Religious Education
Vision
Our Religious Education (R.E.) curriculum follows the locally agreed Leicestershire syllabus published in 2021. This includes the Understanding Christianity resource recommended by the Church of England.
As a Church of England School we believe following the Understanding Christianity curriculum will help children understand the big story of the Bible. Learning about the core themes of Incarnation, Salvation and Kingdom of God particularly will inform children about Jesus and God’s plan for a better world. This impacts all aspects of our life together and help our children flourish as outlined in our Christian vision.
Our R.E. curriculum also takes into account the fact that we live in a multi-cultural society and realise that children need an insight into all principal religions as well as non-religious views. Our vision is that all views, opinions and beliefs are valued, respected and listened to. That children will be curious to find out more on the ‘Big questions in life’ posed by our curriculum. We will learn to discover our differences but also our similarities and become tolerant of all.
Aims
1) We aim to encourage and assist all pupils to explore and express their response to the big questions in life, exploring spiritual and religious approaches to life.
2) We hope to help pupils develop a sound understanding of religion and how it affects the way they and others live.
3) We encourage them to reflect on their own ideas, feelings and interests in the context of religious and moral education. The integrity of pupils is respected and individual views and ideas are always valued.
The school has close links with St Catharine’s, our local church. We use the vicar to help children understand some core Christian practices: Baptism; Worship; Holy Communion.
We also as an academy trust use their children’s worker Michael Corner to come in and support R.E. across all schools. Michael works in Houghton on Tuesday’s helping to support R.E. by being on hand as a person of faith for children and staff to interview and also helping teach about some Christian beliefs particular to Christianity : the Holy Spirit and the Holy Trinity.
Mike also runs an after school children’s club for children interested in delving deeper into Christianity.
Teachers balance the teaching of Christianity with focused teaching on the other principal religions of Islam, Hinduism and Judaism. To gain coherence of these religions the teaching is focused on one religion at a time when teaching these. A unit in Year 5 also focuses children on Humanism and other world views. However general units without one religion as a focus also offer opportunity for pupils to share their own experiences of religion and faith including non-religious views. These also give us opportunities to learn about Sikhism, Buddhism, Jainism and atheism. These units are an important way for pupils to make connections between religions and their own way of understanding the world. There is a unit at the end of each year which allows children to draw together their learning from the year and compare different traditions.
The curriculum is also designed as a ‘spiral curriculum’, so that pupils encounter and engage with the core concepts on a number of occasions, embedding their learning.
Our U.C. themes are allocated by half terms allowing us as a school to come together to celebrate R.E. learning through for example SALVATION day.
R.E. is delivered in ways that make it a lively, active subject by employing a variety of teaching methods; including technology, art, music, discussion, the development of thinking skills, drama, the use of videos, artefacts, pictures, stories and the use of periods of stillness and reflection.