The RE Curriculum at Woolaston Primary

Intent

The principal aim of religious education is to explore what people believe and what difference this makes to how they live, so that pupils can gain the knowledge, understanding and skills needed to handle questions raised by religion and belief, reflecting on their own ideas and ways of living and relating these ideas to our school values. Through Religious Education we want them to:

• develop their knowledge of world faiths, and their understanding and awareness of the beliefs and traditions of other individuals, societies, communities and cultures supporting them to be globally aware.  
• understand the impact of these beliefs in people’s lives
• appreciate the way that beliefs, values and traditions shape life and our behaviour
• develop the ability to make reasoned and informed judgements about religious and moral issues
• widen and deepen the vocabulary they use
• enhance their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.
• become resilient individuals, willing to embrace new learning as they grow.

We believe that it is vital for all our pupils to learn from and about religion, so that they can understand the world around them. We encourage our pupils to learn values and morals that will support them to be respectful members of society who embrace diverse cultures.

Implementation

We want our lessons to be informative, engaging and challenging, allowing children to gain a developing understanding of the range of religious and non-religious world views studied, over a period of time. We encourage our pupils to ask questions about the world and to reflect on their own beliefs, values and experiences. A valuable way to build understanding is through using the key words of religions and religious study so we ensure specialist vocabulary is explicitly taught and used. We ensure coherence and progression by using the Gloucestershire Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education 2017-2022 as the basis of our medium-term planning. This is structured around big questions and takes account of the following core concepts for R.E

• Making sense of beliefs
• Understanding the impact
• Making connections

We make the RE curriculum engaging and inspiring to ensure all of our children reach their potential. We do this by:

• Providing a range of different discussion-based lessons so children can ask questions and reflect
• Ensuring a range of different outcomes including artwork, drama and written pieces.
• Using our wider community to support the teaching of Religious Education.

We have regular visits to the local church, as well as them coming to visit us to deliver our ‘Open the Book’ assemblies and, we liaise with parents who have different religious beliefs and welcome visitors from a broad range of faiths. There are no presumptions made as to the religious backgrounds and beliefs and values of the children and the staff. We value the religious background of all members of the school community and hope that this will encourage individuals to share their own experiences with others freely. All religions and their communities are treated with respect and sensitivity and we value the links, which are, and can be made between home, school, and a faith community.

Impact

Through their R.E. learning, children are able to make links between their own lives and those of others in their community and in the wider world. R.E. offers our children the means by which to understand how other people choose to live and to understand why they choose to live in that way. They develop an understanding of other people’s cultures and ways of life, which they are then able to communicate to the wider community. Informed dialogue is vital and R.E. promotes dialogue based on mutual respect and understanding, listening to each other’s views without denying differences, and being able to explore disagreements with evidence and argument. As such, R.E. is invaluable in an ever-changing world and links closely with social aspects of learning, science and geography.

Children's progress can be seen in what they say and do.  High quality examples of some of these outcomes are recorded and displayed in class RE books.  The Gloucestershire Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education is high quality, well thought-out and planned to demonstrate progression. If children are keeping up with the curriculum, they are deemed to be making good progress. In addition, we measure the impact of our RE lessons through identified activities within the teaching sequence, observing pupils as they work and interact, setting tasks that require specific skills and evaluating completed work after a lesson.