Curriculum Intent

INTENT, IMPLEMENTATION & IMPACT

INTENT

Through our teaching of Religious Education, we aim to:

• Encourage pupils to have confidence in their own growing sense of identity as well as valuing and respecting diversity in others;
• Help pupils in their search for meaning and purpose in life;
• Neither promote nor undermine any particular religious, spiritual or secular stance; and
• Be accessible to pupils and teachers of any religious persuasion or none.

These aims are consistent with the School’s aim, which is to promote a positive image of each child, whilst encouraging each child to take responsibility for themselves and their actions.  Children are expected to see themselves as part of the school community and accept the responsibilities entailed in this.  When preparing and teaching lessons, teachers use a child’s own experiences as a starting point in a culturally sensitive and celebratory manner. Our aim is that this sharing of experiences leads to an understanding of respect for the right of others to hold beliefs.

IMPLEMENTATION

Religious Education - An Outline Approach:

R.E. involves the twin processes of exploring and responding to religion and human experience, in such a way that it promotes pupil’s spiritual, moral social and intellectual development.

The standard R.E. units have devised by the Local Authority (LA) and the Standing Advisory Council for Religious Education for the Agreed Syllabus so that they:

• Identify key aspects of Christianity, which are appropriate to explore across the key stage;
• focus each year on one of the principal religions represented in the Redbridge community: Judaism, Hinduism Islam, Sikhism as well as Non-religious worldviews (as outlined in the Redbridge agreed syllabus)
• Identify thematic units: that is, units which draw material from a range of religious traditions and /or human experiences;
• Enable schools to draw on a range of resources, including people and communities in Redbridge. ‘Whilst following the requirements of the Agreed Syllabus as the syllabus states that schools should apply their professional judgment in designing their own schemes of work.’

There are ongoing RE Units which are planned for each year group, which gives the school an opportunity to focus on Christian traditions, (including Easter and Christmas), as well as; cultural traditions, important religious festivals and traditions celebrated by other faiths within our school community.

Planning R.E.:

Year groups plan their R.E. using the Agreed Syllabus and support materials. Planning is recorded via the schools’ planning sheets and then stored in the planning file on the school’s computer system.

Teaching and Learning:

•  Teaching and Learning in RE will take place using a variety of different: pedagogical approaches, resources, and experiences.
• The work in RE is a mixture of class teaching, working cooperatively in groups and independent learning.
• Groups are usually of mixed ability and children are encouraged to communicate their findings in a variety of ways.

Time Allocation:

The recommended time allocation for R.E. is as follows: -

•                        45 hours per year
•                        Approximately 1 hour per week.

IMPACT

As with all our subject teaching, we do not teach RE in isolation to other curriculum areas; where possible, we relate the work undertaken to real life situations and we also aim to:

• Improve pupils' skills in English, Maths, Science, History, Geography and Computing
• Develop pupils' critical thinking and ability to analyse
• Promote pupils' awareness and understanding of gender, cultural, spiritual and moral issues.
• Develop pupils as active and responsible citizens.