Join the campaign
Culham St Gabriel’s Trust has a strong history of supporting initial teacher education; it lies at the heart of the Trust’s charitable objectives. Over the years the Trust has supported the following initiatives:
- In 2014-15 the Trust collaborated with other charities to make funding available for potential secondary beginner teachers, and alongside this lobbied for the reintroduction of bursaries and for funded subject knowledge enhancement courses.
- In 2015-2020, after a successful campaign called ‘Beyond the Ordinary’ the Government reintroduced bursaries for secondary beginner teachers of RE. This bursary was withdrawn in September 2025.
- In 2018, after successful lobbying the Government introduced funded subject knowledge enhancement courses for RE for the first time.
In 2022-24, the Trust has stepped up again with several other funders to support a further recruitment campaign. Below you will find a range of resources which we encourage you to use in your own advocacy and support of our recruitment campaign.
Withdrawal of ITT bursaries
The Department for Education has announced that the £10,000 Initial Teacher Training (ITT) bursary for Religious Education will be withdrawn from 2026–2027. This decision will deepen the national shortage of RE teachers and seriously threaten the future of the subject.
This comes despite RE recruitment currently reaching only 53.6% of the national target – one of the lowest rates among secondary subjects. The Department has also failed to meet its RE recruitment target in 13 of the past 14 years.
We encourage you to adapt the attached template letter from NATRE to write to your MP about this issue and/or use the infographic on social media to raise awareness of the campaign, tagging your MP where possible. If your MP replies, we can provide a draft letter for them to send to the Secretary of State and a briefing document outlining the issues in greater detail.
There is also an infographic resource to download.
This is an urgent matter. Continued under-recruitment has already placed many higher education–led RE training courses at risk, and this announcement could well determine their future.
NEW!!! Subject Knowledge Enhancement Resources
Many of you will know that government funding for subject knowledge enhancement (SKE) courses for RE has been cut from 10th April this year. In light of this a small group have got together to create a list of largely free alternatives that may be of interest to all ITT providers. We hope you find it helpful.
Download it here
Briefing papers
This briefing paper sets out the current challenges regarding the recruitment of Religious Education and offers policies to improve the situation.
This briefing paper outlines the shortage of qualified secondary RE teachers and proposes solutions to strengthen recruitment, training, and professional development.
This briefing paper sets out the decline in RE teacher recruitment and suggests measures to attract and retain more specialist teachers.
