Religion: Education

(asked on 26th January 2024) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Ofsted Annual Report 2022/23, what plans her Department has to reduce the variation in the standards of teaching of religious education; and what assessment she has made of the potential merits of adding the subject to the national curriculum.


Answered by
Damian Hinds Portrait
Damian Hinds
Minister of State (Education)
This question was answered on 5th February 2024

Religious Education (RE) is an important part of a school’s curriculum and can contribute to a young person’s personal, social and academic development. When taught well, the subject develops children’s knowledge of British values and traditions, helps them to better understand those of other countries, and refines pupils’ ability to construct well-informed, balanced and structured arguments. This is why it remains a compulsory subject in all state-funded schools in England for each pupil up to the age of 18.

The government read Ofsted’s 2023 report with interest. Whilst there is no specific allocation of funding for RE curriculum programmes, the department does provide support for RE teaching in a number of other ways, particularly in relation to teaching quality.

The department is offering a £10,000 bursary for RE trainee teachers that are starting initial teacher training courses in the 2024/25 academic year.

To support teachers when they are in post, and to ensure high standards and consistency of RE teaching, RE resources will be procured by Oak National Academy during the second tranche of its work. Oak will work closely with the sector and utilise sector experience when producing new materials for RE. This will ensure that high-quality lessons are available nationwide, benefitting both teachers and pupils, should schools opt to use them. Oak RE resources will be available for teaching from autumn 2024, with full packages expected to be available by autumn 2025.

The department also continues to offer eight-week subject knowledge enhancement (SKE) courses in the 2022/23 academic year for candidates who have the potential to become outstanding teachers but need to increase their subject knowledge. The eight week SKE course, available in RE, can be undertaken on a full time or part time basis but must be completed before qualified teacher status can be recommended and awarded. Eligible candidates could be entitled to a SKE bursary of £175 per week to support them financially whilst completing their SKE course.

More information on these courses is available here: www.gov.uk/guidance/subject-knowledge-enhancement-an-introduction.

The core national curriculum subjects of English, mathematics and science have received an estimated £290 million over the past five years. Allocated funding for English facilitates the English hubs programme, which is a school-to-school improvement programme that focusses on systematic synthetic phonics, early language and reading for pleasure. It also facilitates Poetry By Heart, which is a national poetry speaking competition for schools. The funding for mathematics supports the implementation of programmes that aim to improve the teaching of mathematics from age 4 to 18 and to increase participation in post-16 mathematics. Similarly for science, this funding supports programmes which aim to improve the subject expertise of teachers and improve workforce capacity and confidence for science teachers.

In the Schools White Paper, the department has committed not to make any changes to the curriculum for the remainder of this Parliament, in order to provide stability for schools and pupils following the pandemic.

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