Religious Education (RE)

“RE is like an iceberg. As you unpack ideas, you come to understand deeper meaning.”

 

- Mary Myatt

Intent

Robust links are made with our school vision and values of ‘Love, Service and Equality’ which is underpinned by the bible verse: ‘In Christ, we form one body and every member belongs to all the others’ Roman, 12:5. This is the notion that we are all members of each other, connected to each other with the purpose of serving each other. We use our RE teaching and learning as a unique and crucial opportunity to further live our vision, and teach and instil our values in our children.

At St Michael’s C of E Primary School, the aim of Religious Education is to help children to acquire and develop knowledge and understanding of Christianity and the other principal religions represented in Great Britain. We aim to understand the way that religious beliefs shape our lives and our behaviour, develop the ability to make reasoned and informed judgements about religious and moral issues and enhance our spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. 

It is our intent for the Religious Education curriculum to be equally ambitious for every child in order to engage, inspire, challenge and encourage pupils, equipping them with the knowledge and skills to answer challenging questions, explore different religious beliefs, values and traditions and develop understanding of the numerous religious traditions, beliefs and practices that are followed in our multi-cultural society.

Implementation

Religious Education is a statutory subject of the curriculum for all pupils in each year group and ‘should be provided for all registered pupils except those [in nursery] withdrawn at the request of their parents.’ We ensure that we comply with the legal requirements by following the NATRE-approved, RE Today Primary RE Curriculum with a syllabus designed and adapted specifically for the Acorn Education Trust.

Religious Education is taught on a weekly basis but is sometimes delivered through a class or whole school RE day. As a church school, we believe that RE is a core subject and is taught by the class teacher or the school’s HLTA as it is important that the whole school community values it as such. The curriculum has been developed to ensure progression in knowledge, skills and vocabulary whilst also contributing to children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.

At St Michael’s C of E Primary School, we teach RE for at least an hour a week in all year groups. This is supplemented by additional opportunities for retrieval and reflection, including visits, experiences and links to Collective Worship.

Impact

The children at St Michael’s C of E Primary School enjoy learning about other religions and why people choose, or choose not, to follow a religion. Through their R.E. learning, the children are able to make links between their own lives and those of others in their community and in the wider world.

We plan for pupils to make progress across all aims of RE by following our progressive syllabus. The built-in progression in knowledge, skills and vocabulary, ensures that we can fulfil our aims and that children make the expected progress throughout their time at our school.

Throughout a unit, learning is monitored closely and adaptations are made by using retrieval quizzes at the start of each lesson and key questions/points of reflection at the end. Children receive feedback on their learning, to support them to make improvements.

Each enquiry is also formally assessed at the end of the unit. Children complete an individual assessment task, from our agreed syllabus, to identify the knowledge, skills and vocabulary that they can remember and, of course, their ability and confidence to answer the key enquiry question.

Right of withdrawal

Pupils’ families and faith communities have the right to encourage religious nurture of the children, fostering their faith. It is the responsibility of the school to provide Religious Education for all its pupils.

Parents have the right to withdraw their children either partly or wholly from RE.  In addition, teachers have the right not to teach the subject. Our approach to RE, however, has been constructed in the hope that parents and teachers will rarely, if ever, wish to exercise their right of withdrawal.

As stated in our school prospectus and on our school website, those parents who wish to withdraw their child from RE lessons should inform the Headteacher in writing/contact the school office at their earliest convenience.