Religious Education

RE Subject Leader: Laura Atkinson (*plus additional trust leadership capacity)

At Rushton Primary School, our intention in Religious Education is to provide children with the opportunity for SMSC development. We believe that learning in RE helps to develop respect and tolerance and support the school values, as well as preparing the children for life in modern Britain. Our belief is that, using an enquiry-based model well, children’s critical thinking skills can be developed, and their motivation to learn, showing empathy with people and their belief, religious or otherwise, will be enhanced. We use Discovery RE across the school as this provides a high-quality learning programme, which maps out the British Values throughout the scheme.

We want our pupils to:

Learn from different religions and beliefs
Be free to make their own choices and decisions concerning religion and belief. RE does not try to persuade but rather to inform and develop the skills with which evaluation can take place.
Share their knowledge and experience with others.
Revisit the different religions to build on the knowledge they already have.
Embrace diversity and create a learning journey that leaves lasting memories.

At the end of EYFS

Pupils will have begun to build the foundation knowledge of Christianity, and will be able to talk about special events for Christians. Pupils will know about special people and special places to those who follow Christianity, Islam and Judaism.

At the end of Key Stage 1

Pupils will know the key values to Christians, and will know the creation story. They will know of key Christian beliefs.

Pupils will have explored key questions about Judaism and Islam; they will have learnt about how people show their commitment to their religion and the relationship they have with their leader.

At the end of Key Stage 2

Pupils will have explored Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, Sikhism and Islam. They will know how to share and evaluate their own beliefs, as well as being able to listen to others’ views without judgement. Pupils will have explored moral values, religious communities, prayer and worship and religious practices.

Pedagogy: How the Curriculum is Taught

Our Religious Education curriculum is taught using the following key components:

RE is taught to all age groups mainly through weekly lessons to ensure we meet the expected time allocation and the curriculum coverage it needs to fully explore the subject. We use the ‘Discovery RE’ Scheme as a main resource, which is supplemented with other resources to provide first hand experiences for the children. Discovery RE advocates an enquiry-based approach with a 4-step process. Step 1 – Engagement, Step 2 – Investigation, Step 3 – Evaluation and Step 4 – Expression. There is a key question for each topic then lessons work through the 4-step process. To enhance the learning of RE, we encourage learning about religious experiences, such as, visiting the local church, meeting religious speakers and handling real artefacts, learning through stories and drama where possible.

Assessment

We use a multi-faceted approach to assessment within Religious Education.

Retrieval practice of key knowledge from previous lessons and units of study.
Assessment for learning is used within each lesson through skilful use of questioning and live feedback.
Pupil voice to support the evidence that pupils know and remember more over time.
Written outcomes

Cultural Capital

Enrichment is an essential part of our Religious Education curriculum which provides pupils with discrete time to deepen their learning. They provide opportunities for new experiences as well as nurturing and developing a thirst for learning.

We use a multi-faceted approach to enrichment within Religious Education:

Visits to religious places
Visits from religious people/speakers
Celebrations of religious festivals

Career Professional Development

We develop strong subject knowledge amongst all staff which is achieved through comprehensive middle leadership development, a focus on developing all teachers’ subject knowledge and pedagogy. All staff benefit from implementing the high-quality planning resources provided by the Trust which is amended to meet the needs of all pupils.

Below is a summary of the CPD activities bespoke to Religious Education:

Sharing knowledge from trust-wide meetings
Bespoke training videos
1:1 discussions with staff about lessons