In a significant milestone for religious education, Understanding Faith, an online platform developed by St Agnes’ Catholic Parish in Port Macquarie, has secured a contract with Brisbane Catholic Education (BCE) to provide resources for schools in the Brisbane Diocese from 2025.
Launched in the 1990s and moving online in 2006, Understanding Faith has become a leader in the Australian religious education market, now serving over 45% of Catholic schools nationwide. This new partnership marks a major achievement as BCE has chosen the platform to support their 424 primary and 234 secondary schools starting next year.
Jacob Soerensen, Manager of Understanding Faith, expressed his excitement at the news. “We are thrilled that our platform will be used by Catholic schools in the Brisbane Diocese. After six months of thorough planning and a successful pilot program, we are confident that Understanding Faith will help streamline the teaching and learning of religious education for teachers and students alike,” said Mr. Soerensen.
The success of the pilot program was built on Understanding Faith’s commitment to tailoring its resources to meet specific educational needs. Through close collaboration, the team worked quickly to map BCE's curriculum to the platform’s content. "For Brisbane, we developed a custom filter that allows teachers to easily navigate our resources based on course, strand, and unit codes. This feature will save valuable time for teachers," added Mr. Soerensen.
Sharon O’Keefe, Head of Catholic Identity at BCE, praised the Understanding Faith team for their dedication. "From the outset, the Understanding Faith team was proactive in understanding the unique needs of our teachers and schools. The pilot was a great success, and with overwhelmingly positive feedback from teachers, it was an easy decision to award the contract," Ms. O’Keefe remarked.
Understanding Faith is renowned for its multimedia approach, offering interactive activities, videos, slideshows, and podcasts that align with religious educational curricula. Its content is doctrinally accurate and fosters spiritual growth in students, making it an invaluable resource for religious education teachers across the country. In addition to the platform, Understanding Faith provides instructional videos, helpful resource lists, and blogs on current events and good news stories within the Catholic community.
With this new partnership, Understanding Faith is poised to further expand its reach and continue its mission of supporting Catholic education with innovative, accessible, and faith-centred resources.
St Agnes’ Catholic Parish acknowledges the Birpai people as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we live, work, and serve. We acknowledge their deep connection to this land, its waters, skies, and stories, nurtured with wisdom, care, and resilience for countless generations. We pay our respects to Elders past, present, and emerging and extend this respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
