Curriculum & Assessment Review: RE Explained

The Curriculum & Assessment Review’s final recommendations, led by Becky Francis, are out, and while we've identified some overall key takeaways, you may be wondering what this means for RE in the primary curriculum. Below, we've outlined ten key learning points from the Review.

1. RE’s Values Reaffirmed

The Review strongly reaffirms RE has an essential place in a school’s curriculum. It plays an important role in children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural growth. RE is where learners first encounter different beliefs, understand the foundations of religions and worldviews, explore big life questions and learn empathy and respect – helping to build safe, confident communities with strong relationships.

2. A Call for National Consistency

Currently, RE is not nationally defined and has no national standard to benchmark the quality of provision. Each local authority determines their syllabus. However, limited resources and funding have resulted in fragmentation. The Review highlighted that existing structures haven’t adapted to educational changes or diverse worldviews, exacerbated by an outdated legislative framework from 1944.

While the Religious Education Council of England and Wales developed a widely accepted content standard, the Review proposes moving RE to the national curriculum to address these issues.

3. A Collaborative Staged Approach

Rather than rushing, the Review recommends a two staged approach:

Stage 1: Starting with a sector-led task group (including faith and non-faith voices and experts from the education sector) to co-create a draft national RE curriculum which should be built on the Religious Education Council of England and Wales’ National Content Standard.

Stage 2: If an agreement is reached on a draft RE curriculum, the DfE should then carry out a formal consultation on its detailed content.

4. Update Dated RE Guidance and Structures

The Review explains that making RE part of the national curriculum will not automatically solve all challenges. Improving the quality and consistency of RE also depends on Reviewing other key support structures, including updating the DfE’s non-statutory guidance (which has not been refreshed since 2010) and Reviewing the wider framework, such as SACREs. The Review further recommends that the sector-led group explore whether RE could benefit from a name change to better reflect its modern scope.

5. Strengthening RE for All Ages

If the recommendation about the national curriculum is taken forward, the Review proposes that by the age of 16, all students should have a secure grounding in RE. Because of this strong grounding, it recommends removing the statutory RE requirement in sixth forms while allowing schools to offer it voluntarily. If learners wish to continue to study RE post-16, they will be able to do this through Level 3 qualifications.

What Next?

The Government welcomed the Review’s recommendations and acknowledged the importance of strengthening RE. However, it will not move immediately to make RE part of the national curriculum. Instead, ministers will wait for clear consensus from the RE sector – including faith, non-faith and education stakeholders, before consulting on a draft curriculum and possible legislative changes. The emphasis is on collaboration and shared agreement before any reforms take place.

Supporting Schools Through Curriculum Changes

Dacey Pritchard, RE Educational Content Lead at Twinkl, has recently led the development of our Worldview Explorers curriculum scheme, launched in September 2025. As the programmes of study are published, our scheme—already including units designed with the Religious Education Council for England and Wales’ National Content Standard and the religion and worldviews approach in mind—will be updated to reflect the latest Review outcomes, ensuring teachers and leaders have the support and resources needed to design a curriculum that meets their school’s individual needs.

Worldview Explorers can be used to support and complement your locally agreed syllabus, providing fully resourced units of work while we await further development of RE as part of the national curriculum. Our Progression Map and Curriculum Map will help you identify which units align with your school’s curriculum and provide a clear suggested order if you wish to follow it. The scheme covers a wide range of religions and worldviews, with local study resources to adapt to your context. With clear SMSC links, subject knowledge guidance and sensitivity support, Worldview Explorers equips teachers to deliver RE with confidence.

Contact us to find out more

This blog shares our early interpretation of the Curriculum Review recommendations, offering practical guidance to help schools consider their potential implications.