To provide Special Religious Education, a religious group must meet NSW Department of Education requirements and be approved by the Minister for Education.
Denominations who are successful in their application are known as “Approved Providers of SRE”.
An up-to-date list of Approved Providers of SRE can be found here.
The Anglican Diocese of Sydney is the Approved Provider for Anglican SRE in greater Sydney and the Illawarra. Anglican Youthworks coordinates the Authorised Curriculum and SRE Teacher accreditation, training and compliance for the diocese.
Denominations can choose to have a cooperative arrangement to deliver SRE in a school, whereby children from a number of denominations will be taught by a suitable representative of the denominations. Such may be the case, for example, in schools where ‘Combined Christian’ SRE is offered as a combination of Anglican, Baptist or Presbyterian faiths.
In these cases, participating clergy should agree on the curriculum that will be used, authorise appropriately trained teachers, and jointly notify the school, in writing, of the arrangement.
We would often talk about (our religious beliefs) with friends from different groups. We would be challenged to consider what is being told in "places of worship" versus our actual encounters of what it means to believe particular things in our schools and in our community ... thus the designated SRE time taught both intrinsic motivation to learn about yourself, and gave voice to students who would want to question the theologies they have grown up with.Matthew