RE
At Spring Hill Religious Education (RE)…. helps children develop beliefs and values, and promotes the virtues of respect and empathy in our diverse society.
Intent, implementation and impact of our (RE) Curriculum
Our RE Lead is Mrs Kershaw
Intent
Our RE curriculum is designed to engage and enthuse learners. We believe that it is an essential area of study which ensures that children are well prepared for life in a world where there are a multitude of viewpoints. We enable the children to make their own informed decisions and to have the confidence to voice their views. It is a subject for all pupils, whatever their own family background and personal beliefs and practices.
We aim to develop pupils’ understanding of world faiths and other beliefs by exploring their commonality and diversity. There is both depth and breadth of study. The RE curriculum is also about ‘belonging’. It aims to nurture pupils’ awareness of diversity as well as sensitivity to the questions and challenges that different views and cultures can present. We all share a common humanity and we share our view of the world with an understanding of others’ views.
We want our children to enjoy RE and develop resilient responses to misunderstandings, stereotyping and division. We want to offer the children a place where difficult or ‘risky’ questions can be tackled within a safe but challenging context. RE nurtures SMSC development and pupils’ understanding of diversity. The children discuss challenging questions about meaning and purpose in life, beliefs about God, ultimate reality, issues of right and wrong and what it means to be human. A holistic approach to Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural development (SMSC), British Values, and Community Cohesion focuses on preparing pupils for life in the 21st century.
We aim to provide our children with religious literacy where they will develop their knowledge and understanding of a range of religious traditions and world views and explore their responses to life's challenges. This gives pupils the knowledge and skills to flourish both within their own community and as members of a diverse and global society.
Implementation
Our curriculum follows the Lancashire Scheme of work. It is planned and sequenced to develop deep, lasting learning and builds upon prior knowledge, which our children can use today, tomorrow and for the rest of their lives.
During each Key Stage, pupils are taught knowledge, skills and understanding through learning about: festivals such as Christmas, Eid, Hanukah and Easter in EYFS; Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Christianity through KS1; adding Sikhism in KS2. Each unit of work identifies prior learning and shows how this is built upon.
RE is taught in a block unit within a term to allow suitable links to be made to specific religious festivals taking place or to link in with other topics being taught. Children gain a deeper understanding of the religion studied through the use of high quality resources/artefacts.
The following skills are used, in order to strengthen the skills and deepen the understanding and knowledge taught: investigating, reflecting, recalling and retelling, exploring, discussing and empathising. Children can discuss and compare the lives of people they have studied from a variety of different religions.
Attitudes which are fundamental to RE are: curiosity and wonder, commitment, fairness, respect, self- understanding, open-mindedness, critical mindedness and enquiry. These work alongside the SMSC links and British Values implemented within school as a whole.
Assemblies take place across the whole school and in classes; these are delivered by senior leaders, class teachers and visitors for local faith groups such as the Imam and Vicar.
Visits to places of worship, and visitors representing different religions provide a variety of first-hand experiences for our children, to spark their interest and relate new learning to their own experience.
Impact
Our RE curriculum is high quality, well thought out and is planned to demonstrate progression.
The children make progress by knowing more, remembering more and being able to do more. They need to transfer and embed threshold concepts into their long-term memory and apply them fluently.