Religious education

The RE framework has been developed alongside the review of the national curriculum. It offers SACREs (Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education) and LEAs (Local Education Authorities) an opportunity to customise their locally determined agreed syllabuses. This improves standards of religious education nationally by providing a coherent curriculum and assessment framework for Wales.

The document ‘National exemplar framework for religious education for 3 to 19-year-olds in Wales’ contains:

• exemplar programmes of study for each key stage, together with level descriptions.

Subject guidance

The documents ‘Religious education: Guidance for Key Stage 2 and 3’ and ‘Exemplifying learner profiles at Key Stages 2 and 3 in religious education: Additional guidance’:

• support the implementation of the exemplar framework by providing key messages for planning learning and teaching
• highlight expectations and progression in religious education
• include profiles of learners’ work to exemplify the use of the level descriptions in coming to overall judgements at the end of the key stage

Some schools may find the high resolution files included on the CD-ROM that accompanied the pack slow to load on certain PCs. If this is the case, they can be downloaded using the links below. These files are much smaller in size and easier to download.

The document ‘Religious education: Guidance for 14 to 19-year-olds’:

• supports the implementation of the exemplar framework
• provides guidance on the relevance and benefit of skills and knowledge that young people aged 14 to 19 might acquire through religious education 
• provides case studies of the possible delivery models.

The guidance should not be viewed or delivered in isolation. It should be planned in relation to Learning Pathways 14-19 and the wider curriculum offered at this phase of education.