Children deserve expert teachers in every subject-including RE.

By Katie Freeman, RE Leader Bickleigh Down CofE Primary School; NATRE Chair.

Picture the scene, you watch a lesson in your child’s school, the lesson is taught by a teacher who is a specialist in the subject.  Your child is enthused about the theme of the lesson because the teacher is able to move through subject content skilfully, their knowledge enables them to support children to dig deeper into concepts without the fear that they themselves will not know the answer to children’s questions.  The children’s passion for the subject grows because their teacher is excited, enthused and energised by what they are teaching.  Isn’t this what we would wish for every child?  No matter the subject, the lesson or the theme, don’t our children deserve to hear from highly trained, passionate subject experts?

As a specialist RE teacher and leader in a primary school, you can fully expect me to say that I feel expert subject teachers in all subjects matter; but what is the real impact. and how can we ensure that specialists continue to enter the profession and remain in post?

Across many schools there is a well voiced fear surrounding teaching Religious Education.  From concerns about ‘getting it wrong’ to ‘offending someone’ or ‘generalising what people believe’, I can understand the anxiety that teachers who have not received subject specific training may feel. Many of us who lead Religious Education beyond our schools sadly know of schools who do not teach the subject, let it fall off the end of the already ‘crammed’ week or do not know where to go to improve their staff’s subject knowledge.  But where do these fears come from?  I would suggest that two of the most common themes that comes through all of these discussions is lack of training at university and a lack of ongoing professional training.

I trained at Marjons in Plymouth, and can honestly say that twenty years ago, I received the best possible training.  Fresh from finishing RS GCSE, AS and A Level, I entered by under graduate course; straight from school.  As a cohort we received specialist training within the primary teacher training department in the first two years and then went on to be taught within the Theology and Religious Studies Department for the remainder of our four year degree.  The in-depth training, teaching and shared subject knowledge, across religious and non-religious worldviews left us as students, well placed to enter our first years of teaching feeling confident and ready to teach Religious Education as well as the main other subjects on the curriculum.  Later in my career, this firm foundation of training enabled me to feel confident to go on to lead the subject locally and nationally. 

This training has left me in a position where I have been able to fully focus on teaching RE across my primary school, challenging the children with deep subject knowledge, supporting them to enquire, dig deeply, make connections and understand the people who they may come into contact with in their daily lives.

Our pupils at Bickleigh Down have deep knowledge of religion and belief.  They talk enthusiastically about their RE lessons and are confident in using a range of multi-disciplinary lenses to find out more about the people who live in the world around them.  The children’s understanding of diverse lived experience and deep knowledge was commented on during our Ofsted inspection when the lead inspector said that he had never encountered such deep knowledge that doesn’t just ‘scratch the surface’ of understanding.

The children’s deep knowledge and understanding has led them on to become advocates for the subject.  Here are just a few quotations form them about why they think RE is important for all pupils in all schools:

Every time we learn RE, I cherish every moment of it because I like to look at other people’s lives and how they are different to my own. – Ada (Year 6)

RE gives us an interest in how other people think and feel.  It shows us how to celebrate our eternal uniqueness and equality, as well as our individuality. Josie (Year 6)

RE is important because it can step prejudice and help us to learn about other religions.  If we have a religious friend, we will understand them more’. Henry (Year 6).

Sadly, these opportunities for deep learning are not found in every school.  Across both primary and secondary schools, we have thousands of high quality teachers who strive to do the very best for the pupils in their care but are we as a society giving these teachers what they need to equip them with the important work of educating our young people?  The loss of the teacher training bursary has meant that fewer teachers are training to be specialist RE teachers.  We also find ourselves in a teacher recruitment and retention crisis which means that many teachers are finding themselves in the position of teaching a subject that is not their own.  This adds to their workload to the point that some of these leave the profession

With the loss of the bursary for Religious Education, we are seeing more and more teachers with other specialisms (TWOS) teaching the subject.  Whilst many of them are excellent teachers, are conscientious, seek support and guidance; this lack of training and provision for teachers in our subject feels as if we are failing them because we are not giving them what they deserve. 

I have spoken to teachers who have told me that they would like to train to be an RE teacher but as they are going into teaching as a second career, with families to support and bills to pay, they are having to train in other subjects to make ends meet.  They choose other subjects such as English, the sciences and computing because the bursaries given for training in these subjects allow them to pay for their expenses whilst they train.  Since the loss of the bursary for RE, we as a subject, have missed the government’s teacher training target time and time again. We cannot continue in this way, if this continues to happen, we will be left with little or no specialist teachers in the subject and this simply is not good enough.

In these challenging times, where we often seen communities divided by lack of understanding, I cannot think of a subject that is more important for our young people to prepare them for life.   I call upon the government to reinstate the bursary for training to be a specialist teacher of RE.  This provision will ensure high quality Religious Education for all pupils in all schools and will also support our teachers on their ongoing professional development journey. 

Whilst as a profession, we are aware that the government has a ‘small pot of funds’ for subject specific bursaries, it seems that there could be more equality going forward by sharing the funds out more equally between subjects, this would ease the subject hierarchy and ensure that recruitment and retention was evenly spread across all subjects in the curriculum.

The RE community cannot wait another year for this important reinstatement of the bursary, we must act now for the good of our young people, their understanding of the world and our communities of the future.

My key asks from government are:

1. Reinstate the subject specific bursary for Religious Education
2. Consider a sharing out of funds across all subjects to stop the perceived ‘subject hierarchy’ and ensure recruitment across all subjects.
3. Support ongoing subject specific CPD for teachers of Religious Education in both primary and secondary schools by bringing back Subject Knowledge Enhancement courses.