{"id":13302,"date":"2026-07-08T12:13:38","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T11:13:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/?p=13302"},"modified":"2026-07-08T12:13:40","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T11:13:40","slug":"once-in-a-generation-opportunity-a-national-curriculum-for-religious-education-in-england","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/once-in-a-generation-opportunity-a-national-curriculum-for-religious-education-in-england\/","title":{"rendered":"Once-in-a-generation opportunity: a national curriculum for Religious Education in England?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As England considers bringing in a national curriculum for RE, Professor Bob Bowie explores the considerations to ensure it will strengthen the subject and preserve its role in supporting students to develop as critical thinkers, able to<\/em><\/strong> interpret different perspectives, discuss, disagree, and make informed judgements.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For nearly four decades, religious education in England has occupied a curious position: compulsory in every state school, but with no national standard of quality, or agreed curriculum. Since the 1988 Education Reform Act, state schools has been required to teach it, yet the subject has sat outside the National Curriculum, its content settled locally by agreed syllabus conferences, or the appropriate religious authority for schools of a religious character.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That settlement, a creature of its historical moment\u201a may finally be changing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week, the group established following the Francis Review charged to draft a new programme of study within the wider curriculum reform, announced that the government has accepted, in principle, that RE should be part of the National Curriculum, with a national consultation launching in September to discuss this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the most significant structural opportunity the subject has had in a generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The case for RE has rarely been in doubt. Ofsted’s recent subject report called it intellectually challenging and personally enriching, and the Francis Review acknowledged strong consensus about the subject’s importance. What has been missing is a nationally agreed, defensible and enforceable standard of quality, a common framework that will still allow appropriate flexibility for England\u2019s diverse schools the different kinds of schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

England is not the first country to ask what a national framework for RE should be for. Work I have been involved in with colleagues from 30 European countries, has examined religious education, inclusion and pupil wellbeing, mindful of the shared and distinctive education systems in different countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Comparing the aims of RE across Europe, from Ireland’s denominational inheritance to Bosnia’s post-conflict pluralism\u201a reveals that every national settlement embodies a set of answers, deliberately or not, to Gert Biesta’s three questions: to what degree is this subject about qualification (knowledge and skills), socialisation (induction into a shared culture), or subjectification (the formation of persons capable of their own judgment) all in a certain subject?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The English debate has tended to lurch between the first two: RE as academic religious studies, or RE as achieving some kind of moral and social aim, community cohesion by other means. Any new curriculum will need to address the third too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Young people are forming views about religion in a world saturated with social media and algorithmic amplification, conspiratorial framing, and the flattening of complex traditions into content. Our research about young people\u2019s spirituality suggests that the classroom remains one of the few spaces where they can encounter a worldview different from their own in an environment designed for understanding rather than conflict. The way these conversations are planned and taught matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RE, done well, helps students develop skills to interpret different perspectives, discuss, disagree, and make informed judgements. If the new curriculum reduces RE to yet more knowledge to simply be recalled, it will lose what makes the subject distinctive and valuable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Research by the National Institute for Christian Education Research<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (NICER) <\/em><\/strong>at Canterbury Christ Church University, <\/em><\/strong>with schools and teachers, has developed the concept of spiritual oracy: the capacity to attentively listen, speak and question, and be heard on matters of meaning and depth. This capacity and experience belong in this conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our research has also examined how the Bible and other sacred texts are actually used in English classrooms, and the findings have been sobering. Too often sacred texts are presented through isolated extracts and out-of-context quotations, serving as illustrations of predetermined themes rather than being explored as rich and complex texts. A more meaningful approach is to help pupils understand that are interpreted by different communities, that religious traditions argue with themselves, that learning how to interpret a text is a skill. This approach is both academically rigorous and faithful to the traditions being studied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any national programme of study will have to make decisions about texts. It should make them with this evidence in view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are also concerns about the capacity to bring about this proposed change. For many years recruitment to RE teacher training has fallen far short of national targets, and too many pupils are taught the subject by teachers without specialist preparation. If a National Curriculum for RE is to deliver on its promise, it must be accompanied by urgent and sustained investment in the recruitment, training and retention of specialist RE teachers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This moment also highlights the importance of university study in Theology, Philosophy and Religion. These disciplines provide the scholarly depth on which excellent RE depends. The subject knowledge of future teachers, the research that informs the curriculum, and the graduates who serve schools, communities and public life. At a time when such provision is under pressure across the sector, a flourishing National Curriculum for RE will require a flourishing pipeline of scholarship, and Canterbury Christ Church University is committed to sustaining that future with its newly developed undergraduate degree in Theology, Philosophy and Religion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We look forward to engaging fully with the consultation in September, and to working with the Department for Education, the RE community, and our church foundation and local and regional partners to ensure every child receives the excellent Religious Education they deserve. The direction is right, and the moment is rare. Curricula are rewritten perhaps once in a generation; the assumptions now will shape how millions of children encounter religion, belief, and the deepest human questions well into the 2040s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\/Ends<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bob Bowie is Professor of Religion and Worldviews Education and Director of the <\/em><\/strong>National Institute for Christian Education Research<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (NICER) at Canterbury Christ Church University.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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