Mark Chater at the QCA shares the latest RE news

RE included in the new secondary curriculum

On 1 September 2007 QCA published the new secondary curriculum online, which can be reached on www.qca.org.uk/curriculum. Religious Education is included with other subjects, taking the national framework and using the sections that apply to Key Stages 3 and 4 as the basis for new-style programmes of study. This means that those agreed syllabuses which have made good use of the national framework will continue to be relevant - and that RE is demonstrating, at national level, its essential relevance to the overall aims of the curriculum, to Every Child Matters and to the personal, learning and thinking skills.

Rollout of CPD for secondary RE

From January 2008 onwards, continuing professional development will be available to every secondary RE department in England to prepare for the new secondary curriculum. The CPD will be delivered by a partnership of the Centre for British Teachers (CfBT), the National Association of Teachers of RE (NATRE) and 32 regional support advisers. This represents an excellent opportunity to refresh planning and teaching approaches in RE so that they reflect the new curriculum.

Primary review

At the time of writing, QCA is busy engaging in a review of the primary curriculum. It is expected that, in due course, the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) will ask QCA to revise the primary curriculum. It is likely that this will happen along the lines of the curriculum 'big picture'. The approach with RE will be the same as for the secondary curriculum: taking the national framework and ensuring it is included in the curriculum, thus making it possible for teachers to see and plan the curriculum as a whole.

It is hoped that writers of agreed syllabus will see this development as a step forward in ensuring that all agreed syllabus are offering coherent planning, reflecting nationally agreed definitions of range and content, to nationally agreed standards.

New GCSE Religious Studies criteria

The new criteria will be published in October 2007 after a 12 week consultation period. Thank you to all those many RE colleagues who participated in the consultation. The criteria will require all specifications to assess through 100% terminal examination for both short course and full course. This reflects the overwhelming views of the RE community.

The criteria will closely reflect the national framework as expressed through the new secondary curriculum's programme of study for KS4. There will be a new focus on the balance and interdependence between learning about and learning from, and a new breadth of range and content reflecting the national framework's scope of Christianity, five other principal religions, other religious communities and secular world views such as humanism where appropriate.

The awarding bodies will be working on their specifications towards first teaching cohorts starting in September 2008. The new criteria represent a good opportunity for the RE community to continue building on the exponential success of RS as an enjoyable, challenging, relevant and popular GCSE.

Spiritual and moral development

A small working group on spiritual and moral development across the curriculum is nearing the completion of its work. When finished, there will be a small range of case studies from primary and secondary schools showing how the whole curriculum can be used to generate opportunities to promote children's and young people's spiritual and moral development, which remains a legal requirement on schools. In addition to the case studies, there will be a short statement of principles of good practice, designed to show how schools can create the opportunities within their own context.

Ofsted's Long Report on RE

The Ofsted report on RE in maintained community schools in England, Making Sense of Religion, was published in summer 2007. QCA has welcomed this report, which provides a very strong evidential base for understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the subject. QCA has taken the following actions since the report was published:

• pressing on with draft guidance for agreed syllabus conferences, to ensure that the most coherent use is made of the national framework and the programmes of study for Key Stage 3 and 4;
• continuing to work with SACREs and the National Association of SACREs (NASACRE) to promote good practice and to explore ways in which the SACRE remit could be strengthened to promote RE as a subject in its own right, and as a powerful aid to personal wellbeing and community cohesion;
• using RE's presence in the secondary curriculum to emphasise the importance of high standards in RE at Key Stage 3, the centrality of key concepts as a planning approach and the importance of addressing contemporary religious issues (see 'New opportunities in RE' in the new secondary curriculum for more details).

Changes in government and in QCA

With the arrival of Gordon Brown as Prime Minister, there came a reorganisation of Whitehall which has implications for the education system as a whole and good implications for RE. The old Department for Education and Skills (DfES) was split into two, becoming the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) and - more relevantly for schools - the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF). Ed Balls was appointed Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, and very soon made two important keynotes emphasising his support for Every Child Matters and for community cohesion. This is excellent news for RE, which can demonstrate unambiguously and richly its capacity to deliver both these policy objectives.

At the Labour Party conference in Bournemouth, Ed Balls announced a plan to move swiftly towards making the regulatory functions of QCA separate by forming a new body independent of ministers and accountable to parliament. This body may be in existence as early as Spring 2008. QCA welcomes this development, seeing it as a strengthening of the regulatory remit and a re-affirmation of the other roles. Although very little detail is known about how the rest of QCA, including the curriculum division, will be affected by this change, at the moment it seems likely that advisers with a subject brief will be likely to remain with QCA. When more is known, we will be able to let our key partners know.

Meanwhile, in QCA Mark Chater is now a programme adviser in the Partnerships and Evidence team, working with stakeholder organisations in RE and in other projects relevant to community cohesion, initial teacher training and personal development.

QCA Online

QCA's new website, www.qca.org.uk, is based on a search facility. By searching for RE, or Religious Education, you can gain access to every RE-relevant document on the site. The top five tips will lead you to:

• the national framework
• the units of work published in January 2007, and their user guide
• the RE programmes of study and supporting guidance in the new secondary curriculum
• QCA's work with SACREs, including the annual analysis of their work, the summary of the November 2006 conferences (Strong SACREs, Good RE) and the revised reporting format
• archived material on RE and spiritual and moral development

Mark Chater - November 2007