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We are very excited to announce the launch of a new, pilot fund for home educators. From this week, home educating families in the West Midlands region will be able to apply for small grants to support children and young people’s learning around religion and worldviews. 

The fund has been co-designed by a group of home educating parents and three grant-making trusts, All Saints Educational Trust, Culham St Gabriel’s and St Peter’s Saltley Trust. It has also been supported by The Social Innovation Partnership (TSIP).  

Ian Jones, Director of St Peter’s Saltley Trust said: ‘Many schools do fantastic work in religious education, but we also know that some children and young people thrive best in a home education setting, and in recent years the number of children being educated at home has been increasing in most regions of the UK.  It has been exciting to be part of creating something which specifically seeks to benefit these families, who are often not eligible to access other sources of funding for their children’s learning. 

As funders of religious education, we also recognise that a strong education in religion and worldviews has a wider societal dimension in addition to what takes place in institutional settings such as schools and colleges; home school education is an important part of that wider canvas.” 

Alice Khimasia is one of six panel members for the fund and has been involved in the project from the beginning: 

“As a long-term home educator, it has been wonderful to be invited into the process of co-creating this fund. We are an oft overlooked community, despite our growing numbers. For me, the decision to deregister my sons from school was about giving them a wider world than the classroom, connecting them with global community and with their mixed heritage. Exposure to different religions and worldviews has been an important part of that process, in learning to understand others, to develop empathy and grow to be compassionate citizens.  

With increasing numbers of children unable to access schooling, the recognition and support of alternative pathways is crucial, and this fund is a positive step in supporting, encouraging and enabling home educators to mindfully incorporate creative learning about religion and worldviews into their children’s education. Our hope is that it will have a wide reach and lead to a wonderful variety of projects and outcomes which can further resource learning beyond the classroom.” 

Home educators will be able to apply to the fund throughout October, with a closing date for large project grant applications of Sunday 17^th November 2024.  

Find out more:  https://www.cstg.org.uk/grants/religion-worldviews-home-educators-fund/ 

We have produced a new leaflet designed to support secondary teachers returning to Religious Education (RE) after maternity or paternity leave. The leaflet offers tailored support to help teachers re-enter the classroom with confidence, whether you’re looking for CPD opportunities, useful research articles or key religion and worldviews updates, this resource is here to assist you in your transition.

Download the leaflet below and discover how we can support your return to RE teaching!

The RE Policy Unit will be attending the Labour Party Conference between Sunday, 22^nd and Wednesday, 25^{th, and w}e want to talk to people about the importance of high quality RE for all pupils, recruitment and retention of RE teachers and much more.

Our best chance of encouraging MPs to visit our stand is if a constituent asks them to do so. If you have a labour MP -please contact them, either by email (find the address here) or via social media using the assets linked below. Simply tell them that RE is important to you and you want them to visit the Religious education stand (F12) at the Party Conference.

We’re delighted to be hosting a special showcase of some of Culham St Gabriel’s grant funded projects across our social media platforms this week (Monday 24^th to Friday 28^th June).

Join us on X, Facebook, LinkedIn  and Instagram to learn about the difference these initiatives are making across the education sector.

We’ll be featuring two projects each day for the rest of the week, sharing activities that span everything from building a new network for teachers of RME in Scotland, to running a Race and Education film & discussion club, to using lego to explore young people’s conception of citizenship and worldview.

Please show your support by commenting on, sharing, and following these amazing groups and their work.

We’d like to extend a big thank you to everyone that has taken part in the showcase this year by sharing stories and content. Here is a full list of Culham St Gabriel’s grant funded projects.

If you’re inspired by what you see and interested in finding out more about our project grants programme and how to apply, please visit the funding page or get in touch with me at Julia@cstg.org.uk.

I am delighted to announce that Fiona Moss, currently National Adviser at RE Today Services and Chief Executive of the National Association of Teachers of RE is to become our new Education and Programmes Manager. Fiona has worked with local authorities, dioceses and multi- academy trusts. She brings a wealth of skills, experience and expertise to this role and will begin working with us on 1st September 2024. I have had the pleasure of working with Fiona over several years and am thrilled to welcome her to our staff team.

Fiona says,

I’m really excited to be joining Culham St Gabriel’s. All through my career I have been passionate about RE/religion and worldviews and developing others in their career. Culham St Gabriel’s is an organisation that builds partnerships, builds people and informs and influences educationalists and stakeholders. I’m over the moon to be able to be part of the team. Whilst it is sad to leave all the people I have worked with at RE Today and NATRE for the last 15 years I know that this job will mean I can build on those relationships to make a difference in the field of religion and worldviews.

Many of you will know that government funding for subject knowledge enhancement (SKE) courses for RE has been cut from 10^th 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.

 

Developments at Culham St. Gabriel’s Trust

We are sure many of you will have noticed the recent changes within the staff team at Culham St Gabriel’s. In the last few months, we have welcomed Taylor as our Communications Officer, Liz as our Finance and Administration Officer, and most recently Julia as our Grants, Governance and Partnership Manager.

Today we are advertising one final new role, an Education and Programmes Manager. You can read more about this here. The changes to personnel structure, including this latest new role, will enable us to fulfil our strategy as effectively as possible, build capacity, support more teachers and be an even greater ambassador for religion and worldviews education.

However, this change also means that we will be saying goodbye to some of our consultants at the end of August as their work will be taken forward by the person who is appointed to this role. We want to say publicly that the work of our consultants has been of outstanding quality over the last few years. Each of them has contributed greatly to the work of the Trust and they have been a dedicated and creative team. We know that many of you have benefited from their expertise, advice and support. We plan to continue partnering with many of them in new ways over the coming years.

We plan to say a huge thank you to our consultants later this term.

Subject Knowledge Enhancement (SKE) courses are indispensable in the realm of teacher education, especially in the preparation of teachers for intricate subjects like Religious Education (RE). The recent decision by the Department for Education (DfE) to withdraw funding from SKEs for RE has sparked significant concerns within the RE community. This decision, attributed to budget constraints and policy shifts within the DfE, was made without adequate notice, exacerbating apprehensions among training providers.

The ramifications of this decision are profound, particularly in the recruitment of RE trainee teachers. Despite efforts such as the introduction of an Initial Teacher Training (ITT) bursary to stimulate RE recruitment, projections indicate that recruitment will still fall short of targets. The DfE’s stance on prioritizing funding for subjects facing significant recruitment challenges, such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, computing, and languages, disregards the persistent under-recruitment in RE over the past decade. RE attracts candidates from diverse backgrounds, enriching the teaching landscape, but this diversity underscores the crucial role of SKE courses in ensuring a versatile and well-prepared teaching workforce. The future of RE teacher training now hangs precariously in the balance.

Critiques of the DfE’s justifications are warranted. The assertion that the number of RE trainees engaging with SKEs is relatively small belies its significance, as it constitutes 30% of the current training cohort, without which the subject would be in a considerably worse position. Additionally, the claim that RE SKEs account for only 3% of the overall SKE budget overlooks their vital contribution to RE training and any reasoning behind cost saving. Suggestions that trainees can supplement their knowledge post-ITT using generic resources contradict the imperative of high-quality specialist subject knowledge and training advocated by Ofsted. Moreover, the persistence of non-specialist teachers teaching RE underscores the inadequacy of such justifications.

The importance of SKE courses is exemplified by individuals like Syara Bano, a former Edge Hill University PGCE trainee, whose valuable RE teaching career continues to thrive thanks to the SKE boost. Her testimony underscores the invaluable role of SKE courses in shaping proficient RE teachers: https://www.edgehill.ac.uk/person/syara-bano/student/

It is imperative that the current and future governments address these concerns and reinstate funding for RE SKE courses to ensure the continued excellence of RE teacher training.

The latest official government statistics released today show that ITT recruitment for 2023 entrants was only 44% of the target for secondary religious education beginner teachers. This equates to 285 new entrants into the profession, with a target of 655. This is well below the average for all subjects and phases (62%), and below the overall secondary subject average of £50%. Whilst the target had increased significantly from previous years (from 450 to 655), this is a very worrying picture. Under-recruitment over many years has led to 51% of RE lessons in secondary schools being taught by non-specialist teachers, with pupils now three times more likely to be taught Religious Education by someone with no qualification in the subject.

Without well qualified teachers of the subject, the drive to improve standards as highlighted in the of the recent Ofsted Annual Review (2022-23) will be even more of a challenge. In the absence of consistently high-quality RE, our children miss out on an essential opportunity to learn knowledge and skills that will equip them to create harmonious and cohesive workplaces and communities, especially in the context of a diversifying and globalised world.

Whilst Culham St Gabriel’s Trust welcomes the reintroduction of a bursary for those training to teach from September 2024, this is not enough to resolve the ongoing recruitment issues from previous years. Culham St Gabriel’s has long been an advocate and supporter of initial teacher education both in the primary and secondary phase. Empowering highly skilled and well-informed teachers of religious education/religion and worldviews is a core part of our mission. The Trust will continue to promote teaching of the subject through its campaigning work, and resourcing of the profession. We will continue to lobby for further government funding and support for the recruitment of teachers and ongoing professional development for the increasing number of teachers who are called upon to teach religious education without a qualification in the subject. Urgent action is needed.

For detailed information about the Initial Teacher Training Census see: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/initial-teacher-training-census

“RE in schools is generally of poor quality” and “as a subject on the curriculum, it is under-valued” says the Chief Inspector of Ofsted, Amanda Spielman, in her annual report.

Whilst these statements from the Chief Inspector are sobering, Culham St Gabriel’s Trust are pleased to see Ofsted identifying barriers to better RE and how the lack of clarity and support from government is making improvements within the subject much more difficult.

The report presents a list of challenges for Religious Education in schools:
• Many schools are failing to meet the statutory requirement to teach RE to all pupils in all year groups;
• pupils not being taught enough substance to prepare them to engage in a complex, multi-religious and multi-secular society,
• non-examination provision typically not being of high quality;
• schools not teaching topics in the RE curriculum deeply enough for pupils to develop a substantial understanding of the subject matter.

Ofsted have called on the government to provide “clear expectations about RE provision in schools. Schools should follow these. Current non-statutory guidance for RE should be updated and include clear information for schools about the breadth and depth of the syllabus they are expected to teach”.

One of the Trust’s recently revised strategic objectives is to influence English government’s policies in supporting a high-quality education in religion and worldviews. Although the publishing of a National Content Standard for RE in England by the Religious Education of England and Wales has acted as one step towards this, Ofsted’s report has further confirmed our decision as a Trust to advocate even more strongly for clear expectations in all schools. We will continue to strive for a broad-based, critical and reflective education in religion and worldviews contributing to a well-informed, respectful, and open society. We hope you will partner with us as we continue to work towards this.

Kathryn Wright
CEO, on behalf of the Trust

To read the Ofsted Report 2022/23 in full, please see here.