Home
Time Allocation for RE
There are no prescribed allocations of time for RE. In 1993, Lord Dearing produced his final report into The National Curriculum and its Assessment (1993) making some recommendations which assume appropriate time allowances for RE, for practical purposes these are widely recognised as 'markers'.
| Key Stage 1 | 36 hours per year |
| Key Stages 2 and 3 | 45 hours per year |
| GCSE RE Short Course | 70 hours of study |
| GCSE RE (full course) | 140 hours of study |
| Key Stage 4 | 5% of total curriculum time |
The Non-statutory Guidance on RE for English schools, 2010, page 31, states:
The legal requirements for the provision of RE in maintained schools do not specify any particular time allocation or how the curriculum should be organised. Schools are not required to teach subjects separately or to use their given titles, though there can be advantages in doing so. One subject can also be combined with another, or it can be taught in separate lessons, or a mixture of provision used, depending on the objectives of the curriculum being followed.
Schools should weigh the advantages of regular and coherent provision, say every week, against those of more flexible provision when more time can be allocated in one week, term or year than in another – as long as the programme of study required by the agreed syllabus is covered. They need to ensure that their RE provision includes a distinct body of knowledge and enables all pupils to make effective progress in achieving the RE learning outcomes. Schools also need to evaluate the effectiveness of their provision as part of their own self-evaluation process.
Each school decides which subjects to give more time to and, within a subject, which attitudes or skills to emphasise. The priority or emphasis might apply across the key stage, to particular year groups, to groups of pupils or to individuals. As well as meeting statutory requirements a school can maximise the contribution RE makes to raising standards and achievement – for example, through qualifications undertaken by pupils contributing to performance data at GCSE and A level.