RE should be renamed Religion, Beliefs and Values, says new Clarke/Woodhead report

Jul 18, 2018 by Jill

by Jess Staufenberg, Schools Week:

Religious education should be renamed Religion, Beliefs and Values and parents must not be allowed to remove pupils from those lessons, a new report recommends.

The law surrounding RE in schools is “outdated” and “hinders” the subject from being a relevant and highly respected academic one, it states.

Former education secretary Charles Clarke (pictured) and sociologist of religion Linda Woodhead have followed up their 2015 assessment of RE with a new report, published today, which says Ofsted should ensure that “RBV” is taught in all schools.

But secularists have criticised the report as more “timid” than its predecessor, because it says existing faith schools should be allowed to select pupils based on faith. Moreover, it does not recommend that the legally required daily act of worship – which is rarely checked upon – should be abolished.

Piling on the criticism further, the Catholic Church says the recommendations would reduce the study of religion to a sociological subject, instead of a properly theological one.

The report’s authors recommend that RE be renamed Religion, Beliefs and Values, because this allows for the exploration of the “inner diversity” of each religion, and accounts for humanist beliefs.

Read here