The RE Council works to strengthen provision for religious education in schools in England and Wales. The state of RE in schools is a matter of some concern, with many classes taught by non-specialist teachers with inadequate time, training and support.
To address this situation, the RE Council has organised a parliamentary Round Table event on 1st March, aimed at Members of Parliament, to increase their engagement in supporting RE.
The RE Council is now asking all member organisations to help promote a letter-writing campaign to encourage local MPs to attend the event.
Government support for improvements to RE education is urgently needed. Please write to your MP and encourage your colleagues to do the same!
Below is the advice published by the RE Council, explaining what they would like everyone to do. Here is a standard letter REPU members template letter v2 (2) that you can complete and send to your MP.
Instructions from the RE Council:
· Write in a personal capacity to your local MP, making it clear that you are one of their constituents. You can find out who your local MP is, and where to contact them, here: https://members.
· Please use the attached letter REPU members template letter v2 (2) as a template (it has the details of the event and how the MP can register). Feel free to personalise it, mentioning why this issue is important to residents in your constituency.
· Please share this letter within your organisation and ask colleagues and contacts to write to their own MPs as well.
You can, of course, make approaches to MP’s on behalf of your organisation, too. This can be effective if you already have a relationship/engagement with that MP, but only do this after you have written to your own local MP – a personal contact from a constituent is much harder for an MP to ignore!
Once you have written to them – please let us know. Drop an email to sebastian@
Many thanks for playing your part in engaging more MPs to support Religious Education.