On training courses this term I have met several hundred RE teachers. A common topic of conversation has been the ways in which pupils have needed to discuss the ideas about Islam that RE supplies and those that arise in the media.

I have noticed afresh just what a remarkable group of people RE teachers in the UK are. There are about 5,000 of them, mostly Christian, though increasingly from other faiths or from no faith, but together they seem to me to be the most bold, plurally aware and sensitive group of people.

Guidance for teachers from official sources, including the Department for Education and Skills and the NUT has, as usual, failed to notice the positive potential of RE, and has been chiefly cautious, suggesting ways to avoid the hottest controversies. But the RE teachers’ instinct is often to take the questions head on. Deborah Weston, vice chair of the Professional Council for RE, teaches in a Tower Hamlets school with a large Muslim majority. She comments: “It’s made me even more aware of the importance of teaching the range of Islamic approaches.

“Jihad does mean inner struggle, but it also has a dimension of fighting. I want to make sure we teach with balance, giving pupils a chance to discuss the issues in a free and non-threatening environment. Exploring the conditions for Jihad has been part of our GCSE for years.”

Another teacher, Diana Wilson, set reflective tasks for the pupils in her Cambridgeshire school: choose a picture from a news website connected with the September 11 terrorist attack in New York, and write a reflection on the issues of justice and belief behind the news.

Older pupils created a set of questions about the events and the responses to them, and tackled these from their own viewpoints. A Sikh pupil wrote about the way white society assumes “all Asians are the same”.

Fazia, a Muslim, commented: “I think it needs to be stressed not all Muslims should suffer for the wrongdoing of a few.”

Amy, of no religion, contributed: “For years we have been trying to help the people of Afghanistan, and now we are undoing all our good, and killing the innocent as well.”

The hardest challenge for the RE teacher is to be fair, balanced and educative in these difficult times. But what I have seen in the past couple of months tells me the teachers are up to the job, and doing it with distinction.

Lat Blaylock is executive officer of Professional Council for RE, Royal Buildings, Victoria Street, Derby DE1 1GW.Web: www.pcfre.org.uk