Religious Education “continuing to wilt” with no coherent national plan
from Religion Media Centre:
An Ofsted report on Religious Education has criticised the structure underpinning its delivery, with no coherent national plan and multiple local curriculums.
The report, “Deep and meaningful? The religious education subject report”, says the lack of coherence “negatively affects leaders and teachers” who are trying to improve, and is one cause of a situation where “in many ways, the subject continues to wilt”. It recommends that the government should provide better guidance about what should be taught and when, concluding that the RE curriculum in most schools is superficially broad and lacks depth.
Ofsted found that a significant proportion of schools do not meet the statutory requirement to teach RE at all stages. Among its recommendations, it urges schools to develop a strong RE curriculum, as required by law, and make sure that all teachers have the subject knowledge they need. It says that leaders who want to improve the quality of RE have been poorly served with little progress made on recommendations from the last report ten years ago.
Deborah Weston, chair of the Religious Education Policy Unit, welcomed its recognition of the need for high-quality RE and for the subject’s potential to help young people make sense of belief in modern Britain. She pointed to resources from many national RE organisations to help promote good practice.
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