Andy Drozdziak
The Catholic Education Service has welcomed criticisms contained in a new RE report and said that many of these criticisms are ‘not typically true of Catholic education.’
Ofsted published a subject report entitled Deep and meaningful? The religious education subject report, which explores how religious education (RE) is being taught in England’s schools, on 17th April.
The report draws on evidence from visits to a sample of around 50 primary and secondary schools last year.
The report’s main findings were that, whilst leaders are keen to improve the quality of education in RE, the RE curriculum is often ‘superficially broad and lacks depth.’ In secondary schools, inspectors said that teachers focus too much on what pupils need to know for exams.
Significantly, the report found that, whereas ‘a few’ teachers had received subject-based professional development in RE, the ‘overwhelming majority’ had not. Philip Robinson, Catholic Schools Inspectorate Chief Inspector, said the report ‘does not speak to RE specifically in Catholic schools.’
“The CES welcomes the very thorough and research-grounded subject report on Religious Education (RE) that Ofsted has published,” Mr Robinson said.
“While the report does not speak to RE specifically in Catholic schools it is heartening that many of the criticisms of the quality of RE taught elsewhere are not typically true of Catholic education.”
By law, Catholic schools in England teach a Catholic RE curriculum which is inspected independently of Ofsted. A new Religious Education Directory and model curriculum were published last year. Religious Education in Catholic schools is often regarded as being high-quality, with Catholic school RE results at GCSE up to seven percentage points above the national average, and around a quarter of all those nationally taking RE GCSE being pupils in Catholic education.
“We anticipate this progress will continue as schools implement the new Religious Education Directory and model curriculum,” Mr Robinson said.
“The report includes a clear articulation of what good quality RE looks like in schools without a religious character but also offers some significant criticisms of RE and its teaching.”
Meanwhile, RE teacher Andy Lewis, Deputy Headteacher at St Bonaventure’s school in London, believes the new RE report underlines the need for better ‘support and funding for RE.’
Mr Lewis told the Universe: “Ofsted’s latest report into RE again reinforces the call to action for wider support and funding for RE. A lack of specialists, not enough dedicated time and space on the curriculum and pressures to incorporate other curriculum subjects like Citizenship, PHSE and RSE, do not lead to high quality RE.”
Mr Lewis, who has authored RE textbooks and recently helped develop a new RE qualification with support from the Catholic Education Service, added: “The report will be a frustration to the many schools where RE is excellent – where they have invested their resources and worked hard to ensure their curriculum is high quality with effective teaching.
“The call for the additional support and funding for training, resources and parity with other curriculum subjects is an ongoing one for the RE community.”