ABSTRACT
The Education Reform Act 1988 (ERA) states the requirement of schools to provide a ‘balanced and broadly based curriculum which promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of the pupil’ (ERA Sect. 1 (2a)). Although religious education does not appear in the National Curriculum, it is nevertheless a requirement that schools provide an ‘act of collective worship’ and, unless parents apply for their children to be excused, this should be for all pupils. Religious education continues to be a statutory part of the curriculum as required by the 1944 Education Act (HMSO: 2003).
