Neil Attewell 

"Nothing you do is wasted. Whether it's your destination or a stop on the journey, what you are doing now can equip you for future challenges unknown."

When I signed up for the University of Birmingham Religious Education PGCE I would never have guessed that I'd end up as the Chaplain of The Sixth Form College, Solihull. However, the skills I learned have put me in good stead for this groundbreaking role. Chaplaincy fulfils the OFSTED/education act requirement to care for the ‘spiritual, moral, social and cultural welfare' of students in a post-compulsory RE context; nevertheless, we were determined to make this much more than just a box-ticking exercise and create chaplaincy for the 21^st century.

It was nearly two years ago that I was invited to assist in the creation of a chaplaincy team here at The Sixth Form College, Solihull. I was employed initially on a part-time basis, supplementing my hours with some supply work, but this has grown to a full-time position as the scope of the job increased and the management team liked what they saw. The College is one of the largest of its kind in the country with over 2500 students from a variety of cultures and religious affiliations. It is therefore important that the Chaplaincy is welcomed as a genuinely multi-faith ‘friendly' service by everyone at college.

The team remit is to encourage all stakeholders to own and embody both the College mission statement and the equality and diversity policies. We achieve this by a variety of means including ‘energetic engagement' in the College social spaces, facilitating a variety of faith societies / interest groups and involvement across the curriculum. My previous experience in RE and youth work was obviously a great foundation for this and enabled me to think creatively about how to spiritually support our young people at a pivotal moment in their lives.

Eager not to surrender to Chaplain stereotypes I have adopted the philosophy that, ‘God is for life, not just for RE' and have used my teaching experience as a vehicle for getting involved in a variety of lessons including Sociology, Philosophy, English and Music. In addition, I have been utilised as an extra staff presence for educational visits and various occasions where we have taken the College into the local community. This has included assisting the College's growing number of overseas students to settle into life in the UK - an interesting challenge for my equality and diversity training in both religious and cultural terms.

Having left day-to-day teaching behind, there are things I miss and things I definitely don't! I will always remember teaching an RE lesson during the time that British forces were entering Iraq, in which a rather unco-operative Year 10 student declared, "I don't need to study Muslims, I'm gonna join the army!" I'd like to think I offered him some potentially life saving pearls, but truth is he taught me an important lesson that day. Nothing you do is wasted. Whether it's your destination or a stop on the journey, what you are doing now can equip you for future challenges unknown.