MS Letter: Religious education

Reform religious education

Religion education (RE) in Wales is soon to be replaced with religion and worldviews (RW), with a greater focus on a diverse range of religious and nonreligious perspectives. But reforms still don't go far enough. Nonreligious views are still treated as an afterthought and often reduced to simply humanism, and faith schools retain the ability to use a subject to promote their own beliefs.

Hints and tips

- Personalising your letter will make it more likely to have an impact.

- Keep your thoughts fairly brief. MSs are busy and get a lot of correspondence.

- Use clear and simple language.

- Those who defend the status quo often say the current arrangements for RE teaching merely encourage young people to understand a wide range of cultures and beliefs. If you have an interesting perspective which helps to undermine this argument, consider sharing it.

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Dear {{name}},

I’m writing to urge you to engage positively with the National Secular Society’s “21st Century RE for All” campaign.

www.ReformRE.org

A range of reports, including the Commission on Religious Education’s, reflect a growing consensus that Religious Education is out of date and in need of reform.

The UK today has incredible religious diversity, and, for the first time, a non-religious majority. It is therefore more important than ever that our schools prepare young people for life in modern Britain by teaching pupils about the diversity of religious and non-religious worldviews.

Unfortunately, the credibility of RE is seriously undermined by local and faith-based determination. Only by ending this dual system can we fully expunge confessionalism from this subject and give all pupils a true entitlement to non-partisan learning about worldviews, covering:

- The diversity of religious and non-religious worldviews.

- How people's worldviews may influence their thinking on philosophical, moral and cultural issues.

- Worldviews and rights: how the freedom to manifest religion and belief interacts with the rights of others.

The National Secular Society’s 21st Century RE for All campaign argues for every pupil to have the same entitlement to high quality, non-partisan education about worldviews. The entitlement should be determined and inspected by educationalists and apply equally in all schools equally, including faith schools.

As with other subjects, the syllabus should be nationally determined by independent educationalists without an agenda to promote a specific religion or belief.

While the right to withdraw from RE has been contentious at times, it remains an important protection for parents’ rights where there is an overbearing religious ethos or pro-religious bias.

Yours sincerely,

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MS Letter: Religious education

Reform religious education

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