Curriculum and Assessment Review – Questionnaire

Completing the Survey

This REC Member survey will help the RE Council respond to the Curriculum and Assessment Review. We anticipate that anonymised data will be presented at the SRGM and form part of the evidence submission to the CAA Review. This data will also helps the RE Council board understand the views of members so views can be represented accurately. Notes have been provided to help inform you of the background and context, if required, and can be accessed at each question or downloaded in their entirety here.

Name

Authorised Representative of an REC Member Organisation

RE Council Organisation

Email

1. RE in the curriculum - for pupils of compulsory school age

Guidance Notes

a. The place of Religious education in the curriculum should be reviewed to ensure that its status is on a par with the core and foundation subjects of the National Curriculum.

b. With regards to the place of RE in the curriculum, the status quo should be maintained.

c. RE should be included as part of the National Curriculum (rather than the basic curriculum) in which case the content would be determined by central government.

d. RE should be included as part of the National Curriculum but instead of specifying content, the National Curriculum would use the RE Council’s National Content Standard for RE in England to set a benchmark for content. In this case, content would not be specified by central government.

2. RE at key stage 4 (14-16 years)

Guidance Notes

a. The GCSE content and assessment objectives should remain as they are now

b. The GCSE content should be reduced and updated

c. The GCSE assessment objectives should be updated

d. The GCSE content should be reduced AND the assessment objectives updated

3. RE at key stage 5 (16-19 years)

Guidance Notes

a. The A level content and assessment objectives should remain as they are now

b. The A level content should be reduced and updated

c. The A level assessment objectives should be updated

d. The A level content should be reduced AND the assessment objectives updated

4. Religions and Beliefs at examination level - (14 – 19 years)

Guidance Notes

a. The scope of GCSE and A level content and assessment objectives should remain as they are now

b. GCSE and A level content should be updated to allow pupils to encounter a wider range of religions and beliefs e.g. Abrahamic and Dharmic, and religious and non-religious worldviews

c. GCSE and A level content should be updated to reflect a religion and worldviews approach to the study of RE

5. The statutory requirement for all pupils to study RE at KS4 commonly known as Core RE (14-16 years)

Guidance Notes

a. The status quo should be maintained with no changes to core RE at Key Stage 4

b. A course should be developed to accredit core RE at key stage 4 that is included in the performance measures

c. The current GCSE short course should continue but be included in performance measures

d. All pupils should study a full course in RE at Key Stage 4 (14-16)

6. The right of withdrawal from RE – for compulsory school age.

*This applies to parents withdrawing children from RE and students over 18 withdrawing themselves from RE.

Guidance Notes

a. No changes should be made to the legislation concerning right of withdrawal from RE.

b. A justification should be provided to exercise the right of withdrawal from RE.

c. The right to withdraw from RE should be removed if RE is required to be critical, objective and pluralistic

d. The right to withdraw from RE should be removed.

7. Accountability measures - curriculum

Guidance Notes

a. No changes should be made to accountability measures in relation to the curriculum

b. Changes should be made to accountability measures so that schools are held accountable for the standard of their provision for RE

c. Changes should be made to accountability measures so that schools are held accountable for the standard of their provision for RE using the National Content Standard as a benchmark

8. Any other Comments?

This is an optional space for any other comments you may wish to record as part of the survey. Comments will be anonymised as far as possible.

Comments?

9. Submit Survey Response

Answers will be used to inform the RE Council board of members' views. Anonymised data and responses will be collated to be presented at the RE Council's General Meetings and will form part of the evidence submitted to the Curriculum and Assessment Review by the RE Council.

The REC's privacy policy can be found here.