Britain is changing. What does that mean for RE in schools?

This article was first published in our recent Social Issues Bulletin – Issue 60, which is available to download here.

Growing up in a small rural village in Cheshire in the 80s and 90s, life was close-knit, predictable, and somewhat insular. With few amenities, I often felt bored – particularly as a teenager. Village life revolved around familiar rhythms: May Day with maypole dancing, cricket matches, the annual Scout barbecue, the village pantomime, the pub quiz, and the regular cycle of parish church services.  My tiny Church of England primary school of around 45 students was completely monocultural; there was little opportunity to encounter ethnic diversity or other religions. RE largely consisted of the Vicar coming to tell Bible stories and even at my larger (though still rather homogenous) secondary school, we largely focused on Christianity – and occasionally Judaism – in RE lessons. 

At the time, I resented the parochial nature of my upbringing and my school experience. I couldn’t wait to travel and visit exotic destinations with unfamiliar cultures, different languages and interesting customs.  

Yet there was something about the unspoken glue that held our small community together that made life feel simpler than it does today. There were no barriers of language, culture, or differing customs around food or politeness – everyone largely operated from the same set of assumptions. There were shared memories and allegiances (particularly in football!), moral sensibilities that shaped an unwritten code of conduct and a sense of belonging that didn’t even register at the time.

And when I look at the many different groups in playgrounds and as I observe the shift in the cultural makeup of the school population, it does beg the question: how are schools preparing this generation to navigate the rapid and complex integration of religious, non-religious, and cultural diversity?

Fragmentation is not unique to the school yard. Recent research from the Policy Institute at King’s College London  and Ipsos shows that perceptions of division in the UK are now at their highest since records began in 2020.¹ Eighty-four per cent of the public say the country feels divided – up sharply from 74% five years ago. And tension between immigrants and those born in the UK has climbed sharply in the past two years with the majority of participants now say they perceive great tension around the topic of immigration, rising from 74% in 2023 to 86% today.

It’s right to approach this debate with clear-headed analysis of our changing demographics, so that citizens and policymakers can respond wisely and support the cultural and social integration of children and young people.

Yet even the most careful analysis is not enough on its own. As Christians, we must also view these shifts through a biblical lens.

And this leads us to deeper questions: what does all of this mean for the message of Christianity in our schools and for our nation’s children? Will it be drowned out by a rising tide of competing worldviews? And how should Christians respond?

Rapid Demographic Change

Immigration to the UK has arguably been the most significant social and demographic change of the 21st century. Since the late 90s, immigration and emigration have both reached historic highs – yet immigration has exceeded emigration by over 100,000 every single year between 1998 and 2020. In the year to June 2023, net migration was 906,000.²

And of course, we are seeing this reflected in education The latest DfE data shows a striking demographic change unfolding in England’s schools. In the 2024/25 school census of roughly 21,500 state-funded schools, White British pupils make up 60.3%  of students, a drop from 62.6% in just two years.³

Today, my children attend an urban school where roughly 40% of pupils speak English as an additional language – about double the national average. Their classmates include children who have undertaken perilous journeys from Iran, West Africa, and Ukraine; others come from Greece, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Turkey, China, Hong Kong, and across Eastern Europe. The languages spoken are many and varied, and families practise a wide range of religious traditions, including Islam, Sikhism, Alevism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism.

Long-term projections point to notable shifts in the UK’s religious landscape. The Muslim population is expected to grow from 7% to nearly 19% over the period to 2100 – close to one in five people in the UK. Alongside this, the proportion of those who say they have no religion has risen sharply and now sits at almost 40% of the population.⁴

Of course, we need to be careful when discussing ethnic identity, religious identity, culture and country of birth; the topic is complex and these terms are not interchangeable. And in many ways, the increase in cultural diversity is a real gift. As Christians working in or engaging in schools work it is an opportunity to show hospitality, compassion, and love for neighbour. Rather than going to all nations, the nations have come to us! We now have the chance to reach out with the gospel to multiple cultures, ethnicities, and nationalities right here in our own communities. In fact, perhaps the British church can learn a great deal from non-Western Christians engaged in ‘reverse mission’, returning with the gospel to nations that once evangelised their own. Often their witness is marked by a greater and more urgent sense of courage and conviction than British Christians tend to feel. 

Yet this data also raises important questions for schools and particularly for RE. How is the subject intended to enrich such a diverse array of learners, and to what end? How do we cultivate a coherent sense of shared culture and common life amidst such plurality? How do we remain generous and open-hearted to ‘non-native’ cultures while acknowledging that a community cannot flourish without shared foundations, shared narratives, and a shared sense of purpose? 

Perhaps most importantly, what does this mean for the privileged place of Christianity in the RE curriculum? Can we still reasonably expect that the Bible’s story and Christian doctrines take precedence today?

RE in the curriculum

Religious Education and the content of curriculum in England and Wales is riddled with complexities. There have been many changes over time in the provision of the subject. When universal education began in the UK, it offered a broadly Christian, non-denominational approach. Today, Religious Education is classed as a “basic curriculum subject”. This means it is compulsory, but it sits outside the national curriculum with its nationwide stipulations for study. Since 1988, it has been a pluralistic curriculum covering the major world religions, while still recognising Christianity as the most widely represented faith in England. Around one third of England’s state-funded schools are Church schools (Church of England or Catholic), with smaller numbers belonging to other major faith traditions. In these settings, RE can be taught in line with the school’s religious designation, though the extent of this varies by school type, and these schools can still choose to teach about other religions.

SACREs – Standing Advisory Councils for Religious Education – were created to bring together local faith representatives, teachers, and the local authority to advise on religious education and collective worship in schools. Although since 1988 the local RE syllabus itself has been determined by a separate body – the Agreed Syllabus Conference – SACREs still play an important role in enabling local faith communities to contribute to discussions about RE and its impact on pupils. SACREs in England include four groups (Christian and other faith representatives, the Church of England, teacher associations, and the local authority). In Wales, the structure is similar but without the Church of England group.

In short, RE has shifted from teaching a shared cultural Christianity as a normative, moral framework in the Victorian era to explicitly exploring religious difference in a diverse society- studying belief systems from a supposedly neutral standpoint.

And though this speaks to the sad decline in Christianity’s influence in our nation, the current “multi-faith” model – set out in the 1988 Education Act – does offer some real strengths. When taught well, it gives pupils space to grapple with life’s biggest questions and to explore the varied beliefs and practices of the many communities that now make up Britain. Perhaps most helpful, it permits the influence of local faith groups on the programmes of study for a local area, offering church leaders and other faith representatives, including many evangelicals, a meaningful opportunity to shape how Christianity is taught in local schools, and ultimately the communication of Biblical truth in a way that doesn’t proselytise but enables students to consider the validity of such teaching for themselves.

A subject in slow decline?

There are problems afoot, however. The discrete subject of RE has been floundering in our schools for some time now. The status of RE as part of the ‘basic’ curriculum, but not ‘national’ has caused long-standing challenges: without a central programme of study, the quality of RE varies widely, and many schools do not meet their legal obligations in how they provide it. 

Before education reforms in 2010, many schools routinely entered pupils for a full or short-course GCSE in RE. But the introduction of the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) changed the landscape. Because schools were judged on pupils achieving strong passes in a set group of subjects – English, Maths, a foreign language, two Sciences, and either Geography or History – RE no longer counted towards this key performance measure. As a result, many schools pushed students towards EBacc subjects to protect their league-table position, leaving RE increasingly sidelined and contributing significantly to the subject’s decline.

Ofsted’s Deep and Meaningful report, published in 2024, highlighted that much statutory non-examined RE in schools is limited in scope and often of poor quality. Compounding this, specialist RE teachers are scarce: more than half of RE lessons in the UK are delivered by teachers without RE training. While a few have received subject-specific professional development, the vast majority have not. Given the complexity of RE and the misconceptions pupils are left with, this represents a serious concern, with Ofsted noting one widespread misconception among some leaders and teachers that “teaching from a neutral stance” is the same as teaching a non-religious worldview.

Evolution of RE

While the headlines make for grim reading, there are groups working hard to revitalise (some might even say resurrect) the subject – including the Religious Education Council of England and Wales (REC) and the recently formed Religious Education Network (REN). The challenge is that so many stakeholders have strong views about how RE should be taught that reaching any kind of consensus has become almost impossible.

The latest approach in Religious Education is the “Religion and Worldviews” model, promoted by the REC. It is based on the idea that everyone – whether religious or not – lives according to a personal worldview, which can be studied much like any formal religious or philosophical tradition. When the government-commissioned panel reviewing curriculum issued its final report in September 2025, it recommended working towards adding RE to the national curriculum, using the REC’s National Content Standard as a basis.

Nobody stands nowhere

On the surface, the study of worldviews seems to offer a promising way to teach RE in a genuinely pluralistic, but Christianity friendly, manner. It starts with the idea that everyone has a worldview, shaped by their experiences, values, and sense of meaning – and that these differ from person to person. It presents each individual as someone with an innate capacity for spirituality and reflection. In many ways, this feels like a helpful and even exciting way to acknowledge the depth of personal faith convictions. For an evangelical Christian, it can sound like a gift.

However, the sociological lens behind this approach cannot be overstated. It comes with assumptions that many believers simply cannot share. It treats all worldviews as human constructions, denying the conviction – held by most religious adherents, including Christians – that there is one ultimate reality, and that the foundations of morality – and indeed salvation – are not invented but revealed. 

Christians do not understand their beliefs as cultural constructs, but as God’s revelation to humankind. Yet the worldviews approach does not engage with the propositional truth-claims of faith. Instead, it focuses on how individuals interpret and express their beliefs within their own context, identity, and, most prominently, their lived experience. The lens is primarily sociological and anthropological. It follows personal stories rather than doctrine; experiences rather than Scripture; perspectives rather than authoritative teaching.

This becomes particularly clear in the draft handbook’s example of studying a “Practising Anglican with a preference for Celtic Christianity, an interest in Zen Buddhism, married to a pagan and incorporating Pagan festivals and sensibilities into their living and being.” Such a profile crystallises the problem: the framework becomes so elastic that it borders on the absurd, making the paradigm unworkable as a way of teaching religious faith with any coherence or integrity.

Chasing social harmony – and losing the heart of RE

There’s another problem too. The arguably admirable goal of social cohesion and personal development has grown into a dominant driver behind the subject. There’s now a worrying hint of activism shaping some of the material circulating in classrooms – from resources on “Climate justice via RE” to tasks such as “create a 5-point guide for decreasing Islamophobia.” But citizenship and personal development are not the same as RE. Even Ofsted acknowledges that where curricula take substantive knowledge in RE seriously, the secondary benefits – tolerance, respect, mutual understanding – tend to follow naturally and far more effectively. RE should not be the vehicle for delivering whole-school citizenship initiatives. Yet much of what we see resembles a citizenship lesson dressed in religious language and scenarios, rather than a discipline rooted in genuine theological and philosophical learning.

Resources designed to fit an activist agenda are already widely used. Case studies are prolific and often focus on the most unlikely voices within religious or non-religious traditions: the complex story of a white British “revert” to Islam; teenage girls arguing that Muhammad was a feminist; an LGBT Black Caribbean Christian who reveals their transgender identity at their baptism; multiple schemes of work on Veganism; or tasks evaluating the spiritual lessons of The Lego Movie.

I recently looked through my daughter’s Year 4 RE exercise book. Sadly, it showed an almost exclusive focus on “how we can celebrate all religions and worldviews and promote religious equality and harmony,” as one resource put it. Leveraging RE solely for the purpose of social cohesion is surely a well-intentioned misuse of the subject. Encouraging children to think about harmonious living may have a surface-level value, but it offers little depth of understanding.

In one activity, the class was given a principle from a particular religion and used string to make connections across Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism and Bahá’í. Yet despite this impressive list, my daughter could tell me very little about the actual nature of these religions or what their adherents believe. What she could repeat was the mantra that “every religion is equal” and that harmony must be preserved at all costs. In prioritising this above all else, are we witnessing the emergence of a new postmodern, post-Christian form of religiosity?

Damage done to the fabric of society

The tragedy is that this approach does very little to equip students with the substantive knowledge needed to navigate a multicultural and multi-ethnic society. The “all worldviews are equal” platitudes don’t help my daughter understand why her Muslim friends aren’t allowed to join her after-school dance classes or to wear their hair uncovered. They don’t explain why her secular Iranian friend can’t visit her grandparents for fear the family may not be allowed to leave the country again. They don’t shed light on the violent pogroms in Turkey that drove some of my son’s Alevi classmates to seek refuge in the UK. And they certainly don’t explain the distrust many Hong Kong families at school feel toward the quasi-Marxist ideology of the Chinese Communist Party.

But with an hour a week – if that – allocated to RE, can we really expect the subject to handle such vast and diverse territory? The depth of understanding required would be far too weighty to deliver robustly. Inevitably, the multitude of worldviews becomes compressed, risking a shallow engagement with all of them that is more likely to confuse than to inspire clear understanding – or else pushes teachers toward the activist route instead.

Children grasp abstract ideas and principles through repeated exposure to familiar stories and coherent doctrine. Constantly moving between frameworks risks disorienting students rather than grounding them. This doesn’t mean multiple religions shouldn’t be studied; rather, without one dominant, familiar orthodoxy from which to evaluate other perspectives, students are left without an anchor – a stable base from which to understand and discern the other fundamental ways people make sense of life. 

Cultural Hegemony?

One school that has sought to cultivate a shared sense of ‘Britishness’ and a consciously patriotic approach to cultural integration is Michaela School in Wembley, London. Its intake is 90% ethnic minority, around half of whom are Muslim, and it sits in an area of considerable socio-economic deprivation. Many will be aware of the recent legal challenge brought against the school over its refusal to permit communal Muslim prayer, despite its clearly articulated secular ethos.

I visited on a cold November morning last year to see how such a cohesive culture had been constructed. In many respects, Michaela is a striking example of successful, outwardly harmonious integration. Pupils sing God Save the King with gusto and recite Kipling’s If – often described as the nation’s favourite poem – as part of their daily routine. I listened to a polished recitation of Henley’s Invictus by confident, articulate students. I was genuinely impressed. 

Over lunch, I sat with a lively group of Year 8s whose “topic of the day” was: If you could have a portal to anywhere, where would you go and why? And what would be the advantages and disadvantages of such an ability? Their eagerness to engage and their thoughtful (albeit occasionally hilarious answers) spoke of the school’s emphasis on character, courtesy and the value of conversation. They asked me about my work and home life too and were clearly practised in articulating ideas and taking an interest in others – especially adults. When I asked how they felt about the school’s strict rules, they framed them in terms of responsibility to other learners and the good of the whole community. I was astounded at the attitudes of 13 year olds, seemingly mature beyond their years.

Despite the virtue of intention behind Michaela, there’s a real tension here. A cohesive culture built on a strictly secular framework (as Michaela is permitted to maintain as a free school) can certainly produce admirable discipline, courtesy and shared purpose – and it clearly does. But despite Katharine Birbalsingh, Michaela’s headteacher recently openly admitting on X that the school’s values are ‘traditional, derived from our historical Christian roots’, it also functionally narrows the horizon of what pupils are able to explore, including the claims of Christianity itself. It creates a community with a story. But this is not necessarily the true story Christians believe children most need to encounter.

At Michaela there are no designated spaces for Muslim prayer, but equally there are no assemblies where children hear about Jesus, no chances outside the academic intensity of the RE classroom to dig deeper into the central claims of the Christian faith. Church leaders cannot come in to take a guest lesson, offer pastoral support, or contribute to meeting pupils’ moral, cultural or spiritual needs. In that sense, the cohesive culture on offer is impressive – but also carefully contained.

Fruit without the root

You only need to read the ever-popular Tom Holland’s Dominion to see that Christianity has been the primary force shaping the modern moral imagination in the UK. Ideas such as the dignity of the weak, the paradox of the powerless overcoming the powerful, and history understood as a drama of sin and redemption have powerfully shaped our political, judicial and education systems. But the problem with sincere attempts to reclaim these values on their own terms is that we forget a simple truth: the fruit cannot flourish without the root. Detached from their Christian foundations, these virtues become like cut flowers – attractive for a moment, but inevitably fading, because they are no longer drawing life from the soil that once sustained them.

And even in schools without such a profoundly secular ethos, godless ideologies often dominate the curriculum and shape school life.  Many may not recognise these secular frameworks as ideologies in their own right, yet as Christians we know that removing Christianity from the public sphere does not make society less ‘religious’; devotion is simply redirected elsewhere. Emile Cammaerts puts it aptly: “The first effect of not believing in God is to believe in anything.”⁵

Four lessons for the church engaging in multicultural schools work

1.Challenge assumptions with grace

Many people – particularly those from white, middle-class backgrounds – tend to view all religions through the lens of Christianity, assuming they operate with the same moral framework. As Christian teachers, parents, governors, and church leaders, we must not be afraid to challenge, gently and graciously, the well-intentioned but often naïve assumptions in schools that all organised (or even non-organised) worldviews uphold the concept of Imago Dei – that every human being, regardless of background, carries dignity deserving of respect. This calls us to carefully examine curricula that present only the positive interpretations of religions.

2.Engage respectfully with other cultures and belief systems

We should not assume that other belief systems are, however, entirely alien to Christian sensibilities. It is possible to make the most of the opportunities that pluralism affords without falling into relativism. Many religions and worldviews contain universal truths that we can affirm without necessarily affirming the religion itself. Ideas of accountability, virtue, sin, compassion, justice, and reciprocity can provide real starting points for fruitful conversation. 

3. Make the most of every opportunity

Despite recent attempts in the Lords to reduce Christian influence – such as by placing non-religious worldviews on equal footing with religions in RE (Amendment 471) or by replacing daily worship with “moral and cultural assemblies” (Amendment 465) – we still enjoy meaningful opportunities to share Christian truths via lessons and collective worship. These opportunities allow Christianity to be taught thoughtfully and objectively, giving the gospel room to shine and stand on its own merit. We must make the most of these opportunites whilst we still have them.

4. Offer depth, rigor, and relevance

We are called, in every generation, to “earnestly contend for the faith” (Jude 1:3) with grace, humility, and conviction. This includes offering students serious Bible teaching and sound doctrine that engages with life’s biggest questions. Many young people have never encountered the richness of historic, Biblical Christianity, yet I hear from teachers across the country that students of all backgrounds are ready and eager to engage with teaching that speaks directly to contemporary issues. The so-called ‘quiet revival’ is showing its face not only in churches but in Christian Unions and searcher groups in schools. Christians involved in education are uniquely positioned to meet this hunger with truth, and gospel hope. 

Take heart

I sometimes feel an unexpected pang of longing for the past – a nostalgia for elements of British culture that seem to have faded. I’m never quite sure whether that feeling should unsettle me, and it’s one I have to approach with care. As a Christian, I know I must guard my heart: the more ‘Christianised’ UK of my childhood was hardly perfect, and idealising it ignores both its flaws and the rich diversity that will characterise our true and eternal home in Heaven. 

I must remind myself that the cultural and demographic shifts in our schools are not a reason for fear, but an invitation for faithful engagement. Christians can be confident that the gospel is good news in any plural setting. True gospel multiculturalism does not suppress the legitimate diversity of cultures, languages, or peoples; it unites humanity in a shared story without erasing difference.

Take heart. We have good news to share. May we take it into our schools with great confidence.

1. Bobby Duffy and Gideon Skinner, “The UK’s changing ‘culture wars”: Division, tension and common ground’, November 2025: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/policy-institute/assets/uks-changing-culture-wars-division-tension-and-common-ground.pdf. ↩︎
2. UK Government – Migration Advisory Committee, ‘Net migration report’, 2023 (Updated January 2025): https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/migration-advisory-committee-report-on-net-migration/net-migration-report-accessible. ↩︎
3. UK Government, ‘Schools, pupils and their characteristics’, 5 June 2025: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-pupils-and-their-characteristics/2024-25. ↩︎
4. Matt Goodwin, ‘Demographic Change and the Future of the United Kingdom: 2022-2122’, 29 May 2025: https://www.heterodoxcentre.com/wp-content/uploads/3-CHSS-Goodwin.pdf. ↩︎
5. Emile Cammaerts, The Laughing Prophet: The Seven Virtues & G.K. Chesterton (ACS Books, 1937).
   Available: https://www.chesterton.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/The-Laughing-Prophet_ACS-Books.pdf.  ↩︎