Religious Education
Our Schools are made up of pupils from many cultures. Religious Education makes a significant contribution to pupils’ academic and personal development and provides an opportunity to celebrate and foster awareness of these differences and similarities within our schools, our communities and the wider world. It is a subject that celebrates diversity and challenges stereotypes.
Children are free to make their own choices and decisions concerning religion and belief. RE does not try to persuade but rather inform and develop the skills with which evaluation can take place.
Aims by the end of KS2
- To develop an awareness of spiritual and moral issues in life experiences.
- To develop knowledge and understanding of Christianity and other major world religions and value systems found in Britain.
- To develop an understanding of what it means to be committed to a religious tradition.
- To be able to reflect on their own experiences and to develop a personal response to the fundamental questions of life.
- To develop an understanding of religious traditions and to appreciate the cultural differences in Britain today
- To promote respect for a variety of beliefs, cultures and religions through appropriate role modelling and challenging stereotypes and negativity
- To have respect for other peoples’ views and to celebrate the diversity in society
- To make informed and reasoned judgements about religious issues.
How we deliver Religious Education
We use Discovery RE, an enquiry-based approach, through which we:
- develop children’s’ critical thinking skills
- enhance their knowledge and understanding of religion and belief in the modern world
- Promote respect, tolerance and empathy with people and their beliefs, religious or otherwise.
In RE lessons, as well as PHSE and Assemblies, children are invited to reflect on their personal responses to issues, consider other people’s responses, and appreciate that for some people belief in a spiritual dimension is important.
There are 6 units of work per year group, (one per term) each based on a key question.
Each unit of work follows a four-step enquiry
- Engagement – explores the children’s own experience whether that includes religion or not
- Investigation – children carry out an enquiry using carefully selected facts
- Evaluation – children use the facts to come to a conclusion about the key question
- Expression – children reflect on what they have learnt
Key Questions for each year group:
(RE is taught in accordance with the aims of the Agreed Syllabus for South Gloucestershire)
Progression in Religious Education
Download: Examples of children’s work