Every young person, in every school, deserves a high-quality education in Religion and Worldviews — one that is academically rigorous, grounded in authentic experience, and prepares them for further education, work and life in modern Britain and the wider world.
The proposed National Entitlement sets out what that looks like in practice. Taught by well-qualified, well-resourced teachers, pupils would gain the knowledge and scholarly tools to:
- Understand what religions and worldviews are, and the different academic disciplines used to study them — from theology and philosophy to history and sociology.
- Explore the authentic experiences of religious and non-religious people — how real individuals and communities navigate questions of meaning, identity, belonging and purpose in their everyday lives.
- Engage with the richness and diversity of religious and non-religious worldviews in Britain and around the world, in all their complexity and depth.
- Develop the concepts, language and ways of knowing that allow them to interpret and make sense of the different responses to life’s big questions — why are we here, how should we live, what is right and wrong?
- Reflect on the human quest for meaning, developing self-awareness alongside intellectual curiosity, so they are prepared for life in a diverse world and ready to take responsibility for their own developing worldview.
The result is confident, articulate young people who can engage respectfully with difference, understand themselves more deeply, and participate meaningfully in modern Britain as they prepare for adulthood.
The Religion and Worldviews Approach
The Religion and Worldviews approach is a way of supporting schools to improve their teaching of the world’s major faiths – as well as non-religious worldviews such as Humanism – by better conceptualising the way the subject is taught.
Three strands that run the Religion and Worldviews approach
Substantive knowledge — the what of religion and non-religion. Students build knowledge of religious and non-religious traditions as they are actually held and practised: their central beliefs, texts, practices, communities and histories.
- Matters of central importance to traditions — the core concepts, sources of authority and fundamental ideas (about God, meaning, morality, revelation) that shape different traditions
- Organised traditions and individual ways of living — how religions function as communities with shared narratives and practices, and how individuals express faith or non-belief in diverse personal ways
- Ultimate questions — the big human questions about existence, suffering, meaning, truth, morality and the natural world, and how different traditions respond to them
- Local, national and global — how religion and non-religion shape public life, culture, law and communities, and the lived realities of religious diversity in Britain and beyond
Disciplinary knowledge — the how of studying religion. Students learn to use scholarly tools drawn from theology, philosophy, religious studies, history and the social sciences. They learn how knowledge about religion is formed, contested and evaluated — not just what people believe, but how we can know and interpret it reliably. This means textual analysis, research methods, working with data and sources, and constructing well-reasoned arguments.
Personal knowledge — the so what for students themselves. Students develop awareness of their own assumptions and values, understand how background shapes perspective, and learn how to engage respectfully and thoughtfully with people who think and live differently. This strand connects academic study to real-world civic life.
Which Traditions Are Covered?
The curriculum sets clear expectations. All students must encounter, at minimum, Christian traditions alongside Jewish and Muslim traditions as further Abrahamic examples, Buddhist, Hindu and Sikh traditions as Dharmic and Indic examples, and Humanism as a non-religious example.
Crucially, the curriculum requires both breadth (encounter with the full range) and depth: students must study Christianity and at least one other tradition in sustained depth in both the primary and secondary phases. The goal is not a superficial survey but genuine, rounded understanding of traditions in all their variety and complexity.