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This summer we are delighted to be hosting a new blog series from our vibrant and energetic subject community! Each of the main RE/R&W organisations will be sharing their reflections on 2020-21, and looking forward to the coming academic year. We will be posting one blog per week and are very grateful to the Chairs/CEOs of these organisations for contributing their thoughts. We start the series with the Religious Education Council of England and Wales.

Kathryn Wright

CEO, Culham St Gabriel’s

AULRE, as an organisation, has tried to adjust to the new working and communication environments that have been enforced by the series of restrictions and lockdowns in 2020-2021. Members of the Executive and the Association, like so many others, have experienced increased pressure in their working lives as they have negotiated the different forms of online learning and teaching. Unfortunately, we had to postpone our annual conference for 2020. Nevertheless, there have been some notable successes to celebrate. In the later stages of the summer of 2020, Sean Whittle and Stephen McKinney were invited to be the co-editors of a special edition of the Journal of Religious Education (Whittle and McKinney, 2020, see link below). This well-received special edition included papers by members of AULRE and explored a number of highly relevant topics. I highlight some of the papers that are open access: Does RE matter? (Janet Orchard); Faith practitioners and the representation of religious traditions in secular RE (Emma Salter); Worldviews: overarching concept, discrete body of knowledge or paradigmatic tool? (Ruth Flanagan) and ‘Neutrality’, Muslimness and the whiteness of RE professionalism (Matthew Vince).

Another great success was the AULRE Conference 2021. Sean Whittle organised a one-day AULRE online conference in collaboration with Canterbury Christ Church University, on the 22^nd of June 2021. We record our thanks to Professor Bob Bowie and his colleagues at Canterbury Christ Church and Culham St. Gabriel’s for being the online hosts. This conference was highly successful and provided an opportunity for academics and school practitioners to engage in dialogue and probe the relationship between research and practice. There were two fascinating keynotes delivered by Kathryn Wright of Culham St. Gabriel’s and Professor Lynn Revell of Canterbury Christ Church. We are very grateful to them both for their thoughtful and thought-provoking presentations. The conference attracted a good number of participants and we noted with great pleasure a number of excellent papers delivered by academics based in Ireland. The broader international (online) reach of the AULRE conference reflected the increasing number of international academics who had been attending the pre-Covid physical face-to-face AULRE conferences. We were delighted to invite Culham St. Gabriel’s to present their strategic vision, operational plans and findings of some of their commissioned research at the conference. We continue to consolidate our close working partnership with Culham St. Gabriel’s.

As we move into 2021-2022, we can share our initial plans. We are preparing another special edition of papers for the Journal of Religious Education. We have invited those who presented papers at the conference in June to submit full length papers for peer review. The aim for 2022 will be to return to a physical face-to-face conference, possibly returning to Newman University in Birmingham. We hope to attract academics and school practitioners and, once again, attract a wide group of international participants.

Reference:

Whittle, S. and McKinney, S. J. (eds) (2020) AULRE 2020: RE Matters. Special Edition of Journal of Religious Education. 68 (3).

https://link.springer.com/journal/40839/volumes-and-issues/68-3

Stephen McKinney is Professor of Education in the University of Glasgow and the current chair of AULRE.

Kathryn Wright

CEO, Culham St Gabriel’s

The National Association of Standing Advisory Councils on Religious Education (NASACRE – pronunciation vary…) is an organisation in England that exists solely to support its members https://nasacre.org.uk/about/aims I re-joined the executive committee in 2018 (from Cornwall SACRE) during the conference and AGM that celebrated NASACRE’s 25^th anniversary. I’d served on the committee before, in the early 1990s when NASACRE was in its early days https://nasacre.org.uk/about/how-did-nasacre-start It was great to be back.

NASACRE is a collegiate and democratic organisation where the professional attitudes and expertise displayed by members and by the executive committee combine to positive effect. We were faced with some difficult choices, but we focused our work on keeping things going through creative methods and new partnerships. We kept SACREs informed through the regular Briefings https://nasacre.org.uk/sacre-briefing/2019-20 , exchanged email news and answered queries about practical issues such as how to hold democratic SACRE meetings online, and continued to hold strategic policy meetings with the DfE, with the RE Council and with other RE associations. We held an online EGM in November 2020, making sure our own house was in order, and planned ahead for what turned out to be an exciting and very well-attended conference and AGM of nearly 200 people in May 2021. The very appropriate theme was ‘Authority in RE’ and we were reminded by our keynote speakers about the nature of authority – and how to interpret, create and sustain it.

The report on SACRE funding https://www.nasacre.org.uk/file/nasacre/1-376-nasacre-report-on-sacre-funding-in-england-2021.pdf was a highlight of the year. Although the main findings were not a surprise there were unexpected outcomes in terms of the impact of the report. These outcomes, and the reworking of the SACRE self-evaluation toolkit, a new website (pending), and new advice on how to write annual reports for DfE and others’ scrutiny, encouraged the executive to design an online professional development programme for SACRE members to see us all through the next year. We are also planning a real (!) conference for May 2022 – and I’m really looking forward to a proper reunion with colleagues and friends.

NASACRE’s hopes for next year are encapsulated in its mission statement – https://nasacre.org.uk/about/mission-statement – we will be listening to members, reacting to national and local initiatives and advising statutory and non-statutory bodies on RE and collective worship. We will especially continue our campaigning for adequate levels of resourcing for SACREs, and for professional development, and play a key role in any future debates about the place of RE and collective worship in schools.

I’m confident that we will have a creative and productive year ahead, as these hopes are based on cementing existing partnerships with other subject and civic associations, and on a realistic view of SACRE roles and responsibilities. These unique and statutory Councils are so much more than the vehicle for recommending an agreed syllabus. It is a privilege to work with them, and their individual members, and to take a lead role on the executive committee. Thank you to the whole team for a successful year in such difficult times.

Linda Rudge, Chair of NASACRE

Kathryn Wright

CEO, Culham St Gabriel’s

The REC was founded in 1973 with the vision of creating a coalition of organisations that are involved in Religious Education and that would advocate for and promote the importance of the subject. Members include those representing professionals working in RE and faith communities who have an interest in contributing to the development of the subject. It is an incredibly diverse group of people. As far as we are aware there is no other organisation like it anywhere else in the world.

The last year, as for everyone, has been a challenging one. Covid-19 has fundamentally changed the way that the REC works with almost 100% reliance on Zoom and the giving up of our London office. This has actually worked really well and may well result in permanent change to our modus operandi. Perhaps the most important benefit has been the ability to involve far more people in our work than is possible when extensive travel and heavy costs are entailed in attending meetings.

The main challenge for the REC has been responding to the departure of Rudi Eliott Lockhart in July to be CEO of the Independent Schools Association. The Board have taken this opportunity to undertake a root and branch strategic review of how the REC best achieves its goals. This will continue into 2021-2022. In the meantime, we have been incredibly well served by Mike McMaster as our Interim Executive Officer whose job description can be best described as “keeping the wheels on the bus”.

But, in the midst of disruption and change, the important work of advocating for and promoting RE has gone on. In the last twelve months the focus of this has been taking forward the vision and recommendations of the Commission on RE Report published in 2018 and seeking to realise their potential. This has happened in three main ways.

Firstly, REC has worked in the Religious Education Policy Unit, a partnership with the National Association of Teachers of RE and REToday Services designed to promote political change that supports RE. Successes have included questions asked by MPs in the House of Commons, appearances in TV programmes and articles published in various papers and magazines. Most important has been ongoing contact with officials in both English and Welsh governments and in Ofsted, advising, supporting and sometimes correcting their work.

Secondly have been the projects focused on piloting some of the Commission recommendations and on developing understanding of the worldview vision for RE. This latter work has been generously funded by both Culham St Gabriel’s and the Templeton World Charity Foundation. This project work has produced two key publications and sponsored a number of different conversation events involving hundreds of participants. The finale of this work will be a series of animations communicating some of the key conclusions.

Thirdly the support of schools has continued through the RE Quality Mark. Led by Linda Rudge, a team of assessors are evaluating and celebrating the work of RE in schools.

The REC is a membership organisation and, as we’ve already said, it is unique in the diversity of its membership. At the AGM in May, representatives from member organisations were invited to discuss the proposed new vision, mission and values of the REC, the foundations of the new strategic plan. Many of those representatives said how much they appreciated the breadth of membership, and how much they had gained from meeting people from organisations with which they would otherwise not have come into contact. Although they haven’t been able to meet together in person, there have been opportunities to virtually meet others in breakout groups during our meetings.

Member organisations already provide the backbone of the REC, by nominating their representatives to stand for election to the Board, and to serve on committees. During the past year, there have been new opportunities for members, and others who are interested in the subject, to engage with the work of the REC, through a series of well-attended and varied webinars, exploring different aspects of the worldviews approach. Like many organisations, this has helped us to think about the possibilities for ongoing engagement with and between our members – and about how we can help different member organisations to contribute to the work.

Trevor Cooling, Chair, Religious Education Council of England and Wales, 2015-2021

The world of RE encompasses a wide range of views and approaches, and it can be challenging to hold these together in one organisation. Member organisations do not necessarily agree with each other about what the purpose of the subject is, how it might be taught, what its scope might be – but they do all believe that it is important, and they want to ensure that high-quality RE is available to every young person. As we move into the next academic year, we hope that we will be able to build on the good work that is in progress, and work with our members to bring about the vision for every young person to experience an academically rigorous and personally inspiring religion and worldviews education.

Sarah Lane Cawte, Chair, Religious Education Council of England and Wales from September 2021