Subject Led

It is important to realise that the legal framework for the delivery of RE has not changed. More can be read about this by downloading the guidance. So, schools still need to teach their RE according to the Locally Agreed Syllabus or to the guidelines set down in their governance documents. The recommendation is still that RE takes about 5% of curriculum time or about 40 hours per annum across the school timetable from Primary to 16+.

For this reason many school will continue to run lessons in subject led teams and so Religious Education will continue to be taught in subject lessons. So, what will be different?

When developing the subject plan it is important to think about the Key Concepts, Key Processes and the Range and Content that should be covered. Whilst these will be defined by the LAS the pages on this site will help in that planning.

• A process model for planning a Key Stage 3 curriculum.
• A map of concepts for Key Stage 3 showing how you can cover all 6 areas in each of Y7, Y8, Y9

Whole Days

Some schools are also looking having subject days where a whole day, or about 6 hours of learning, are focused for one subject. There are pros and cons with this, one is that you could do a focused event with visits or visitors as well as more independent enquirers or creative thinkers or self-managers. As well as RE days these might also be days which are focused in the curriculum dimensions but which could have a strong RE input. Some themes which might be appropriate for an RE day are:

• Science and Religion
• Faith in the local community
• A faith trail
• Religion, stewardship and the environment
• Being a "x" in Britain today
• Variety and diversity within a tradition

Thematic Approaches

Many schools are looking at developing thematic approaches for a term or half-term within a year group. It is important that if these topics are taking place that:

(i) you can be sure that there is valuable RE within the topic and
(ii) that there are some topics where RE can take a strong lead.

One thing to consider are the subjects that you would most like to be "friends" with in the curriculum. RE can work well with all the subjects in the curriculum. See the subject case studies for some examples of case studies giving examples of this.

Some themes that are RE could take a lead in are:

• The environment
• Our Local Community
• Exploring prejudice, bias and reconciliation
• Who am I?

Collapsed Timetables

Some schools are looking at having year groups collapsed for a week, half-term or even all of Year 7 into "home group" where they will have one teacher for a group of subjects. This may include English, Maths, the Humanities, PSHE and Citizenship. It is likely that those subjects where specialist equipment is needed (Music, PE, Science, IT and DT will remain separate).

Skills or competencies led

Some schools are looking at having areas of learning which are lead by the Personal, Learning and Thinking Skills or by other school based competencies. RE has a place in all of the PLTS and it is important that you think about how you are going to put quality RE learning (at appropriate levels) into this skills led curriculum.

Short Key Stage 3

There is an emphasis in the New Secondary Curriculum on dropping Key Stage 3 to Year 7 and Year 8 and to give more time for the 14-19 curriculum, the new qualifications structures and for GCSE improvement. There are a number of models that the new GCSE structure allows.

• Some schools are starting Short Course GCSE in Year 9 for all students with the options for all to move to full course in Y10/Y11
• Some are looking at a 2 or 3 year SC in RE from Y9 to Y11
• Some are running one of the above options in Y9
• Some are looking at running AS modules in Y11 after completing a Full Course in Y9 to Y11