Amongst the sweeping changes to the education system brought in by the present Labour Government, Religious Education is to become a National Curriculum subject for the first time. RE has been a compulsory school ‘core subject’ since the 1988 Education Act, which meant that it is a compulsory subject for schools to teach, but not according to a nationally specified curriculum. Generally, curriculum content for RE has been defined within each local authority by a group called the SACRE (Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education). SACRE produces what is known as the ‘locally agreed syllabus’ for each local education authority, which all maintained schools without a religious character are obliged to follow. Academies and faith schools have some leeway to determine their own syllabus – the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales, for example, produces a ‘curriculum directory’ for Catholic schools to guide their RE provision.
Notably, Humanists UK and the National Secular Society are celebrating the move to nationalise the RE curriculum, as one key change will be the mandatory inclusion of secular worldviews into lessons — a move purported to make RE more ‘inclusive’ for children and to prepare them better for ‘life in modern Britain’. The Humanist Society has long campaigned for the inclusion of RE into the National Curriculum, citing an unfair situation where the subject received special privileges. It seems their perspective has been heavily influential in the development of the new proposals. This is, at best, unsettling. It demonstrates how politicised the curriculum can be, and, moreover, it shows how the Government and key pressure groups influence what children learn.
Under the new plans, there seems to be some suggestion that faith schools will be able to maintain the status quo; however, many Church of England schools choose to use the locally agreed syllabus as defined by a SACRE. Such schools, as well as state maintained schools without a religious character, will have to teach according to the national standards set out for Religious Education. This means that the traditional educational precedent of our country that Christianity should be the primary focus, with some coverage given to other major world faiths, may well be at an end. Children will be required to study not only mainstream religious views, but also non-religious worldviews. From an academic perspective, the strengths and weaknesses of the change remain to be seen, but there is certainly a risk that parental choice and influence will be eroded by the change to the curriculum. It is very likely that Christian parents won’t be able to find a school where Christianity is the primary subject studied in RE, even though the United Kingdom is still a constitutionally Christian country.
The proposed changes to the curriculum come out of the RE Task and Finish Group which began its work in November 2025 and was led by Dr Vanessa Ogden (CEO of the Mulberry Schools Trust). The group was initiated after Professor Becky Francis concluded her review of the National Curriculum, in which she suggested that RE should be added, but that the sector should come to a consensus about whether that would be possible. The details of what is to be taught are not yet available and the Government is planning to include questions about RE in the broader consultation about the National Curriculum, a process that is due to start this September. Many RE specialists in the sector, however, contend that the Government should consult on RE separately to the rest of the curriculum so that their voices are properly heard, and the distinct importance of RE as a subject does not become lost in the general wash. The landscape of Religious Education could potentially change markedly over the next few years, especially if it is allowed to become subject to pressure from secular campaign groups, who are intent on marginalising the validity and influence of Christianity and other major religious worldviews altogether.
ParentPower Team
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