Religious Education
Intent
At St. Swithun’s CofE Primary School we understand the value and importance of Religious Education to both pupils’ academic and personal development. It plays a key role in living out our school values of kindness, respect and perseverance as it promotes and celebrates empathy and the understanding of diversity both within our school and the wider community. It is our role to give pupils a coherent picture of Christianity and other worldviews so that they can ask questions and understand the beliefs and values of both themselves and others.
We intend to deliver an R.E. curriculum that:
· Celebrates the diverse and rich community at St. Swithun’s CofE Primary School.
· Begins with their personal experiences and both builds on and revisits prior learning to embed new learning, allowing children to make links and remember more.
· Develops curiosity and equips them for future learning about, as well as enabling them to make sense of, the complex world of religious and non-religious worldviews.
· Is inclusive, celebrates diversity and encourages understanding, empathy and tolerance.
· Promotes equality and understanding of British values and ensures they are prepared for life in modern Britain.
· Embraces the community in which it is situated, inviting volunteers from different world religions in to speak about their faith and taking children to local places of worship including churches, mosques, cathedrals and temples.
Implementation
At St. Swithun's, we follow the locally agreed syllabus through the Diocesan scheme of work which incorporates units from Understanding Christianity materials. Each year group has three units focused on Christianity, two focused on a second worldview and a philosophy unit that gives the opportunity to teachers to revisit learning about a range of worldviews, including Christianity. It is during the philosophy unit that children have the opportunity to explore non-religious worldviews.
During Key Stage 1 the children focus on Judaism, in years 3 and 5 they learn about Islam and in years 4 and 6 it is Hinduism. Our school community is made up of other religions which we celebrate and learn about during assemblies, with visitors and from our pupils. We understand the power of learning from people of faith and each year group either visits a place of worship or has a visitor come to share their experiences and world views with them.
Our RE curriculum is driven by three core strands: Theology (beliefs and questions), Human and Social Science (community and identity) and Philosophy (what is a worldview and how do people reach them). These strands create connections between substantive and the disciplinary knowledge, and the units include opportunities for the development of personal knowledge. The children start from their own experience to ensure understanding of the concept being studied then move into investigating that concept in depth from the point of view of the chosen religion.
Impact
The impact of our RE curriculum is monitored through pupil voice surveys, book looks and teacher assessments.
By the time children leave St. Swithun’s CofE Primary School they will:
- be able to give an age-appropriate, coherent account of Christianity and the other worldviews covered.
- have developed curiosity about how and why people think and act.
- they will know that there is more to learn about religious and non religious worldviews and have developed the skills to continue this learning.
- understand that there are different ways of interpreting texts and that different people reach different conclusions about what is true, good, right and wrong.
