Salford's religious education syllabus

Introduction

The following core syllabus and supporting guidance has been constructed via a collaborative approach between Manchester, Salford, Stockport, Tameside and Trafford local authorities and consultation and contribution to exemplar material from a team of primary and secondary religious education (RE) specialists from each local authority.

This came about as a consequence of Dr Mark Chater of the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency (QCDA) inviting a countrywide representation of RE specialists and Standing Advisory Council for Religious Education (SACRE) representatives to a national meeting at Manchester Town Hall in December 2009 with the intention of creating as far as possible a common approach to the delivery of religious education in English schools in a context of national, regional and local agreement.

In keeping with current pedagogical thinking, the rationale behind this syllabus has been to focus upon how religious education should be taught and less on what should be taught. Rather than providing detailed lists of content to be covered, this syllabus concentrates instead upon the development of high quality teaching and learning in religious education.

Exemplar materials continue to be shared between the collaborating local authorities and are to be found on each local authority's website:

To maintain contact both within and across local authorities, the collaboration has created a hub where a primary and secondary teacher represents each local authority. It is intended that the hub representatives from each authority will continue to meet to act as a conduit between the hub and their local authority schools providing a discussion forum of government policy and legislation, to share high quality materials, and provide a facility to increase networking and support possibilities in maintaining and improving standards in the delivery of religious education to the children in our schools.

Each local authority has taken a common framework of the core syllabus to its SACRE's Agreed Syllabus Conference where adaptations have been made to suit each locality before making recommendation for adoption.

Acknowledgements

Grateful thanks are due to members of Salford SACRE, Salford teachers who contributed to the writing groups and to the advisers, consultants and teachers from the Greater Manchester RE Collaborative who have all contributed in the formulation of this document.

Salford Teachers who contributed to the Greater Manchester RE Collaborative: