Religious Education

Vision

We value a broad, balanced curriculum and part of that is the teaching of Religious Education (RE). We believe that all children, from any faith or culture, should feel welcomed into our school community and this is fostered through the learning and exposure to a variety of beliefs, cultures and worldviews.
We follow the Discovery RE scheme, which fosters an enquiry based approach to RE learning.

Intent

With these aspirations, our intent for the RE curriculum are that pupils:

• Know about and understand a range of religions, cultures and worldviews
• Experience and learn from first and secondary sources about religions, cultures and worldviews
• Express ideas and insights about the nature, significance and impact of religions, cultures and worldviews
• Gain and deploy the skills needed to engage seriously with religions and worldviews
• Respect ideas, religions and worldviews which may differ to their own
• Have opportunities to gain cultural capital both within school and in the local community.

Pupils develop a secure understanding of the knowledge and concepts surrounding RE as well as developing positive attitudes to cultures and beliefs which vary from their own.

Across the school we aim to develop children’s skills of enquiry, reasoned argument and reflection. We are a multi-faith school and offer a rich and varied curriculum to reflect this. Our children are taught about a range of religions and learn to respect and ask questions about different traditions and cultures. During the school year, we study and celebrate real events (i.e. a Diwali day or Saints day).

We believe children learn best from real experiences in order to capture their imagination and encourage curiosity. During religious education lessons, children are challenged to push themselves to think outside of their comfort zones and explore their beliefs and ideas; they are taught to think about their own school and personal values and to understand how people of different beliefs may share some of their values, whilst differing in others.

Questions are constantly being asked of children whilst allowing them to ask their own in order to develop their critical thinking, self-belief and self-confidence.

Children exhibit their religious education in many ways, from dance, creativity, writing and role-play in order to fully immerse children in understanding of a topic.

Implementation

We follow a curriculum created by Discovery RE, a scheme of work which ensures we are teaching about a multitude of beliefs that are revisited throughout the key stages, to enable a progression of learning across the years.

In the Early Years, children spend time exploring the religions of Christianity and Judaism in the first two terms. They think about the celebrated festivals in the Christian calendar, linking this to the celebrations in Judaism. The final term brings this together with exploring special stories and places of a multitude of religions.

Years 1 and 2 build upon this teaching as pupils look in more depth at what Christians believe. Children take time to ask ‘big questions’ and make connections across religions. The children also learn about Judaism in Year 1 and are introduced to Islam in Year 2.

Years 3-6 build upon the learning of Christianity, Sikhism, Judaism and Islam with the addition of Hinduism in Year 3. The children are encouraged to think critically and ask questions of a religion as each half term focuses on a ‘big question’.

These religious topics have been chosen specifically from the Discovery RE scheme to support and make links with our topics as part of our creative curriculum. Our Long term planning has also been written in line with Pan Berkshire Agreed Syllabus for RE below.

RE Subject Whole School Overview Template

Pan Berkshire RE Syllabus (NEW Syllabus currently being created Autumn 2024) 

Impact

We have a number of assemblies on religious celebrations throughout the year to inform the children of the different religious events that are happening and to share with the children how they are celebrated. These have been led by a number of different people including staff, parents, visitors and children.

When there is a Christian celebration approaching, we often have an assembly delivered by religious representatives from a local church; parents and visitors are also regularly invited to come in to share information and artefacts with the children.

Once a year we hold a Cultural Fair, which is an opportunity for all the different cultures in our school to be represented. A stall is created and the children spend the afternoon immersing themselves in the different cultures we have in our school and learning about things such as the religion of that country, the traditions they have, customary dress and traditional foods.

Opt-Out option

We encourage all children to take part in RE lessons as this promotes British values including tolerance of different beliefs and faiths, and mutual respect. RE celebrates the diversity we have in our school and community, and we strongly encourage all families to celebrate each other cultures and beliefs.
However, families have the right to withdraw their children from part or all of the religious education curriculum. If you wish to request that your child be withdrawn from part or all of religious education, please contact the Headteacher on head@evendons-primary.co.uk