Awareness Mystery Value (AMV) - the Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education

This is the main support site for RE Subject Leaders, Teachers of RE, Senior Leaders and Governors in Bath & North East Somerset community and voluntary controlled schools. Church of England voluntary aided schools also follow the syllabus, with additional guidance from the Diocese of Bath & Wells. Roman Catholic schools use the syllabus where they find it to be a helpful resource.

The newly updated website for 2022 includes: Legal requirements for RE; Statutory Programmes of Study; Exemplar schemes of learning; Assessment standards and exemplars; Guidance on planning, pedagogy and self-evaluation as well as on arranging visits and visitors; Advice on websites and other resources to support RE; and how to link AMV with published schemes such as ‘Understanding Christianity’.

Information about continuing professional development (CPD) taking place in the AMV area is also published on the site as well as contact details for RE advisers in the AMV local authorities: Bath & North East Somerset, Bristol, the London Borough of Haringey and North Somerset.

Religions / Worldviews in the AMV Syllabus

Awareness, Mystery and Value describes the requirement to study religions / worldviews other than Christianity, and includes sections on Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism. These 5 religions and Christianity are to be studied in accord with the balance indicated for each Key Stage. In addition, a non-religious worldview such as Humanism must be included for Key Stages 3 and 4. This still leaves several Learning Opportunities at each Key Stage which could be used to study religions other than these; this may be especially relevant if students include members of such religions. B&NES SACRE has now agreed to include the Bahá'í Faith as an optional, additional religion which could be studied in appropriate parts of the syllabus. 

New Bahá’í RE website
This new website aims to provide good quality and engaging materials to help teachers of RE explore the Bahá’í Faith with pupils across the primary and secondary age ranges.
 The site provides basic information as well as freely downloadable presentations, lesson plans and schemes, ideas for activities, and links to other online resources.
 Another aim of the Bahá’í RE website is to put teachers in contact with local Bahá’ís, who are happy to be invited to come into school and lead assemblies or participate in the classroom.
 
Follow this link to access the Bahá’í RE website (or at http://re.bahai.org.uk/). If you have any queries or would like to provide feedback or suggestions for improvement, please e-mail the Bahá’í RE team at opa-re@bahai.org.uk or use the contact page on the site.

Full Details of the Bahá'í Syllabus >>

With effect from 31 March 2024, the SACRE collection of RE Artefacts is no longer available for loan. Thank you to all those teachers and schools who showed interest in the collection over the years, and we greatly appreciate the efforts of Rob Jenkins and Saltford Primary School for the maintenance and administration of the materials over the years.

Here are some reports from schools that have conducted visits to places of worship, or received visits from representatives of religions or beliefs.
Read the reports here>>

See our list of groups who will organise a visitor to come to your school be pre-arrangement

The Following Places of Worship Welcome Visitors by Pre-arrangement. See our list here >>

Code of Conduct for Faith and Belief Representatives, Visits and Visitors >>

Some History

RE, originally called Religious Instruction in the 1944 Education Act, though it was a school subject long before then, used also to be known as Religious Knowledge (RK), Scripture or Divinity. It is now universally known as RE in Primary schools and as RE, Religious Studies (RS) and sometimes Religion and Philosophy (R&P) in Secondary schools. GCSE, AS and A2 exams are called Religious Studies.

The Education Act (1996)
Requires:

RE to be taught to all pupils in full time education in Local Authority (LA) and Church Voluntary Controlled Schools. This includes children in Reception classes, post 16 students and pupils with Special Educational needs.

RE to be taught according to the LA agreed syllabus (Awareness Mystery and Value in B&NES) in all community and voluntary controlled schools.

RE to play its full part along with other subjects and parts of school life and with collective worship in “providing the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils”.

The agreed syllabus to reflect the fact that the religious traditions in Great Britain are in the main Christian whilst taking account of the teaching and practises of the other principal religions represented in the UK.

Parents’ Rights
The parents of any child have the legal right to withdraw their child from RE teaching in a school (as they may do from sex and relationships education or collective worship). This is usually done after consultation with the Headteacher of the school.

Church Schools
Church of England Aided Schools in B&NES are also encouraged by the Diocese of Bath and Wells to use the agreed syllabus, Awareness Mystery and Value, with a few additional requirements because of their special status as aided schools.
Roman Catholic schools in B&NES, all of which are aided, are required by the Diocese of Clifton to follow a Catholic syllabus both at Secondary and Primary level.

Academies
Academies must also provide RE in line with the requirements of the 1996 Act and most will continue to use the locally agreed syllabus.

See also the Legal Situation for Collective Worship >>