The national accreditation for high quality religious education will be five years old in Autumn 2016. Realising that there was a need for an award which would match those in other curriculum areas, we applied for funding to test whether this would both meet the needs of schools and be self-financing. Among others, Culham St Gabriel’s provided seed-corn funding to run some pilots in the north west and the east of England. It quickly became clear that using a framework to have high quality conversations about RE could both affirm and develop high quality RE provision.
Now with over 200 accredited schools – primary, middle, secondary, faith and maintained – in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the RE Quality Mark is on the map. We are grateful for the support of the 65 assessors whose professionalism, commitment and support for schools has given them an enormous boost. We are grateful to the many colleagues who supported and encouraged us in the early days; to the fantastic support from Sylwia and Naomi at the REC. Above all, we are grateful to the schools who have been prepared to take the plunge, do the work and have the quality of their RE provision externally validated.
Jane Brooke and Mary Myatt
For more information about the REQM, please visit the REQM website and follow the scheme on Twitter at @REQualityMark.