Religious Education Curriculum             

 Aims

We believe that Religious Education (RE) plays a huge part in supporting children’s Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural development. It enriches our school values, particularly respect, and encourages children to be open-minded, listen to others and develop a sense of themselves as they explore faiths, values, beliefs and traditions across the world.

We aim to ensure that all pupils:

• Have access to a broad and balanced RE curriculum which meets the framework of statutory requirements and those of the locally agreed syllabus.
• Promote and develop a deeper understanding of the basic British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance for those of different faiths and beliefs.
• Explore and enhance understanding of our own school values (respect, fairness, courage, honesty and enjoyment) and their own personal values.
• Allow expansion of Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural development which focuses on the whole child.
• Become well rounded citizens who have a knowledge and understanding regarding diversity of religious and ethnic identities and the need for mutual respect and understanding.
• Take responsibility for their own beliefs and have the confidence to share and voice opinions to challenge viewpoints to prevent racism, bullying, discrimination and prejudice.
• Celebrate religions and have positive and open-minded attitudes towards oneself and each other.

 Implementation

We follow the Kent Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education and use the scheme of work from RE Today which is recommended within this. This is split into the strands; believing (religious beliefs, teachings, sources; questions about meaning, purpose and truth); expressing (religious and spiritual forms of expression; questions about identity and living); and living (religious practices and ways of living; questions about values and commitments). 

The scheme is planned and sequenced to develop deep, lasting understanding and learning, and builds upon prior knowledge. Its principal aim is to engage pupils in systematic enquiry into significant human questions which religion and worldviews address, so that they can develop the understanding and skills needed to appreciate and appraise varied responses to these questions, as well as develop responses of their own. 

The curriculum follows an enquiry based approach and each unit of work focuses on a key question, which is broken up into smaller questions which are explored in each weekly lesson. The key questions are linked to religion and worldviews. The term ‘worldview’ describes the way in which a person encounters, interprets, understands and engages with the world. 

In EYFS, pupils learn about key celebrations which they experience first hand such as Christmas, Easter and Diwali, as well as acceptance of others' differences. During KS1 pupils are taught knowledge, skills and understanding through learning about Christians, Muslims and Jewish, adding Hinduism during KS2. 

Although we follow a scheme, we adaptate it to suit our pupils and their backgrounds, and also focus on diversity within this e.g. some Christians go to church, some do not. We deliver additional themed days thinking about our families and the different faiths of our multicultural school. For example, we have several Hindu families so we held a themed day focusing on Diwali and also invited these parents into school to enhance the curriculum for our pupils. 

We acknowledge that children gain a deeper understanding of religion and worldviews when high quality resources/artefacts are used, alongside enrichment activities including visits to places of worship, and visitors representing different religions which provides a variety of first-hand experiences for our children, to spark their interest and relate new learning to their own experience. 

We have developed links with the local area and use the local church for celebrations such as our Carol Service. As a school we have regular assemblies, collective worship and quiet reflection time. 

Attitudes which are fundamental to RE are embedded within our ‘High 5’ school values: respect, fairness, courage, honesty and enjoyment. These work alongside the SMSC links and British Values implemented within school as a whole.