Development planning and target setting have, by now, become firmly established aspects of school management processes. And with the development planning process comes the recognition that, to plan effectively for where you're going, you must first know where you are starting from. The importance of 'baselining' is well-known and involves recognising existing strengths and identifying areas for improvement. Doing so means that plans are likely to be more achievable and, because they emerge out of a detailed understanding of current practice, they are realistic and more effective. In terms of our understanding of practice in religious education in Northern Ireland, however, the baseline evidence remains limited and fragmentary. Perhaps the most obvious example being that the subject remains formally exempt from the ETI inspection process. Where churches exercise their right to inspect, no reports are put in the public domain. Where schools request ETI inspectors to obse