In this guest post, Russell Sandberg returns to discuss the reforms of the teaching of religion in schools in Wales and find that the final Guidance is a significant improvement on the first draft but that confusions remain.

As regular readers of the blog will know, the law in relation to the teaching of religion in schools in Wales is changing. As part of the new curriculum ushered in by the Curriculum and Assessment (Wales) Act 2021, RE becomes RVE – Religion, Values and Ethics – with the parental opt-out removed in schools without a religious character.  In May 2021, the Welsh Government published draft Guidance on the design and delivery of RVE, which was subject to a consultation period that ended in July.

In January 2021, the Welsh Government published its revised guidance.  The headline is that it is an improvement on the draft Guidance which was unclear, referred to superseded legal precedents and was generally likely to be little use to those designing and delivering RVE. However, as this blog post will explain, many of the concerns I expressed in my response to the consultation remain unaddressed. Not only are parts of the guidance legally questionable but more importantly the Guidance still seems to lack the clarity and relevance needed to be of use to those designing and delivering RVE. This is particularly important given the ‘bottom up’ approach of the new curriculum. Continue reading →