RE

‘Pupils ask and reflect on challenging questions and are provided with opportunities for personal reflection where they can explore their own beliefs.’

Aims:
At Roseberry Primary School our children will access a high quality RE curriculum that engenders an interest in exploring, improving, understanding of and showing respect for different faiths and cultural diversity.  This will enable them to develop a knowledge and acceptance of religions and world views.

Due to our children’s limited life- experiences and opportunities to explore the world we aim to explore the big questions about life, to find out what people believe and what difference beliefs make to the way people live.  This will enable our children to think about and make choices about their own ideas and beliefs.

We used the RE Agreed Syllabus for schools in Stockton (SACRE) to design our curriculum.   The RE framework is based around half termly themes and is cross curricular.  Christianity and Islam are the main religions studied but pupils will learn about other faiths including – Judaism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism through themes.  We have links with local churches and children regularly visit them to learn about what happens there.

Through high quality teaching, our RE curriculum aims to:

  • Engender the characteristics of our bespoke Avatars
  • Develop an extensive base of religious knowledge and vocabulary
  • To ask questions which challenge and engage children to develop their communication and debating skills alongside their knowledge.
  • To support children’s understanding about what is right and wrong including prejudice against those who have different beliefs, cultural practices and those who have made personal choices that may be different from theirs.
  • Make greater sense of the world by developing an understanding of a wide of beliefs and cultural influences that have shaped their own heritage and that of others, considering both differences and commonalities.
  • Develop a moral compass where children recognise the difference between right and wrong.
  • Encourage children to be empathetic and show an understanding of others.
  • Promote children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural development helping them to have a greater understanding of world faiths, and their rights and responsibilities to other people and their beliefs
  • Support the application of the core subjects of English, mathematics and science. 

At Roseberry Primary School, the RE curriculum is built around a progressive framework that ensures knowledge and skills are firmly embedded in children’s long term memory.

  • In the Early Years, children begin to learn how people celebrate some of the key festivals in the religious calendar
  • Teachers plan and expose children to specific RE vocabulary through specific vocabulary
  • Children encounter a range of RE sources including artefacts, symbols, religious stories and sacred texts.
  • Educational visits support learning outside of the classroom. At Roseberry children have opportunities to visit a range of different places of worship
  • Visitors are used to provide new experiences and deepen children’s knowledge and understanding e.g. a Buddhist monk teaching children how to meditate
  • Use of the virtual world is used to enhance children’s real life experiences and develop their cultural capital e.g. and a walk through the inside of a Guardwara whilst the classroom.
  • Cross curricular opportunities are used to develop and consolidate pupil’s learning in other areas of learning
  • Rights are referenced when appropriate links can be made to religious and SMSC learning and understanding
  • Children are encouraged to answer their own questions either independently or when working collaboratively with their peers in a safe environment
  • We take into account individual requests and the importance of children’s heritage

 

At Roseberry, Children will retain knowledge that is pertinent to understanding religion in the diverse 21st century, including that some people have no attachment to religious beliefs.
Children will understand how prejudice and stereotyping impacts on people’s lives and well-being.  They will be able to speak about religious ideas using age appropriate and content specific vocabulary confidently and with interest.  Increasingly, children will act as good citizens within their own community demonstrating that they know right from wrong.  Children will be able to express their own opinions and ideas in a respectful way, whilst evaluating the ideas of others – they will follow the characteristics of Teamwork Tango.