Intent
At St Michael’s, we ensure that our vision and values are embedded into our Religious Education curriculum. We strive to develop respect and tolerance in our children, preparing our pupils for life in modern Britain. Through our RE curriculum, we support pupils’ personal development and understanding of the wider world. Alongside learning about a variety of world views, our RE curriculum also aims to develop pupils’ critical thinking, empathy towards others and ability to share their own beliefs.
Implementation
We have implemented the Discovery RE scheme of work which follows an enquiry model of learning. The first stage is ‘Engagement’ where pupils consider their own experiences to ensure understanding of the concept being studied. The next stage is ‘Investigation’ where the children study the details of the religion, embedding their subject knowledge. This is largely taught through discussion, which helps develop oracy and critical thinking. Following this, the evaluation stage will allow pupils to critically reflect on the knowledge gained and answer the enquiry question. Finally, the ‘Expression’ stage gives pupils the change to further reflect on the enquiry question in relation to their own lives.
Through KS1 and KS2, children will study Christianity and one other religion each year. This allows children to revisit their prior learning from each religion often, embedding their subject knowledge even more. This also allows for the progression of skills and knowledge throughout different year groups.
Through a whole school approach on ‘World Religion Day’ each year, children have the opportunity to explore a variety of other world views, not necessarily in their year group’s curriculum, and to present their learning in a variety of ways for other children to see.
Impact
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Subject leader monitoring enables the subject lead to assess how RE is being taught; this will include learning walks, pupil & teacher voice and book looks.
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Pupils will record some of their learning in books, and this is monitored by the subject lead. However, as RE is largely discussion-based (especially in KS1), records of whole class discussion will be kept by the teacher in floor books or on the board.
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The ‘evaluation’ and ‘expression’ stages of the curriculum will allow children to bring together their learning from the term’s unit and this will be assessed to monitor how effective the teaching of RE has been. Long term and medium term planning based upon the National Curriculum objectives and the interests of the children ensure broad and balanced teaching and learning is offered across the school.
- Reception and Year 1 looked at Christianity
- Year 2 learnt about Buddhism
- Year 3 looked at Hinduism
- Year 4 studied Judaism in more depth
- Year 5 chose to look at Sikhism
- Year 6 studied the history of Islam in more depth
