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The National Centre of Religious Education for Wales at ���ϲ����� has released a statement responding to a report by Welsh education watchdog, Estyn, which highlighted significant concerns.   

The report, Developing the Humanities area of learning and experience (AoLE), which was based on inspection work conducted between 2024 and 2025, said it found “variability” in the teaching of the humanities in schools, adding that “in too many cases, provision lacked coherence, balance or depth.” 

It went on to say that religion, values and ethics (RVE) was “particularly underrepresented”, and noted a “lack of subject-specific professional learning limited staff development”.

In addition, it said that “a lack of appropriately specialist staff and insufficient access to enriching opportunities impact negatively on pupils’ experiences.” 

In its statement the National Centre of Religious Education for Wales expressed “serious concern”, adding that the “findings present a clear and troubling picture”. 

It also warns: “Limited curriculum time inevitably restricts the depth, coherence, and disciplinary integrity that learners are entitled to experience. Inspectors further observe that learners are not being supported to engage meaningfully with complexity.” 

The Estyn report echoes a number of the findings in a research paper published by the National Centre of Religious Education for Wales in 2024, which found “systematic challenges”. These included “issues of legal compliance”, the failure to provide adequate “resources”, as well as “instructional deficiencies”. 

Read the full statement here:

Statement from the National Centre of Religious Education for Wales (NCREW) regarding the Estyn Report (11/02/26)

As the national body supporting high-quality Religious Studies and Religion, Values and Ethics, the National Centre of Religious Education for Wales expresses serious concern regarding several of Estyn’s findings published on 11th February 2026, ‘Developing the Humanities area of learning and experience (AoLE)’, especially in relation to Religion, Values and Ethics.

In the primary phase, Estyn’s findings present a clear and troubling picture, with inspectors reporting that planning for RVE remains underdeveloped, noting that: ‘In a majority of schools, the planning for RVE was at an early stage of development. Schools generally allocated little time to RVE within the school’s humanities curriculum’ (page 4). This reflects more than variation in practice; it signals a persistent marginalisation of a statutory subject. Limited curriculum time inevitably restricts the depth, coherence, and disciplinary integrity that learners are entitled to experience.

Inspectors further observe that learners are not being supported to engage meaningfully with complexity. Estyn highlights how learners did not have enough opportunities to consider the world through the RVE disciplinary lens and its sub lenses (including, for instance, conceptual, contextual, or ethical perspectives) (page 4). This is a fundamental issue, as RVE is a distinct academic discipline, not simply an area of thematic exploration. Where disciplinary approaches are weak, learners are denied the analytical, interpretive, and critical capacities that the subject is designed to cultivate.

Estyn’s conclusion that this situation, in some cases, ‘promoted a superficial view of religion and spiritual aspects’ (page 4) must be taken seriously. Superficial engagement with belief, values, identity, and meaning does not prepare learners to understand the lived realities of religion and non-religious philosophical convictions in contemporary Wales. By this, we refer to approaches that, often due to time or curriculum pressures, simplify complex traditions into brief summaries. For example, religious festivals may be presented as uniform events without exploring diversity across communities and lived experience, or religions may be described as internally consistent and unchanging rather than historically dynamic and contested. In such cases, learners encounter ‘religion’ as a set of facts to recall rather than as embodied and evolving ways of making meaning.

In the secondary phase, the concerns shift from curriculum structure to learner experience and intellectual depth. Estyn reports that learners were given few opportunities to deepen their understanding of religious and non-religious philosophical convictions. This finding raises profound educational implications, for without sustained opportunities for depth, learners develop fragmented and overly simplistic understandings of complex worldviews.

Inspectors also identify a concerning narrowing of perspectives by referring to ‘a lack of opportunity to consider a wide range of religious and non-religious views on complex topics and engage with the sub lenses noted in the RVE curriculum guidance’ (page 5). In a diverse and pluralistic society, this limitation is educationally indefensible. High quality RVE must enable learners to encounter complexity, difference, and disagreement in ways that develop critical thinking, dialogue, and informed reflection.

These findings published by Estyn in relation to both phases point to systemic pressures, including uneven access to professional learning, evolving curriculum guidance, variable leadership confidence in Religion, Values and Ethics, and the structural complexities of delivering RVE within the Humanities Area of Learning and Experience. They mirror patterns previously identified in the National Centre of Religious Education for Wales’ 2024 report, which highlighted the continued underrepresentation and insufficient development of RVE across the Humanities Area of Learning and Experience. The persistence of these issues underscores the presence of systemic weaknesses that require decisive and sustained action.

RVE must be recognised as intellectually rigorous, educationally essential, and socially vital. Strengthening provision is not simply about curriculum compliance. It is central to the purposes of the Curriculum for Wales and to the development of learners who can engage thoughtfully with identity, meaning, values, and diversity.

The National Centre of Religious Education for Wales calls for urgent and sustained attention to RVE across the education system. This requires appropriate curriculum time, secure disciplinary approaches, meaningful professional learning, and leadership that recognises the subject’s academic and civic significance.

The evidence is clear. These findings highlight systemic pressures that require coordinated action from Welsh Government, local authorities, regional consortia, school leaders, and teacher education providers to strengthen professional learning, clarify curriculum guidance, and secure confident leadership for Religion, Values and Ethics within the Humanities Area of Learning and Experience. The need for action is immediate.

The Directors of the National Centre of Religious Education for Wales are Professor Lucy Huskinson, Dr Joshua Andrews, and Dr Gareth Evans-Jones