RE
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“Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behaviours. Keep your behaviours positive because your behaviours become your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.”
Mahatma Gandhi
Our Intent
At West Bretton, our religious education inspires our children to develop a broad and deepening knowledge and understanding about a range of religious and non-religious world views.
We expect our children to show respect and tolerance in our modern diverse and multi-cultural society and aspire for our children to be inquiring and explore, with interest, different faiths and cultures to enhance their knowledge of the modern world.
The children will do this by:
- Describing and explaining religious beliefs and the ways different beliefs are expressed;
- Develop understanding of how these beliefs impact individuals, communities and the wider society;
- Describe and explain some of the key beliefs and teachings of influential people within different religions;
- Gain skills that enable them to question their learning and think critically about the material they are studying;
- Have opportunities for personal reflection and spiritual development;
- Understanding the religious diversity within their local communities and the wider area;
- Respecting other people’s beliefs, opinions or views and incorporating British values including empathy, tolerance, respect, diversity and equality.
- Challenging prejudice discrimination and racism through RE activities.
Using the Wakefield SACRE agreed syllabus, our primary school curriculum aims to challenge children to learn about a range of religions and non-religious world views, whilst also considering a variety of questions and issues.
At our school, we aim to ensure that our children go into the World with the knowledge and skills to understand the beliefs of others and equip them to live and thrive in today’s diverse and ever-changing society. Our curriculum plans intend to give our children the opportunities to learn about religions and World views delivered in engaging ways with opportunities for debate and discussion.
Our Implementation
The syllabus we use is based around a key question approach; these open up the content to be studied. They are designed to enable progression throughout the Key Stages and to feed into end of Key Stage outcomes. The outcomes and content of the key questions are flexible and consider different styles of teaching and learning.
RE is taught as a discreet subject, but, where relevant, it will be linked to other areas of the curriculum. Due to our mixed age classes, we work on a 2-year rolling cycle to ensure progression and development of skills.
In the discrete question units, our children begin by learning about concepts that they can relate to and, before exploring the different religions, they will reflect on their own life experiences.
In Key Stage 1, pupils will be taught knowledge, skills and understanding through learning about Christians, Muslims and Jewish people. Pupils may also encounter other religions and world views where appropriate, for example we like to cover the Hindu festival of Diwali.
In Key Stage 2, pupils begin to extend their knowledge and understanding of religions and world views, recognising their local, national and global contexts. They will be introduced to an extended range of sources and subject specific vocabulary. They will be encouraged to be curious and ask increasingly challenging questions about religion, belief, values and human life. Pupils are supported to express their own ideas in response to the material they agree with and be able to give reasons to support their ideas and views.
We encourage learning through a flexible delivery of RE to include:
- Art
- Drama
- Debate
- Discussion
- Music
- Hands on Experiences: Tasting foods
- Trips to special buildings
- Visiting speakers
- Artefacts
- Assemblies
- Whole school immersive
- RE day
The RE curriculum map below shows how we implement our learning at West Bretton.
Our Impact
Through studying RE, our children gain an understanding of different religions, cultures and beliefs. They learn to be tolerant and respectful members of society, regardless of their own belief and prepared for life in modern day, diverse Britain. By the end of KS2, the children will have a strong sense of the correct moral code for living; this will incorporate tolerance, respect and embrace diversity and inclusion. Children will have developed a knowledge of different religious codes for living and appreciate positive human values.
