Author In Focus: Alison Robertson
ZigZagEducation.co.uk | PublishMeNow.co.uk
| Subjects: | Religious Studies |
| Education: | LLB (hons) and an Open Subject BA from the Open University |
| Top Resource: | Revision Summaries: GCSE OCR B: Philosophy & Applied Ethics |
"I have always been focused on treating RS as a serious academic subject, of equal value to any other subject on the curriculum, and my schemes of work and assessment projects have always reflected this."
In the middle of her law degree, Alison realised that she didn’t see herself working as a lawyer, and so decided to look at other options. She decided on teaching, but found it hard to get a place on a PGCE as her degree was in a non-national curriculum subject. She completed a second degree, originally intending to teach history but began to discover how fascinating Religious Studies can be and this, combined with the knowledge of how badly she was taught it at school, helped her decide that RS was what she wanted to teach.
Redirecting her studies in that direction, she has been teaching RE for nearly ten years, and has run a successful department for much of that time.
She is a Chief Examiner for OCR and has been involved in specification writing for both the ‘Philosophy and Ethics’, and the new ‘Religion in Today’s World’ specification.
"I love my examining work because it gives me the opportunity to work within, and promote, my subject at a national level rather than being restricted to a single school. Publishing resources with ZigZag has given me a similar opportunity and for that reason I am always interested in the feedback that my resources get from colleagues."
"RS is taught by non-specialists far more often than it is taught by specialists, and it is therefore vital that specialists get involved in ensuring that their colleagues have the resources to teach the subject well."
"RS is taught by non-specialists far more often than it is taught by specialists, and it is therefore vital that specialists get involved in ensuring that their colleagues have the resources to teach the subject well."
Alison had a lot of resources which she and her colleagues used in school, and which she had put a great deal of time and effort into. She had experience in building a department up from nothing and also a level of knowledge in relation to exam specifications that not many teachers have. She was and still is keen to share all of this with colleagues outside of her own school setting, which is why she joined PublishMeNow.
"In the past I had written to a number of publishers, but found it hard to get that ‘foot in the door’. PublishMeNow had sent information into school so I knew they were interested in new people, and I approached them with a resource idea."