Professional Timeline

Twenty years. Many projects. One thread.

This is not intended to be a conventional CV. It is a record of most of the projects, publications, conversations and communities that have shaped my work in Religious Education and Catholic education.

The newest work appears first, but the story deliberately runs all the way back to Cambridge and teacher training. The books, conferences and national projects came later; the craft began with subject study, placements, first lessons and the hard work of becoming a teacher. Older blogs and online projects are recorded as moments in that journey rather than reproduced article by article.

Alongside these, I have written at different points on Staffrm, Medium and LinkedIn, as well as guest blogs, publisher sites and education publications. Those were useful projects for particular moments; this site records the period and the ideas rather than trying to preserve every individual post.

Selected Professional Timeline

This timeline prioritises significant professional work and verified milestones rather than every automated retailer listing or passing web mention. The fuller record sits in the Professional Archive.

2026

The Blog on a Hill launches in January, a Substack encouraged by a few people that felt I should get back to regular writing. Succeeding as an RE Teacher is published by Bloomsbury Education in October, while writing begins on a new Catholic-education book project, Begin Again. Writing also appears in Networking CET (Magnificently Human: Catholic Education in the Age of AI) and RE:ONLINE (Saint Carlo Acutis: A Modern Story of Faith in the Digital Age).

CPD is delivered in the various dioceses around England to support development of the RED, as well as delivering a paper at the 3rd International Franciscan Studies Conference in Durham. A visit was arranged to St Bonaventure's by international Catholic social media personality, Fr Casey Cole OFM.

The year also includes stepping up to Chair of Governors at St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School, Upminster, alongside continuing work as a Catholic Schools Inspector.

2025

Source to Summit reaches Year 9 with the third and final book, completing the three-year KS3 course. Across the series, all three student books receive CES endorsement for the RED as well as a nihil obstat and imprimatur. Work with the High Performance Foundation also continues, including filming new Game Plan resources at St Bonaventure’s around resilience, confidence and learning how to thrive.

The Called to Action journey includes a Catholic-school delegation to Rome and a meeting with Pope Leo XIV. Later in the year, diocesan CPD is delivered in a number of Dioceses around implementing and reflecting on the RED, as well as delivered a session at the ACTRE National Conference on scripture and the RED.

2023–24

Oxford University Press launches the new KS3 course, Source to Summit, led by a team of practising teachers with Andy as Series Editor. The Year 7 book receives Catholic Education Service endorsement.

Andy takes part in the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues consultation at St George’s House, Windsor that contributes to the Embedding Civic Character statement. On 3 March he joins the Transformational Character Education panel at the Jubilee Centre’s Outstanding Schools: Ofsted, School Improvement and Character Education  conference at the University of Birmingham. Later that year, his ResearchED National Conference session, Caught, Taught, Sought – The Habit of Flourishing, explores habits, virtue and character formation.

Called to Action · 2024. On 2 July, more than 200 young people, teachers and school leaders gather in Pimlico for the launch of the Called to Action toolkit bringing Catholic Social Teaching and community organising together. Andy contributes Help Us Notice, focused on listening and the first movement of See–Judge–Act. The gathering becomes the first stage of the journey that later leads to the 2025 Vatican meeting. 

2022

Curriculum and cross-disciplinary work. Andy is part of the teacher working party for the Newham Agreed Syllabus  and delivers "Curiosity not Conflict: Teaching RE & Science in Catholic Schools" accross Portsmouth Diocese schools. 

At the Examination Schools, University of Oxford, Andy delivers "The Danger of the Privilege: Making Humanities 6395% Better?", exploring subject knowledge, curriculum and the place of the humanities. Original slides.

The period also includes teacher consultation around the new Catholic Religious Education Directory through ATCRE.

2021

Community and housing. Years of TELCO/Newham Citizens work around housing and homelessness connect with a London Landmarks Half Marathon fundraiser for Caritas Anchor House. Fundraiser archive ↗ [https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/LLHM-CAH-2021]

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### 2020

100 Ideas for Secondary Teachers: Outstanding RE Lessons is published by Bloomsbury Education. The long-running TDRE Boss blog reaches its final posts after eight years.

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### 2016–19

Publishing and public discussion. The OUP GCSE Religious Studies textbook launches in 2016 at Westminster Cathedral Hall alongside new Catholic GCSE resources for AQA and Eduqas. The same event launches Aquinas Resources and Conferencing (ARC), a collaborative project intended to source and share strong resources for Catholic RE teachers. A later TES profile traces the beginning of that publishing work back to the London RE Hub, where contact with Oxford University Press grew out of teacher-led CPD rather than a planned move into authorship. Read the TES profile ↗ [https://www.tes.com/news/meet-teachers-who-choose-work-through-summer] Andy speaks at the Institute of Ideas’ Battle of Ideas on Religious Education in a Secular Age ↗ [https://www.worldwrite.org.uk/video/religious-education-in-a-secular-age/] and is shortlisted for TES Teacher Blogger of the Year.

2018: knowing stuff. At the first Southern Rocks conference, a session on knowledge, relevance and engagement is picked up by Teachwire in its conference review: “Planning engaging activities is a waste of time” ↗ [https://www.teachwire.net/news/planning-engaging-activities-is-a-waste-of-time-and-6-more-things-we-learnt-at-southern-rocks-18/]. The same year, AudioPi launches Catholic Christianity podcast courses across AQA, Edexcel and Eduqas with the writing team headed by Andy. AudioPi archive ↗ [https://www.audiopi.co.uk/subjects/religious-studies/gcse/edexcel/catholic-christianity/]

Writing increasingly moves beyond personal blogging into sector publications including Teach Secondary/Teachwire and other education outlets.

[IMAGE: Andy Lewis at the TES Schools Awards in 2016. | https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_%21UZiS%21%2Cw_474%2Cc_limit%2Cf_auto%2Cq_auto%3Agood%2Cfl_progressive%3Asteep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F208626a2-1753-45ac-ba7e-70413be16344_1024x683.jpeg]

[CAPTION: TES Schools Awards · 2016.]

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### 2015–16

Networks and teacher-led CPD. The London RE Hub runs subject-knowledge conferences for more than 120 teachers across 2015 and 2016. Andy is also involved in TeachMeet London and national/regional RE events. Havering SACRE records the first Hub conference as a sell-out and specifically notes Andy’s role in organising it. Havering SACRE record ↗ [https://democracy.havering.gov.uk/documents/g3242/Public%20reports%20pack%2014th-Jul-2015%2018.30%20Standing%20Advisory%20Council%20on%20Religious%20Education.pdf?T=10]

Teach First, Culham St Gabriel’s and wider RE networks. The period includes Teach First RE conferences, Culham St Gabriel’s RE Thinking Days, the Teacher’s Enterprise in RE and other national subject work. An archived St Bonaventure’s professional profile records this wider contribution to Religious Education alongside the London RE Hub and TeachMeet work. Professional profile ↗ [https://www.stbons.org/adcsa/specialist-leaders-of-education/andy-lewis/]

In June 2015 he contributes to the CREDO HEI briefing at St Mary’s and speaks at Porta Fidei: The Role and Future of Catholic Schools on religious literacy and the purpose of RE. The same period includes the Teacher’s Enterprise in RE and Westminster Briefings on behaviour management.

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### 2013–15

Teacher blogging and subject debate. TDRE Boss begins in 2013 and becomes a regular space for writing about Religious Education, teaching, curriculum, assessment, research and school life.

The period also includes involvement in national conversations about GCSE and A-level reform, including a Department for Education RE consultation.

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### 2012–15

Subject and pastoral leadership at Sacred Heart of Mary. From 2011, teaching expands into Assistant Subject Leadership in RE and Head of Year responsibility, while still teaching across Key Stage 3, GCSE and A Level.

TalkingDonkeyRE. A school-facing digital RE project grows around resources, revision, Catholic current affairs and classroom discussion. It reflects an early interest in using online tools to extend learning beyond the lesson.

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### 2006–11

Learning the craft at St John Payne Catholic School. The first five years of full-time teaching: Religious Education, form and pastoral work, later Head of House and Staff Governor. These were the years when the ideas learned in training had to survive real classrooms — explanation, routines, relationships, subject knowledge and the slow accumulation of judgement.

2007: six weeks teaching English to street-connected children in Mekele, northern Ethiopia, through CAFOD volunteering — an early experience of education, service and another cultural context. A short reflection written from Mekele is still preserved online ↗ [https://ethiopianreview.com/content/942]

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### 2002–06

Cambridge: the beginning of professional formation. BA (Hons) in Education Studies and Theology & Religious Studies, followed by the Secondary Religious Studies PGCE ↗ [https://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/courses/pgce/secondary/religious/] at the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education ↗ [https://faculty.educ.cam.ac.uk/]. This is where the craft began to take shape: watching experienced teachers, planning first lessons, learning to explain complex ideas clearly and discovering how different the lived classroom can be from the lesson imagined on paper.

The theology and education strands have remained joined ever since. The work has always involved both: what is worth knowing, and how another person might come to know it.

SELECTED EXTERNAL WRITING & MEDIA

## A few markers in the public record

These sit outside the personal blogs and show how the work gradually moved into sector publications, interviews and wider education debate.

2026

### Networking CET

Magnificently Human: Catholic Education in the Age of AI — human dignity, formation and the common good in a rapidly changing technological landscape.

2024

### Teach Secondary

Religious Education — is it really a subject ‘not fit for purpose’? A response to Ofsted’s criticisms of the quality and consistency of RE provision.

2020

### Teach Secondary

Whole school RE — religious literacy, curriculum coherence and why knowledge of religion matters beyond the RE department.

2018

### Teach Secondary

Engaging Lessons? We are Educators, not Entertainers — a case for purposeful curriculum and meaningful challenge over classroom gimmicks.

2018

### TES long read

Quoted in The battle for the soul of RE, discussing substantive knowledge, theology and the danger of an RE curriculum becoming overly reactive.

2014–15

### The Guardian

Teacher comment on low-level disruption and on the uncertainty created by delayed approval of new examination specifications.

This selection focuses on significant, verifiable examples from the public record rather than trying to reproduce every older mention.

## Referenced elsewhere

The archive also records significant external references: official curriculum acknowledgements, press and sector coverage, interviews, podcasts, conference listings and other professional mentions. Examples include the Newham Agreed Syllabus teacher working party, the TES Schools Awards shortlist, Catholic Herald coverage of the RED, RE:ONLINE debate, Schools Week reporting and Catholic Education Service/Citizens UK coverage of community organising.