The purpose of this new edition of the Religious Education Curriculum Directory (3-19) is to provide guidance for the Religious Education classroom curriculum in Catholic schools (including nurseries, academies and sixth form colleges). Following the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992), the Bishops of England and Wales published the Religious Education Curriculum Directory for Catholic Schools (1996) to ensure that teaching and learning in our schools truly reflected the vision and breadth of the teaching of the Church outlined in the Catechism. This revised Directory is published so that religious educators can continue to meet the needs of the pupils of our time. 

The Religious Education Curriculum Directory (3-19) has been prepared by the Department for Catholic Education and Formation of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, working with senior diocesan Religious Education Advisors, at the request of Bishop Malcolm McMahon OP the Department Chairman. It is intended to provide a overview of the content of Catholic Religious Education, enabling teachers and those producing Religious Education resources to prepare more detailed programmes and/or schemes of work. It is for the local ordinary to indicate the precise manner in which this Directory is to be used and determine the resources used in schools. Diocesan officers will continue, through support for teachers and in-service provision, to encourage collaboration and development in the work of Catholic Education.

In his preface, Bishop McMahon writes: ‘I hope and pray that this new edition of the Religious Education Curriculum Directory will help us to ... place religious education at the very heart of the curriculum of our schools, where it rightly belongs. It will help parents, priests and teachers to hand on the Deposit of Faith in its fullness to a new generation of young people so that they may come to understand the richness of the Catholic faith, and thereby be drawn into a deeper communion with Christ in his Church.’

The Religious Education Curriculum Directory (3-19) is available for download here and available to order here.

ENDS