With government targets for recruiting RE teachers being missed in eleven of the last twelve years, the Religious Education Council of England and Wales and the National Association for Teachers of RE wrote last month to Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson to call for a national plan to prioritise RE and provide sufficient resources.

RE teacher Andy Lewis, deputy head at St Bonaventure's secondary school in east London, pointed out that the national shortage of RE teachers includes Catholic schools. He underlined the need for greater government support to recruit specialist RE teachers.

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The Religious Education Council of England and Wales (REC) and the National Association for Teachers of RE (NATRE) are calling for a "fairer allocation of resources to the subject" and the recruitment of more RE teachers.

The number of RE teachers nationwide has stalled at around 16,200 since 2011.

Deborah Weston OBE, Chair of the RE Policy Unit, said: "Poor quality, tokenistic RE taught by non-specialists without subject training has a knock-on effect on not just our communities, but the depth and quality of a young person's education."

News of the campaign came as Catholic state and independent schools across the UK announced "excellent" GCSE results.

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