TEACHERS are implanting “unhelpful misconceptions” about religion and are failing to prepare pupils for a multi-religious and multi-secular society, a new Ofsted report on religious education says.

The report, a review of literature related to RE, highlights “chronic and intractable problems with school-level provision”. Its 2013 report concluded that many pupils were leaving school with “scant subject knowledge in RE”. It identified low standards, weak teaching and leadership, curriculum problems, a confused sense of purpose about what religious education was about, training gaps, and weaknesses in the way RE was examined (News, 11 October 2013). These concerns are reiterated in the report published on Wednesday.