A New Dawn for Faith-based Education? Opportunities for Religious Organisations in the UK’s New School System

Abstract

The ‘new school system’ described in the Schools White Paper (DfE, 2010) presents religious organisations with two interesting opportunities. The first is an opportunity to play a significantly enhanced role in the management of faith-based schools. The second is an opportunity to rethink quite radically the content of their curricula. In this article I advance a proposal for the consideration of religious organisations: that they take up the opportunity to develop innovative, religiously distinctive curricula whilst eschewing the activity of confessional religious education. I show how non-confessional, faith-based curricula are possible and offer some suggestions about what they might include.