Religious Education Teacher CV Examples & Writing Guide

One page, written for the headteacher of a Catholic school who also needs the parish's catechesis programme covered. The name and schools are invented. The class sizes, programme numbers and assessment results are the kind of detail that sits in your own mark book and programme records.

Religious education is taught in settings that hire on different criteria. Work out which one you are applying to before you write, because the reader's first question changes.

A third setting has grown quickly: private and online tutoring, especially one-to-one Quran and Hebrew teaching across time zones. That CV looks different again, and it is covered further down the page.

• Safeguarding. An enhanced DBS check and safeguarding training. A school or programme cannot put you in a room with children without them, and requirements differ by diocese, school and organisation, so state your current status and the year.
• Ages and numbers taught. Year groups, classes, pupils per class, programme enrolment. A CV without them reads as untested.
• Qualifications in the right order: QTS first for a school role, then any certificate your tradition uses, then degrees.
• Whether you can teach a second subject. Small faith schools frequently need RE plus history, English or maths, and a teacher who can cover two subjects is much easier to timetable. In secondary schools, GCSE Religious Studies experience matters too.
• Fit with the community. A short, sincere line about your own practice and involvement is expected here in a way it is not in other teaching jobs, and it is usually explored in the interview rather than on paper.
• Volunteer management, if the role touches a parish or weekend programme. Twenty volunteers is a staffing problem, not a footnote.

“Clearances, year groups and class sizes, then curriculum. That is the order. The applications that stand out say what they taught, how many students, and what happened to the students. Most of them tell me about a passion for faith formation and never mention a single class they ran.”

• QTS. State-funded faith schools want it for teaching posts, and some will take a trainee on a salaried school-led route. Write the year and your induction status. In England QTS is awarded by the Teaching Regulation Agency on behalf of the Department for Education; the other UK nations register teachers separately.
• Catholic certificates. Many dioceses in England and Wales run their own catechist formation courses, and teachers in Catholic schools often take the CCRS. Write the course, the diocese or provider and the year, and check what the diocese you are applying to expects.
• Islamic studies and Quran qualifications. Ijazah with the chain of transmission, hifz completion, tajweed study, Arabic proficiency level, and any degree in Islamic studies. Name your teacher or institution where that is the convention.
• Jewish studies qualifications. A degree or teaching certificate in Jewish education, semicha where relevant, Hebrew language level, and the community context you have taught in.
• Safeguarding: an enhanced DBS check (say if it is on the Update Service) and the safeguarding training your setting requires, such as KCSIE updates in a school or diocesan training in a parish. Say it is current, with the year.
• Ongoing formation and CPD: workshops, diocesan or RE conferences, GCSE Religious Studies exam board training. Two lines is enough, and recency matters more than volume.

Quran teaching is one of the most searched versions of this job, and it splits into full-time school posts, evening and weekend madrasah programmes and one-to-one online tutoring. The online market is competitive and the CV needs different evidence.

• Lead with your qualification in the terms the field uses: ijazah and the chain if you hold one, hifz completion, tajweed study, and where and with whom you studied.
• State your Arabic and English levels honestly, and any other language you can teach in. Many families choose a teacher on language as much as on credential.
• Give pupil numbers and outcomes: how many pupils you teach weekly, ages, and how many completed a target juz, finished memorisation or moved from reading to fluent recitation.
• For online work, name the platform, your weekly hours, the time zones you cover and your retention rate. Retention is the number tutoring companies buy.
• Show classroom skill for school posts: lesson planning, Islamic studies alongside Quran, behaviour management, assessment records and reports to parents.
• Include an enhanced DBS check and any safeguarding training. Schools and reputable online platforms both ask for them.

Almost everyone in this field starts as a volunteer, and programme leaders know it. The mistake is describing volunteer teaching as helping out instead of as teaching.

1. 1Write volunteer teaching as a job entry with a title, the organisation, dates and bullet points. Give the group size, the age group and the curriculum you used.
2. 2Finish the introductory course your setting offers before you apply. A diocesan catechist course, a teaching workshop series or a tajweed course all show intent and are usually inexpensive.
3. 3Get your DBS check and safeguarding training in place and say so, since a programme can take you on faster if the paperwork is already done.
4. 4Bring transferable classroom evidence: cover supervisor or teaching assistant work, tutoring, holiday club work, coaching, Scouts or Guides, youth group leadership.
5. 5Ask for a reference from the priest, imam, rabbi or leader who supervised you, and make sure they know to expect a call.
6. 6Say what hours you can work. Weekend and evening availability is what most supplementary programmes need most.

• One page for most roles, two once you have a decade of classroom teaching plus programme leadership. Two pages is normal in the UK.
• Single-column PDF, plain headings. No photo and no date of birth on a UK CV, even for a faith school.
• Put QTS, your DBS status and any certificates in a block near the top. It is the first practical question a headteacher has.
• Faith schools often ask for a supporting statement on the school's ethos, a reference from your priest, imam or rabbi, or their own application form. Prepare those separately and keep the CV factual.
• Larger trusts screen applications against the person specification, so mirror the advert's words: religious education, catechesis, Religious Education Directory, Islamic studies, Jewish studies, sacramental preparation, GCSE Religious Studies.
• If you have taught in another country, name the equivalent UK year groups so a headteacher can place your experience instantly.