocese. She has recently worked on a national research project creating resources on FORB (Freedom of Religion and Belief).

Saima Saleh

Job Titles:

Member of the Steering Group
Class Teacher, Religion and Worldviews Lead and Local Groups Officer / Ravenscote Junior School
Member of Committee

Saima has over 29 years of teaching experience and is currently head of Religion and Worldviews- a role which she has had for over 15 years. She is an SLE for the Engage, Enrich, Excel Academy Trust and serves on the Surrey SACRE, where she has helped to write new units for the locally agreed syllabus. Saima is a member of the NATRE Executive steering group and is the Local Groups and Networks lead. She co-runs a Race and Education film club and is often invited to speak at conferences, locally, nationally, and globally, about her anti-racist work.