This paper investigates the influence of a professional Religious Education (RE) conference on a small group of English Primary teachers' emerging identities as teacher-researchers. It is framed by analysis of agency as a means of examining how teachers can become capable producers of knowledge as active partners in dialogue with critical others. The paper argues that attending the conference played a role in increasing teachers' professional identify and agency because it provided a novel context of action in teachers' professional lives. Teachers were made aware of a much broader professional community to which they had legitimate membership where knowledge exchange and professional validation was intensified. The conference enabled reflexive thinking that disrupted teachers' 'taken for granted' habits and beliefs by offering new ways of seeing, being and acting, and in which they could forecast teacherresearch as a feasible, relevant and purposeful aspect of their professional lives.

This study of nine Primary School teachers of Religious Education (RE) analyses the benefits of their engagement in practitioner research (PR) and shows how that engagement can be sustained. We demonstrate the importance of enhancing the social dimension of learning through forming a community-of-practice (CoP) that enables participants to gain confidence and engage in democratic dialogue. The CoP in our project was sustained because teachers built trust with each other, were willing to talk openly about their practices and, through their common commitment to RE, contributed to the knowledge base of teaching. We conclude that engaging teachers in PR can create positive changes for schools because knowledge, interrogated by critical reflection, will be rooted in teachers' professional understanding of the processes of teaching and learning. Further, that communities-of-practice, as social learning environments, assist in sustaining teachers' engagement in PR by creating opportunities for teachers' collaborative critical reflection on their taken-for-granted professional practices.

This paper responds to the Commission on Religious Education’s proposed National Entitlement to Religion and Worldviews in England and Wales. Qualitative data were collected from nine English primary Religious Education (RE) teachers to establish their responses to the proposed National Entitlement from their perspectives as RE practitioners. Findings show that teachers were supportive of the high ambitions the National Entitlement has for RE, that they saw opportunities for pupils’ social and personal development as well as advancement in substantive knowledge, but that they were concerned about content-heavy curricula and structural barriers to implementing the National Entitlement. In response, the paper examines ‘cumulatively sufficient’ curricular design and ‘pedagogical reduction’ as strategies to activate the National Entitlement, and raises questions about ‘instrumental purposes’ in the conceptualisation of Religion and Worldviews. The paper recommends sharper account of the originality of Religions and Worldviews in order to advance the cause of the National Entitlement.

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