Rationale

As a school, we believe that it is key for all children to learn about a range of faiths in order to develop worldly knowledge by being compassionate listeners.  This learning will give our children a firm foundation upon which to appreciate differences in beliefs and worldviews, which is strongly linked to one of our school drivers - Tolerance. 

We recognise the place that RE occupies as part of a broad and balanced curriculum and its foundation in a strong and inclusive community. We also recognise the variety of religious and non-religious backgrounds that make up our school community and embrace this variety.  We actively seek to promote key British Values and see RE as one curriculum area in which our pupils can encounter and critically reflect on a range of worldviews and beliefs with positivity and tolerance, in order to challenge prejudice and counter racism through accurate knowledge.

We deliver a well-planned, progressive RE curriculum which helps our children to understand both the religious diversity of our local area and those religions that they may have not encountered in their day to day lives. Our creative teaching in Religious Education allows children to express their thoughts and opinions in a variety of ways to ensure every child has the opportunity to achieve and ask ‘ultimate’ questions.

Aims:

The RE curriculum is founded on the concepts of believing, living and thinking which are central to the disciplinary approach of the Local Authority Syllabus (LAS) which is our foundation document.

• Our spiral curriculum is progressive in skills and knowledge (including key vocabulary and concept maps) which is subsequently built upon through topics and year groups in our two year cycle for each phase. This approach allows connections to be made throughout the passage of time within the long term memory.
• Key areas of learning are revisited regularly and links are made within and between topics which supports our children’s learning through spaced repetition.  Assessment is used to inform future lessons in the learning sequence so that children can gather a broad and deep understanding of the topic.
• Carefully planned key questions enable all groups of learners to be supported and challenged at the appropriate level without placing limits on children’s learning.
• Where possible, enrichment opportunities are used to help support the learning of key aspects, for example visits to local places of worship, texts, music, artefacts and visitors to create a rich and immersive environment.

Our hope is that the children of Westcliffe Primary School will leave us with a good knowledge and understanding of religion and the diversity of worldviews.  We are also hopeful that by the end of their primary education, children will become more confident within themselves to ask questions, hold religiously literate conversations and offer personal reflections.  By understanding people and their unique perspective on the world and valuing this as a vital skill, we believe good RE plays an important role creating a more cohesive society and preparing our children for later life.

How the subject is taught:

RE is taught in units, in conjunction with the LAS long term plan.  All four compulsory units: God, Being Human, Community and Life Journey are taught at each key stage for the religions being taught (Islam and Christianity at KS1 and Islam, Hinduism and Christianity at KS2.)  At least two additional units are also taught at KS1 and at least four additional units are taught at KS2. Teachers may choose to block the teaching of RE or to teach lessons weekly depending on which approach fits best.

If you walk into an RE lesson you will see:

• A tolerant and inquisitive attitude towards the learning of all religions being taught
• Key vocabulary being modelled by teachers and being used by children
• Prior learning being re-visited and built upon due to our spiral curriculum
• Key questions challenging learners to think deeply and hold open discussions with their peers
• Children accessing artefacts to enhance their learning such as religious texts, artefacts, music extracts and visitors

If you have any further questions about RE in our school, please contact Mrs Rachael Dixon.