Religion and Worldviews: A Critical Lever for Equity and Excellence

As the calendar turns to January 2026, the new year offers a natural pause for reflection. In the fast-paced world of education, it is rare to stop and take stock, but it is necessary.

For us at Outwood Grange Academies Trust, this January marks a significant milestone in a strategy we accelerated in September 2025. It was a strategy designed not to change our direction, but to strengthen our resolve: explicitly placing Personal Development at the heart of our curriculum structure, with Religious Education (RE) acting as a critical lever in that work.

Reflecting on this last term, for us the verdict is clear: deepening this focus was the right move.

The timing has been validated by societal events. In a world where division is increasingly amplified, the importance of this work has never been more apparent. Looking forward, our resolution for 2026 is to pursue this vision with greater intent, ensuring we deliver it with the highest possible quality, depth, and equity.

The Foundation: Unapologetically Ambitious

As an organisation the foundation on which our Trust is built remains firm and strong. There must be no element of doubt in our message to our communities and our peers: achieving the highest possible educational outcomes is, and will always remain, our core purpose. We put ‘students first – raise standards and transform lives’. We serve communities often located in areas of high social disadvantage. In these contexts, we know that qualifications are not just certificates; they are keys. They unlock doors to higher education, apprenticeships, and careers that might otherwise remain bolted shut. Levelling up achievement is a critical social enabler. To dilute our focus on academic rigour would be a dereliction of duty. We remain unapologetically ambitious for every student’s exam results because those results change lives.

The Passport and the Traveller: Towards a Complete Education

However, September 2025 marked a decisive step in how we articulate a ‘complete’ education. We reaffirmed that while academic outcomes are the passport to the future, they do not dictate the kind of traveller our students will be.

We have elevated our focus on Personal Development because we believe that growing ‘great human beings’ is as fundamental as growing academic achievers. Our students are the leaders of tomorrow. Their attitudes, mindsets, and values will shape the future of our world—whether they are leading a country, a company, or a family.

If we want a society defined by dignity, understanding, and respect, we must actively invest in the formation of those virtues.

The Role of Religious Education

This brings us to the specific role of Religious Education. In our strategy to centre Personal Development, we identified RE not just as a subject to be covered, but as a vital component to be championed. We view RE through a dual lens: as a rigorous academic discipline in its own right, and as an essential engine for Personal Development.

 At this specific moment in history, RE provides the only dedicated academic space where students can rigorously explore the concepts of commonality and difference. It is the classroom where students learn to navigate the ‘other’. By strengthening the position of RE within our curriculum, we allow students to:

• Build Intellectual Resilience (The Disciplinary Approach): We want our RE curriculums to be intellectually demanding and multidisciplinary. It is no longer enough to look at religion through a single lens. We are challenging students to engage with three distinct ways of knowing:
  • Theology: Engaging with texts, beliefs, and sources of wisdom to understand what people believe.
  • Philosophy: Wrestling with logic, ethics, and competing truth claims to understand how we think.
  • Social Sciences: Analysing the lived reality of religion and its impact on society and culture to understand how people live. By mastering these different disciplines, students do not just learn about religion; they learn how to evaluate evidence, construct arguments, and understand the complex human experience.
• Explore Commonality & Difference (The Personal Development Component): This is where academic study meets personal growth. Students move beyond superficial ‘tolerance’ to a deep, respectful understanding of why people live, think, and believe differently. They grapple with moral dilemmas and define their own values in relation to the wider world.

Our 2026 Commitment: Depth, Equity, and Place

 As we move into 2026, our focus shifts to refining and embedding this enhanced provision. We are focusing on three key areas:

1. Intellectual Diversity We are widening our lens beyond familiar examples to include genuine diversity across all three disciplines. This includes engaging with Eastern philosophers to challenge Western logic, studying the sociology of women in Sikhi traditions, and analysing the historical theology of ancient religions such as Atenism. This ensures the subject commands the academic respect it deserves while exposing students to the true breadth of human thought and behaviour.
2. Absolute Equity Excellent provision must be systemic. Whether a child attends a small primary or a large urban secondary within our Trust, they have an equal entitlement to this deepened provision. We have scrutinised our resources to ensure inclusivity, ensuring that high-level learning, whether theological, philosophical, or sociological, is accessible to all. This is a matter of justice.
3. The Power of Place Finally, we are embracing a nuanced understanding of community. While there is a global commonality our students need to understand, we also recognise the importance of place in their personal development. We are expanding our resource bank to include localised content. When we study what it means to practise Hindu traditions today, for example, we interchange generic imagery for the Mandir geographically closest to our students. By connecting the ‘big ideas’ of RE to the local context of the child, we make the learning stick and validate their lived experience.

We start 2026 with a determined spirit. The decision to further elevate Personal Development, with a robust, multidisciplinary RE curriculum as a central pillar, reflects our enduring belief that education is about the whole person. Our students will leave us with the qualifications to succeed, but they will also leave us with the wisdom to lead.

They will be the architects of a future where respect and understanding are the norm, not the exception. That is our purpose. That is our commitment.