Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold

Reflections on religious education, the Francis review and the national curriculum in England, with a little help from W.B. Yeats’ ‘Second Coming’ (1919).

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world…
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand…
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Yeats’ poetic thought-world is thrilling. His poetry imagines chapters of history turning: one epoch making way for another.

Might we be on the verge of an educational chapter in England wherein religious education (RE) occupies a strengthened position in the school curriculum? If so, might the fortunes of the subject be much improved?

Surely some revelation is at hand.

Before we think about the next educational epoch or chapter, let’s look back. Let’s contrast our current educational epoch – one in which the Francis Curriculum and Assessment review is being conducted – with one that came before: the era of the legislation which underpins RE’s current status.

It’s clear that the kind of educational assumptions sitting behind the 1988 legislation, and reflected within it, do not reflect the realities of schools today:

• school structures have evolved: not all state-funded schools are maintained by local authorities (40:1(1)a,b,c);
• assessment has moved on: practices are not shaped by end of key stage attainment targets (40:2(2)a);
• historical duties are not enacted: it is simply not that case that “all pupils in attendance at a maintained school… on each school day take part in an act of collective worship.” (40:6(1))

In this legislation, RE sits as part of the “basic curriculum”. The basic curriculum for state-funded schools was imagined to include the national curriculum and RE. Yet, today, leaders and governors appear to have collective memory loss of this fact. But even the language of the “basic curriculum” has largely been lost in the annals of time.

The kind of educational epoch which placed RE within a “basic curriculum” is quite different from the current one. Indeed, today, if any “curriculum” is perceived to be “basic” at all, it’s the national curriculum. What once obtained, no longer suffices.

Clearly, the status of RE has not benefitted from this historical distinction, however worthy or defensible the reasons for it were at the time. It would be very hard indeed to argue that the subject is thriving, with pupils across the country equitably enjoying high-quality religious education in schools. In my final RE subject report at Ofsted, I reflected on a sad state of affairs for RE in many schools within the research sample. I (and my colleague Hazel Henson, HMI) found:

• RE that didn’t help pupils prepare for living in a complex world
• RE that gave pupils at best a superficial grasp of religious and non-religious traditions
• RE that didn’t help pupils interrogate claims and statements about religion and non-religion
• Worryingly unreliable assessment practices in RE
• An absence of professional development in RE for teachers, mirrored by pupils being left with profound misconceptions

It would be hard to argue that the status of RE outside the national curriculum has served pupils in England’s schools well.

The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity

Yeats uses the line “the best lack all conviction” from Shakespeare’s Hamlet to refer to the aristocracy. But these words also helpfully illuminate the current dilemma of RE: it is those with the greatest potential who may struggle with doubt and uncertainty about change the most.

When it comes to RE being included within the national curriculum, rather than sitting awkwardly adjacent to it, there is much enthusiasm from RE stakeholders (by which I mean RE leaders, teachers, practitioners, advisers and professionals). There are also some who have expressed displeasure with the idea.

Why might they object? Some religious communities who run state-funded VA schools (and ex-VA academies) can determine ‘denominational RE’. This kind of RE is outside the remit of Ofsted to inspect. Others like existing arrangements that RE content in maintained schools can be decided at local authority level. Though they positively advance and prioritise RE, these individuals and institutions prefer the current arrangements. Question: is it worth giving up control?

Yet I can see policy positions that can offer resolution. Mitigations could still be built into any post-Francis-review national curriculum. The current national curriculum for history, for instance, already includes flexibilities on studying local history.

In the case of schools with a religious character, it is more likely the case that these schools offer more RE curriculum time than their non-religious character counterparts. There should be nothing to prevent them from teaching beyond a minimum entitlement (a position that reflects the current Secretary of State’s approach to teacher pay, which might have a ‘floor’, but no ‘ceiling’).

Slouching towards Bethlehem, ready to be born

On the 8th January 2025, the second reading of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill in the House of Commons included a discussion of the Francis review. In it, the former Secretary of State Damian Hinds discussed his perception of the dangers of an over-specified, overly-prescribed National Curriculum:

“…in sensitive subjects like history, like English literature, like RE, we’ve always in this country, since the start of the National Curriculum, taken an approach of not specifying what kids will learn… it’s not a list of things you will learn in schools… it’s a broad framework that helps guard against the… over-politicisation of education.”

Whether or not you agree with Hinds, his wording suggests that RE is already part of the National Curriculum! Misconceptions are rife.

RE – and those responsible for leading and teaching it – deserve some clarity at the very least. RE’s journey to the present hasn’t been the smoothest of paths. The inclusion of RE in the next chapter of the National Curriculum is evidently one way to obtain clarity and more-secure footing. Slouching towards Bethlehem is certainly apt, if it is indeed to happen at all.