Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make it her policy to publish additional non-statutory guidance on religious education syllabus content in schools.

Religious education (RE) is an important part of a school’s curriculum and can contribute to a young person’s personal, social, and academic development. When done well, it can develop children’s knowledge of British values and traditions, help them better understand those of other countries, and refine pupils’ ability to construct well-informed, balanced, and structured arguments. This is why RE remains a compulsory subject in all state-funded schools in England for each pupil up to the age of 18.

The department has no plans to publish additional non-statutory guidance on RE syllabus content in schools. The department’s policy is to allow RE curricula to be designed at a local level, whether this is through a locally agreed syllabus conference or by individual schools and academy trusts developing their own curricula. The department feels this is the most appropriate way for local demographics to be accounted for.

The department does however welcome the work that the Religious Education Council has done to assist curriculum developers by publishing its National Content Standard for RE in England.