**Please note that the original article has been amended with new information about legislation governing the timetabling of Religious Education**
During the last year, a number of RE teachers have asked me about the legal position of RE in the curriculum in Northern Ireland in relation to the amount of time allocated to the subject at Key Stages 3 and 4 - is there a minimum time requirement? Inevitably, the reason for the question is that their RE department is losing out in the battle over curriculum time. One of the teachers I spoke with was facing a fifty percent reduction in time at Key Stage 3 to a single 30 minute period per week.
There is a legal obligation on
schools to deliver RE (see the Education (NI) Order 1986) but, until recently, I was not aware of any clear directive on the issue of timetabling. Thankfully, however, in response to an earlier version of this post, Bill Latimer (RE Adviser with the Belfast Board) has made the situation somewhat clearer. He notes that there are statutory rules from 1972 and 1973 which cover this issue and 'any recent revisions of RE in statute have subsumed them and not disbanded them.' They are as follows:
POST PRIMARY
Statutory Rules (N.I.) 1973 No. 403
(3). In all schools there shall be set apart for the purpose of Religious Education at least three periods within each week:
Provided that in the case of a class composed wholly or mainly of pupils following a course leading to an examination for General Certificate of Education the number of periods within each week may be reduced to two.
PRIMARY
Statutory Rules (N.I.) 21 (4) 1973 No. 402
Religious Education (instruction) must have at least one half hour per day or two & a half hours per week.
Despite the statutory rules above, my experience from visiting lots
of different schools is that the picture is extremely varied in relation to the
number of hours of contact time at KS3 and KS4 but, as time goes by, the number
of schools with reduced time is increasing. I would say that thirty minutes per
week is at the very bottom end of the time allocated at KS3/4 for 'compulsory RE' while, at the other end, it can be as much as five hours per week for full course GCSE study at Key Stage 4. This impression of RE departments in the UK being under pressure is confirmed in research carried out
The only statement on the issue of time allocation from the Education and Training Inspectorate is a brief comment in the 'Evaluating RE' document, where it is stated:
"The organisation of the curriculum for RE can be considered good when... sufficient time-tabled time is given to RE as a discrete subject" (ETI 2000, p. 14)
Perhaps the lack of conformity to the statutory rules says a lot about the lack of official quality control over the subject by the Education and Training Inspectorate (ETI). While there is some inspection of religious education in Post-Primary schools (where the school invites inspectors to do so), it is not a requirement, and the ETI rarely make the subject a focus for attention. Indeed, as noted previously in this blog, it is thirteen years since the last publication of any RE-specific document by the Inspectorate.
As for solutions to this situation? In the short term, if you are under threat of losing time, I strongly suggest drawing the attention of senior staff to the statutory rules above.
In the longer term though, my view is, that the subject requires some external forms of quality control to ensure that teaching and learning in RE departments achieve consistently high standards, and that the achievements of such departments are recognised by a wide audience, inside and outside the school walls. Of course, these achievements need not be restricted to successes in exam results, but should include a recognition of the contribution of RE departments within the wider school and community and to the social, spiritual and moral development of young people. Interestingly, the RE Council of England and Wales has recently piloted a Quality Mark scheme for RE departments in those regions. The scheme has two purposes:
"It recognises good practice in RE and also provides a powerful tool for development. Schools which have applied for the award have found that it affirms the work they are already doing, raises the profile of the subject and gives them ideas and confidence for developing their practice even further."Perhaps a similar scheme for schools in Northern Ireland could be a possible way forward to help RE departments raise their status, celebrate their achievements and secure a fair slice of timetable allocation.