The REC works with and through its member bodies to champion RE. The REC board meets four times per year. Board members are elected or co-opted primarily to set the strategic direction of the Council which in turn serves religious education in schools, colleges and universities. The Board works to a strategic plan which is implemented by four committees: the PR group, Education Committee, Governance Committee and Finance and Fundraising Committee. Individually, the Board are members of one of the REC’s member organisations but they serve as independent Trustees of the Council. Board members (normally identified publicly as ‘trustees’ of the charity, rather than as ‘directors’ of the company) are elected to exercise judgement on behalf of the REC, and not as delegates of the particular member organisation to which they belong.
REC procedure for appointments and elections
- Periodically and when needed, information is circulated to member organisations about forthcoming vacancies for volunteers to put themselves forward in relation to officer posts, elections to the Board and committee vacancies.
- Information about the role is provided e.g. for committees, the frequency and nature of meetings, expectations about ways of working and level of commitment etc (this kind of information is already supplied as part of the process for Board elections). This should include a clarification that people would take on such roles in a personal capacity not to represent an organisation.
- Interested people are asked to let the REC Board know in less than 200 words what they can offer. This may be general or specific, depending on whether or not they are expressing an interest in a particular role. A cut off date is agreed.
- Elections take place at the AGM, usually in May.
- For committees, the Board registers people’s interest and gets back to those who have put their names forward. The Board decides on appointments with due regard to balance, size/cost effectiveness and efficiency of groups. If there are too many offers and the Board is unable to deploy all volunteers, it can keep their names on a list for future possibilities.
Trevor Cooling (Chair)
Trevor was elected Chair of the RE Council in 2015 and is Professor of Christian Education at Canterbury Christ Church University. That means his research and teaching has a particular focus on church schools. Previously, Trevor has worked as a secondary school teacher, a university theology lecturer, a diocesan adviser and CEO of a Christian Education charity. He has a PhD in Religious Education from the University of Birmingham and extensive experience of CPD, research and policy work in RE. Along with his wife Margaret he developed the Concept Cracking approach to teaching Christianity in RE.”
Dave Francis (Deputy Chair)
Dave is Associate Adviser for Bath & North East Somerset SACRE, former Chair of the Association of Religious Education Inspectors, Advisers and Consultants (AREIAC) and Lead Consultant for RE:ONLINE. Previously he was a teacher of RE for 14 years, including ten as Head of a Department of Religion, Philosophy and Social Education. He retrained as a primary teacher in 1996 and continues to offer a range of continuing professional development training events in RE, citizenship and spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.
Rosemary Rivett (Treasurer)
Rosemary has had a formal association with the REC since 2006, serving as Board member and/or committee member since that time. She is also a former Treasurer. Before retiring in December 2013, Rosemary was RE Adviser and Director of Education at RE Today Services, and Executive Officer of NATRE (National Association of Teachers of RE). These roles involved working with SACREs, training teachers and managing both small and large-scale grant-funded projects, as well as leading teams of people including teachers. Rosemary is a secondary specialist and taught Religious Studies for 25 years in a variety of schools in the Midlands and North West.
Deborah Weston (Company Secretary)
Deborah is an experienced teacher and trainer who worked in a large inner city comprehensive school as Director of Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural Development and previously as Head of Religious Studies. Deborah advises four local authorities on a regular basis; supporting their SACREs, classroom practitioners as well as middle and senior leaders. She is a member of the national executive of NATRE (the National Association of Teachers of RE) and the Chair of the RE Policy Unit for NATRE, the REC and RE Today. She was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s birthday honours list of 2016 for services to Religious Education.
Aliya Azam
Aliya Azam MBE is a member of the Education Committee at Al Sadiq and Al Zahra Schools founded by the Khoei Foundation for the past 24 years. She is an interfaith co-ordinator for the Al Khoei Foundation. She works with the FA’s Faith in Football education programme to ensure that the FA’s strategic goal of ‘Football for Everyone’ is promoted on the ground within faith-based communities and to prevent Islamophobia and Antisemitism. Aliya is a Shia co-president for the Christian Muslim Forum. She was first elected to the REC Board in 2012.
Ed Pawson
Ed spent 23 years as a secondary RE teacher, 16 of these years as subject leader in a highly successful RE department. He currently works as the adviser to Devon and Torbay SACREs and as an educational adviser for the Diocese of Exeter. He is the former chair of the National Association of Teachers of RE (NATRE), a member of the Board of the Religious Education Council (REC) and Project Director for the Learn, Teach, Lead RE programme in West of England. He is passionate about the way in which RE can offer young people a unique opportunity to develop skills such as critical evaluation and dialogue. He believes that, at its best, religious education enables young people become more inquisitive, reflective and engaged learners.
Philip Robinson
Philip is the Religious Education Adviser to the Catholic Education Service, which acts on behalf of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference to promote and sustain Catholic education in the 2,209 Catholic schools in England and Wales. Before that he was the Religious Education adviser for the Catholic diocese of Hexham and Newcastle. Prior to both of these advisory roles he was a teacher of Religious Education for fourteen years, including five years leading the RE department of an inner-city Catholic comprehensive school. In addition to his professional commitments, Philip is also currently in the fourth year of his doctoral studies, focusing on the relationship between Religious Education in schools and the impact this has on attitudes to religious diversity in adulthood.
Kathryn Wright
After teaching in East London secondary schools for a number of years, Kathryn became an RE adviser to the London Borough of Newham until 2005. She subsequently spent 14 years as an independent consultant working with a range of organisations including the Diocese of Norwich, the Church of England and Culham St Gabriel’s Trust. In May 2019, she became the Chief Executive of Culham St Gabriel’s Trust. She is a co-opted member of the NATRE executive and chairs the RE Council’s Education Committee. In 2017 she completed her PhD examining the purpose of RE related pedagogy in Church of England schools.
Derek Holloway:
As a teacher Derek has over 15 years of classroom experience working as an RE teacher in maintained schools in Essex and Wiltshire. He worked for the Salisbury Diocese as an RE Adviser and as an Adviser to Dorset SACRE leading the development of two agreed syllabuses. He is currently the School Character and SIAMS Development Manager for the Church of England Education Office: a post that includes overseeing the managing of the Understanding Christianity Project and the recent review of the SIAMS inspection framework. He is an experienced SIAMS inspector and was part of the ‘Making the Difference?’ report team. He is a member of the AREIAC executive
