English RE: under pressure?

This paper will examine four potential areas of pressure to RE in England in the 2020s: Academisation—and the structural issues arising from ever greater numbers of schools being outside local authority control; the alleged secularisation of the curriculum through the Worldviews Paradigm; the financial situation of Standard Advisory Councils on Religious Education in England; and the teacher recruitment crisis. Taking a historical turn, it will then consider whether these are uniquely challenging to the subject, or whether the RE community might gain solace from a realisation that these challenges have been overcome at other points in history.

It seems to have faded from the collective educational memory that Academies were the brainchild of Blair's New Labour government in 1997.They were a response to the problem of 'failing schools', so judged by the school inspection service, Ofsted.The political thinking was that for these difficult to fix schools, an injection of private money and freedom from the bureaucratic constraints of Local Education Authorities would enable them to be rescued, revived, turned around.These City Academies were 'sponsored', by businesses, individuals, churches or other bodies, who operated the schools and made a contribution to the capital costs.Central government met the revenue costs.They were given freedom from the requirement to deliver the National Curriculum, and had to specialise (in languages, science and technology or sport) but still had to deliver a 'broad and balanced' curriculum.By 2010, the end of Labour's time in office, there were 203 such Academies (West & Wolfe, 2018).
Since 2010 there has been a huge expansion of the Academies programme, driven more by neo-liberal ideology than by the need to improve failing schools.Academies no longer need to attract private sponsorship funding, nor to specialise.The 2010 Academies Act enabled schools to choose to 'convert' to academy status; rather than this conversion being to help 'failing' schools, it was initially (until 2011) reserved for 'Outstanding' schools (the highest of four inspection grades).By 2020 80% of secondaries (pupils aged 11-16 or 18) were academies and there were around 6000 (of 16,000) primary (pupils up to age 11) academies (Smalley, 2023a).The trusts that run the schools have a contract with central government.The governance situation is opaque and complicated, with a wide variety of models, but most academies are now part of a multi-academy trust (MAT) or some other form of 'chain' (West & Wolfe, 2018).
As Academies are state maintained schools, they still have a statutory duty to provide RE for all pupils, but one of the problems of the Academy system is that outside of the 'control' (or perhaps a more politically nuanced phrase might be the 'oversight') of the Local Authority (LA), there is little checking of whether they are.
Thanks to the work of Weston (2022) we know that too many Academies do not fulfil their statutory duties regarding RE.Her analysis of the Schools Workforce data, where schools return to the Department for Education (DfE) how much teaching in which subjects occurs in their schools, shows that over a quarter (27.4%) of Academies without a religious character report providing zero hours of RE to Year 11.A third of such Academies provide either zero hours or less than 3% of curriculum time (so less than 30 min per week) to pupils in year 9 (Weston, 2022).
An Academy's RE can follow the locally Agreed Syllabus for their area, another Agreed Syllabus, or can be their own syllabus, which meets legal requirements for agreed syllabuses taking account that 'the religious traditions in Great Britain are, in the main, Christian whilst taking account of the teaching and practices of the other principal religions represented in Great Britain.' (Department for Children, Schools and Families, 2010, p. 14).If an Academy writes their own RE syllabus there is no need to consult with anyone outside the school, in contrast to an agreed syllabus, which has a statutory need to involve religious (and democratically elected) representatives.
Mark Chater and others have long campaigned for such a change-to move control of RE from "excessive dependence on unaccountable religious structures" (Chater, 2018, p. 77) or to create a system where teachers are the only voice of the subject (Orme in Chater, 2020), empowered to produce curricula without the difficulties of obtaining consensus from religious communities.Chater believes that religions seek to protect their own religions; they present themselves in perpetual positive light; they fight for curriculum share and therefore he suggests the system of Agreed Syllabuses is hypocritical (ibid., 70ff).Chater argues that the system is one of 'producer capture' since the powerful religious voices "hold the pen that writes the curriculum" (Chater, 2020, p. 243).He is pleased that the Academy system has broken the monopoly of local Agreed Syllabuses for RE, with their inherent platform for the religious voice.I would suggest that underfunding of LA's and the fact that most Agreed Syllabuses are no longer really local is what has broken the system (Smalley, 2020a).
There are other perspectives: Derek Holloway views the involvement of faith representatives as wholly more benign, positive (though contentious), demonstrating generous hospitality, being experts in their faith, with a role more about checking terminology that defining structures, and creating additional resources to ensure that their faith was presented accurately (Holloway, 2018).Chater's response, no doubt, would be that as someone who worked for the Church of England at the time of writing, Holloway is part of that producer capture system and seeking to protect the privilege of faith.
Perhaps this is right-we as educationalists should be free to create curricula without the noisy input of faith voices.The Commission on RE report (CoRE, 2018) proposed that a body of nine experts be appointed to produce non-statutory programmes of study, replacing the Agreed Syllabus model.These experts would be appointed solely on their 'professional' standing.Towey (2023, p. 24) states that this CoRE recommendation was an 'othering of faith'.Thompson (2023) has shown the separation of the 'professional' and the 'religious' to be a false dichotomy: where would the Professional Services Team of the Christian Education Movement owned RE Today sit?What about me who works in a secular university, sits on a Diocesan Board of Education and leads a Christian congregation?
Part of the rationale for the move to replace the Agreed Syllabus system is that "If full academisation goes ahead, the system of locally agreed syllabuses would become completely redundant" (CoRE, 2018, p. 41).This is the real systemic threat to the structures which have supported RE.In March 2022 a white paper was published by the UK Government which clearly set out the ambition to achieve full academisation by 2030.This was followed swiftly by a Schools Bill to enact these changes.RE was not specifically mentioned in either, other than implicitly as one of the 'freedoms' (along with admissions and staffing) that schools with a religious character would be able to keep in a fully trust led system.(Smalley, 2022a).Political turmoil in the UK in 2022 has meant that the Bill has been dropped, and while the ambition in the present government for a fully trust led system remains, it is unlikely to be achieved by 2030.
However, Multi Academy Trusts are still aggressively striving to grow.Schools are seeing the quality of support from their LA reduced.The City of London and the Isles of Scilly already have no maintained schools.There may be a change of Government in the near future, but Labour have said nothing publicly about reversing the academisation drive.

Pressure 2: the secularisation of RE in a religion and worldviews approach
Felderhof (2023, p. 42) claims that there is a powerful drive "to change religious education into the secular study of religions and additionally into the study of those ideologies that vaguely resemble religions."This secularisation, he alleges, gained its impetus from the Commission on RE and has been fuelled by the further developments of the Worldviews paradigm supported by the RE Council (Barnes, 2022(Barnes, , 2023)).This 'paradigm shift' (Cooling, 2022;Smalley, 2022b) in the nature of the subject is explained by Sharpe (2021, p. 334) as "RE in the 1940s essentially said to children 'you must assent to the Christian worldview because it is the only truth'; whereas in the 2020s RE says to children 'you must respect each person's different worldview because it is true for them'."Sharpe describes a shift in the aim of the subject from being to teach children about religions, to now being to help them develop their own beliefs.He is correct that Religious Instruction in the 1950s was about teaching Christianity, but there has been an emphasis on the personal in RE for decades.Sharpe is dismissive of the worldview paradigm, however advocates of the approach do see the aim of the subject as not involving pupils learning truth claims made by powerful monolithic religions, but "It is about understanding the human quest for meaning, being prepared for life in a diverse world and having space to reflect on one's own worldview" (CoRE, 2018, p. 73).
There is aquestion to be explored about how 'personal' a worldviews approach to RE is.The object of study clearly cannot be the personal beliefs of a quarter of a million children in each school year, or even of the 30 individual opinions about existential matters in a particular classroom.
The debate about what substantive knowledge should form part of the RE syllabus is a long, complex and involved debate.Revell (2008) claimed that in the debates surrounding the 1988 Education Reform Act, the churches were determined to ensure that Christianity was privileged in curriculum share.Furthermore, she claims that the concept of religion itself is intrinsically reified as the curriculum is authored by officially authorised adherents to those expressions of faith most prevalent in the locality.Post 1960s English Religious Education was often based on a phenomenological approach to the study of world religions.The world religions were defined (at least in part) by faith adherents and presented authoritative reified voices.Teachers frequently taught about different religions as alternative expressions of similar ideas: holy books, places of worship, rites of passage, ineffable deity; the so-called cook's tour of religions (Bastide, 1992;Gearon, 2013).The object of study was the reified positive self-image of religions.Nesbitt (1993), Panjwani (2005) and Barnes (2006) have all criticized syllabi of the era alleging a lack of diversity and fluidity within differing religions.Gearon (2002), Barnes (2006) and the report of the Commission on Religion and Belief in Public Life ( 2015) have argued that in RE religions are presented in an overwhelmingly positive light-which is understandable if representatives of those religions are writing the syllabus.
Non-Religious Worldviews were explicitly included in an Agreed Syllabus for RE in 1975: the Birmingham Agreed Syllabus advocated the study of Communism and Humanism, although how influential this was on the actual curricula of schools in Birmingham may be questioned (Parker & Freathy, 2011).In 2004 the Qualification and Curriculum Authority ( 2004) produced a non-statutory framework for RE, with the intention that it be used by agreed syllabus conferences (ASCs) to develop a coherent approach to RE.Throughout the syllabus, it recommended that there should be opportunities to study 'secular philosophies such as humanism' (ibid.: 12).This was not new content for RE, Watson (2007) having found that a third of agreed syllabuses already included Humanism prior to the 2004 guidance.It therefore appears somewhat incongruous that the Commission on Religion and Belief in Public Life (2015) reported that it was a failure of the system that many syllabuses did not include non-religious worldviews such as humanism.
Although Barnes and Felderhof (2014) can see no good reason for the inclusion of nonreligious worldviews as an object of study in RE, it is primarily, like the move to multifaith RE in the 1970s, a response to the changing belief demographic of the UK.The 2021 Census shows that the number of people who claim to have no religion has grown and now is the second largest belief group.Thus, the argument goes that, in order for contemporary RE to be relevant to the young people studying it, it must reflect-or at least make reference to-the sort of belief systems they might possess.As long ago as John White (2004) was arguing that compulsory RE was no longer required due to this increasing secularity.In frameworks, syllabi and official documents over the last decade or so, the inclusion of Humanism (as an example of a non-religious worldview) has become 'de rigeur' to quote Barnes (2020, p. 79).For Barnes this is anathema: the main purpose of study in RE is to "provide an understanding of the nature and character of religion" (ibid., 84) which can be made 'relevant' by providing connections to the lived experience of the pupils.In contrast, Aldridge (2015a, p. 93) argues that though "religions (as real social entities) are part of the subject matter of RE, they do not exhaust the subject matter.The study of religion also includes a study of those objects that religions make claims about-divine beings, for example, or ultimate truths." Another important point is made by Barnes when he states that the non-religious youth are overwhelmingly also not Humanist.Wareham (2022) concedes this point but argues that Humanism is the only "'institutional' non-religious worldview prevalent in the UK and currently subject to enough rigorous academic consideration and with ideas and a body of literature sufficiently developed to be taught as a comprehensive and coherent worldview in RE lessons"(ibid.: 456) The campaign to include Humanism in RE has largely been led by Humanists UK (Formerly the British Humanist Association).This means that all the issues about the positive self-presentation of authoritative voices of religions is likely to apply to Humanism.Barnes & Felderhof's (2014, p. 11) understanding of the law, is that: "Secular worldviews, such as humanism and atheism, are not properly included within religious education except as critiques of religion.Secular positions and worldviews are appropriately included only as a means of clarifying and testing religious claims and insights, but they are not properly included in their own right." Barnes' overriding argument appears to be that since the rest of the school curriculum is secular and implicitly transmits secular philosophies, RE ought to be reserved for the study of religious philosophies.Aldridge (2015a) argues positively that Humanism should be included in RE, as part of a dialogic approach to RE.For Aldridge "learning in RE consists of a transformative dialogical relationship between student, on the one hand, and religion (or religious content, or religious text) on the other, about some subject matter that is of common interest to them" Aldridge (2015a, p. 92) Therefore, since RE is engaged in the discussion of matters including debating the value of religion, then the possibility that there is a negative value must be included.If it includes discussion of the religious idea of eternal life or reincarnation, then it might include dialogue about the Humanist claim that humans have one life and should make the best of it.Aldridge (2015b) suggests that there is a tension between the learning of an individual pupil and the planned (and somewhat dynamic) syllabus.As such he appears to argue that Humanism should be included in study as a possible way of understanding such matters of religious interest, but not necessarily as an object of systematic study; he therefore argues for a significant place for Humanism and/or other 'secular' or non-religious perspectives as part of this dialogic approach.
Wareham (2022) makes the argument for including Humanism in RE from Human Rights legislation.She draws heavily on a ruling in 2015 in which the DfE was adjudged to have issued misleading guidance about the new general certificate of secondary education (GCSE) examinations for religious studies (RS) which required the systematic study of two religions.Part of the judgement drawing on the European Convention on Human Rights (quoted by Wareham, 2022, p. 457) stated: "The state must accord equal respect to different religious convictions, and to nonreligious beliefs; it is not entitled to discriminate between religions and beliefs on a qualitative basis; its duties must be performed from a standpoint of neutrality and impartiality as regards the quality and validity of parents' convictions.(Fox 2015, para. 39)" Since the judgement was technically about guidance from the DfE that following a GCSE RS course would always fulfil a school's statutory duty (with regard to providing RE) the position taken by the UK government is that this is a 'technical issue' and it has had no apparent effect on GCSE content or indeed on any other RE provision in England.The claimants (humanist parents supported by Humanists UK) had wanted non-religious worldviews such as humanism and (non-Christian) religious viewpoints given equal respect.Following a legal opinion commissioned by Humanists UK and published in 2016 they understand this to mean that a religion and a non-religious worldview with an equal number of adherents in England should have an equal share of curriculum time in RE. (Juss, 2016).It is difficult to calculate how many adherents any particular non-religious philosophical conviction has and there has been no new guidance issued to ASCs about the implications of the rulings, simply a reiteration from the DfE that RE syllabi are a matter for schools and ASCs.
The CoRE (2018) report includes a very broad spectrum of possible religious and nonreligious worldviews which may be studied, but does not suggest a mandatory National Curriculum for RE (Smalley, 2020b;Salter, 2021).Critics (e.g.Barnes, 2015Barnes, , 2022) ) have complained that with six major world faiths, minority expressions of those, minority religions, and non-religious worldviews (Holt, 2019) to cover in RE, then there is curriculum overcrowding and too much prescribed content.Aldridge (2015a) suggests that this overcrowding is not inevitable, and Cooling (2019) denies that centring the subject on Worldviews means a watering down of the religious content, indeed overcrowding is an issue which the Worldview approach is attempting to solve (Cooling, 2022).The RE curriculum is often viewed as a pie, and with more and more religious and non-religious worldviews to be included in the substantive content, leading to more slices of the curricular pie, then each slice becomes smaller.
I have wondered recently about whether the metaphor needs to change and whether the subject is better viewed as afternoon tea, rather than a single pie.This shift of metaphor captures much of what Cooling (2020Cooling ( , 2022) ) have been trying to describe as a paradigm shift, as the Worldviews approach moves the subject away from the problematic World religions paradigm, which is prone to become overcrowded and presents reified, positivist versions of selected world faiths.To understand what an afternoon tea is, one doesn't have to repeatedly consume all of the elements.But having had several opportunities to try out the various cakes and sandwiches, one comes to understand what an afternoon tea is.There is an implicit understanding gained of the difference between sweet and savoury elements.The debate about the order of jam and cream on a scone can be intensively argued, as may the one about fruit or plain scones.RE therefore becomes a series of dialogic encounters with various sweet and savoury treats (religions and non-religious philosophies)-via different ways of knowing -to build up knowledge of individual expressions of these, but aiming to understand what it means to 'inhabit a worldview', about the existential nature of different ways of being, about what it means to be human.
This chimes with Pett's 'mixing-desk' analogy in the Draft Religion and Worldviews Resource (Pett, 2022) where his intention is that teachers should not see the statements in the National Entitlement as a series of categories to be worked through, but as interrelated dimensions that will receive differing amounts of attention units of work on different topics.Schools are given some guidance about how to do this (ibid., 16), including a reminder about the legal requirement for Christianity to have pre-eminence and the legislative understanding that RE should be inclusive of religious and non-religious worldviews so that pupils are able to gain cumulatively sufficient knowledge (Ofsted, 2021), rather than total coverage.Decisions about content are left to schools -so that the principles outlined in the National Statement of Entitlement are able to be met by studying a wide (or relatively narrow) variety of expressions of religious or non-religious belief.
The charge laid by Barnes and others is that the Religion and Worldviews approach imposes a secularising agenda on the subject.If Copson (2019) is correct that two defining features of Secularism are that individuals should be free to decide what they believe about important matters and that people should be treated fairly whatever their religious or non-religious convictions then it most certainly is a secular RE that is proposed.However it would seem odd that in this enlightened age, someone might argue against this and declare that people should believe what they are told and treat non-religious people badly.
Therefore, given that total knowledge of all major world faiths is an impossible undertaking, shifting the emphasis of study from reified, self-determined interpretations of religious traditions to one which gives cumulatively sufficient understanding of the relationship between the teachings and doctrines of organised worldviews and the beliefs, practice and experience of adherents through an examination of the lived reality of people potentially offers a way to ensure relevance and rigour for the subject.As schools, Trusts and (in the medium term at least) ASCs seek to develop their RE curricula it is imperative that content choices are made and accuracy of representation assured in partnership between the curriculum writers and the authentic voice of faith and belief communities, "not least for the accurate and fair presentation of variety within traditions.However, communities' aspirations for representation, even advocacy, must be in the service of the curriculum subject, rather than the curriculum serving the communities" (Pett, 2022, p. 15).For this reason, the RE community of England must ensure that the voice of lived religion continues to be heard, as a fundamental part of a Worldviews approach.

Pressure 3: funding
The third pressure bearing factor on RE is money.Local Authorities must carry out certain central functions on behalf of pupils in maintained schools and academies in England.SACREs are currently funded as one of those functions under a category of 'ongoing responsibilities'.This is allocated by central Government to each LA in the form of the Central School Services Block (CSSB).In total, across the 150 LAs that receive CSSB, £278,691,027 was allocated in the 2021-22 'ongoing commitments' category (DfE, 2022).
In 2021 the National Association of Standing Advisory Councils on Religious Education (NASACRE) published its report into the funding of SACREs by Local Authorities.They repeated the Freedom of Information request in January 2023 and I have analysed and reported on this data (Smalley, 2023b).The major headline of the 2021 report was that the majority of SACREs do not receive enough funding to carry out their duties well.That situation has not changed in the 2023 report.
After a decade where Local Authority funding reduced significantly with an average 21% real term fall between 2009 and 2019 (Smith & Phillips, 2019), there followed a year of significant pressure on local finances in 2020-21 due to the COVID-19 crisis.Central government provided enhanced financial support to LAs and there was a real terms increase in 2021-22 (Ogden & Phillips, 2021) with further increases in following years.CSSB increased by 3.8% in 2021-22 compared to 2020-21.(Hansard & Deb, 2021).This increase has not been universally seen in budgetary allocations to support RE.The data (Smalley, 2023b) appear to show that LA funding decisions appear to be somewhat erratic.The average spending on a SACRE, Religious Education and Collective Worship, as a percentage of the allocated CSSB funding source (based on data from 132 LAs) was lower than 1% (0.62%, 0.1% lower than in the 2021 report) but pressure on the LAs who are the meanest funders may be having some effect.It may be possible to summarise the data to say that there is a slight tendency towards the mean: SACREs well-funded in 2019-20 are tending to have funding cut in percentage terms, whereas some that were poorly funded in 2019-20 have seen an increase.
A SACRE being well or poorly supported in one year appears to often have little bearing on future levels of funding.The positive outlook is that where underfunding is identified, change can happen.There are examples of LAs where funding has significantly increased as a result of the 2021 data being shared with DfE.This has led to a rejuvenated SACRE.Where funding is a pressure, SACREs cannot provide the support that they would like and sometimes are unable to carry outtheir statutory duties.Hampshire(2023) notes that 53 SACREs did not submit an Annual Report to the DfE between 2021 and 2023.

Pressure 4: teacher recruitment
The final cause of pressure to RE to be considered is the crisis in teacher recruitment and RE's perilous position in those terms.Catherine West, a shadow minister, recently asked a parliamentary question about what steps the government was taking to ensure that recruitment targets for religious education teachers were met (Hansard & Deb, 2023).The first part of the Minister of State, Rt.Hon Nick Gibb's answer was to report that the number of teachers remains high.He is correct in this assertion: the number of Full Time Equivalent Teachers in England has remained fairly steady at around half a million for the last few years.However, there are now over a quarter of a million more pupils than there were 5 years ago.The pupil to teacher ratios in secondary schools has risen each year since 2013 meaning that every teacher needs to teach more pupils.The recruitment target for teachers was missed by some way in 2022 and will be only slightly better in 2023.
West's question was about RE teachers specifically and Gibb chose his answer carefully, citing the one year (2020/21) in the last ten when the recruitment target for RE teachers was exceeded-the year that the target was substantially reduced.In 2022/23 the recruitment target was missed by 25%.On average between 10 and 12% of RE teachers who train leave the profession within five years of training.This is higher than the average across all subjects.
Gibb's response was crafted with the intent to convey that there was no discernible issue or cause for concern, despite the existence of an actual crisis.The recruitment of teachers across all subjects has experienced a significant decline of 22% compared to the previous year.Notably, RE stands out with a decrease of one-third in the number of applicants when compared to the previous recruitment cycle.
The magnitude of this crisis means that RE frequently encounters a situation where it is taught be non-specialists due to a scarcity of qualified RE teachers.As a consequence, high school students are now three times more likely to receive RE from teachers lacking subject-specific qualifications compared to disciplines such as history.Moreover, over half of secondary school teachers involved in teaching RE allocate a significant portion of their time to another subject (in contrast to only 13% of English teachers and 27% of Geography teachers).These prevailing pressures exert a detrimental influence on the overall quality of RE provision in numerous schools.

Are these pressures insurmountable? A view from the past
There are not enough teachers, and not enough people want to be RE teachers.There is insufficient money to support the systems that have maintained RE's privileged place on the curriculum.The heart of the subject is potentially moving away from a study of religions, to a multi disciplinary study of personal worldviews.There is a chance that the religious voice will be silenced, and accurate representation weakened as; the academisation process structurally mutes the religious voice in co-constructing the RE curriculum.
It is 50 years since Michael Grimmitt wrote the hugely influential What Can I do in RE?.This paper concludes with a series of excerpts from Grimmitt's seminal work, where he sets out the challenges for the subject at the start of the 1970s: "[It] is the only subject which appears in the curriculum by law.Yet it is generally agreed by pupils and teachers alike that [it] is about the worst taught subject in the curriculum!….In very few, if any, schools has is been accorded parity of esteem or status with other subjects .accordingly [it] has been given the barest minimum of time allocation.Furthermore … very little emphasis has been placed on a teacher's professional training in the subject-largely as a result of the misguided belief that, "Anyone can teach [it]" Grimmitt (1973, p. 1)."As a result, [it] has been taught in state schools over the years largely by teachers who have either been untrained or only partially trained in the subject.""perhaps even more appalling than this… the teaching of beliefs as if they were facts" "Ironically, research has shown that after receiving ten years of traditional, agreed-syllabus religious instruction, from five to 15+, pupils are almost completely uninformed about the Christian faith and have largely failed to grasp any of the key religious concepts" Grimmitt (1973, p. 2).
[Pupils leave school having] "rejected religion as defined and taught by schools, and this is frequently far from being what religion actually is!" Grimmitt (1973, pp. 2-3)."inevitably we are forced to pursue a line of thought which leads not to the wholesale rejection of teaching religion in schools but to a radical re-appraisal of our thinking about religion, about its contribution to a child's educational development, about the ways n which teachers may be trained to teach the subject successfully.Grimmitt (1973, p. 3)."The impetus for change in the teaching of religion in our schools stems not simply from our awareness of the failure of traditional "religious instruction" but also from three aspects of change unique to the mid 20th century.These are: theological change, educational change and social change.Together they have created a force which, in the last eight or ten years, has led to a remarkable revolution in the field of religious teaching.A radically new and different approach in both content and method is indicated and symbolised by the deliberate adoption of the title, "Religious Education" or R.E.The significance of this title not entirely new as a label for religious teaching will only become apparent if we first examine briefly those three aspects of change which have led to its adoption."Grimmitt (1973, p. 5)."This awareness of the need to distinguish between the respective roles of the state school and Church and to focus attention on Religion and Religious Understanding has led, in recent years, to the development of two main lines of approach to religious teaching, both of which abandon the confessional standpoint.The first of these has been called "The Personal Quest approach" and it is largely associated with the names of Harold Loukes, Edwin Cox and Colin Alves.
Grimmitt sets out these pressures: timetabling and esteem, teacher training and expertise, the misrepresentation of religion, the need to respond to societal change, the need for the personal quest in RE-50 years on the pressures on the subject remain the same.Some of the solutions offered sound very similar too.Compare the aim that Grimmitt quotes from The Fourth R, with the aim statements from the CoRE report: "The aim of religious education should be to explore the place and significance of religion in human life and so to make a distinctive contribution to each pupil's search for a faith by which to live." (Church of England Commission on R.E. in Schools-The Durham Commission-The Fourth R, 1970.)"(Grimmitt, 1973, p. 23).
"We offer a new vision: the subject should explore the role that religious and nonreligious worldviews play in all human life."(CoRE, 2018, i) or "It is about understanding the human quest for meaning, being prepared for life in a diverse world and having space to reflect on one's own worldview" (CoRE, 2018, p. 73).

Conclusion
It may therefore be the case, that the subject of RE is under pressure from numerous factors: systemic, curricular, financial and workforce.These are not unusual factors for the subject: there are highly prescient echoes in the situation now and 50 years ago when Grimmitt wrote his seminal tome.Whether Grimmitt had the correct solution to the malaise he describes is for another time.I hope that this paper gives us hope-that in 50 years' time, academics will be discussing how the subject needs a new vision, one that begins with the world of the pupils, helps them consider existential questions and reflect on their own position in regard to them, having studied the fluid and multiple ways of being that exist in the world then, and in the past.