New Guidance on Religious Education

source: Edlines Summer 2009


The Government has issued new draft guidance on the teaching of Religious Education (RE) in English schools for public consultation (ending on 24 July). The guidance is intended to replace that issued in 1994 (Circular 1/94) which was widely believed, even at the time, to represent very poor advice on RE. The BHA was represented on the steering group that helped to produce the new draft and in many ways we believe it represents a considerable advance on previous guidance.

However, it fails to address our two principal concerns in RE: that RE should be the study of both religious and non-religious beliefs; that humanists should have the same right to be full members of the local committees writing and overseeing RE syllabuses as religious people have. More...