Religious Education (R.E.)
Intent
At Woodcocks’ Well CE (VA) Primary School, we believe that our Christian faith underpins all aspects of our life and learning. Religious Education is a central subject within our curriculum and we aim to encourage all our children to discover a world of wonder, empowered by God’s spirit.
At Woodcocks’ Well, we explore a variety of major religions, including our own, through the teaching of Religious Education. These lessons enable pupils to think critically about their own religion and others, encouraging open conversations about how individuals and communities make sense of their lives through religion. Religious Education is taught to inspire pupils to explore, develop and affirm their own faith and values as well as developing a respect for the faith, beliefs and values of others. We are committed to ensuring that children feel that they are in a safe and secure environment in which they can explore their own faith and values, whilst promoting our school values. Through the teaching of Religious Education, we aim to build on our vision by promoting aspiration, confidence, independence, passion, reflection and resilience in all pupils and staff members.
Our School Values
- To foster a love for ourselves and others and develop a love for learning
- To be faithful to God, others and ourselves and be excited to grow our minds and mature in fruitful character.
- To grow self-control and be patient when working alone or together.
- To find joy in real-life experiences and learning opportunities
- To encourage peace in others and recognise it within ourselves
- To show gentleness towards others and approach other cultures and world views with respect and kindness
- To display goodness to all those around us, regardless of differences, creating an environment in which we can all grow healthily, happily and safely.
The aims of teaching Religious Education in our school are:
- To develop a knowledge and understanding of Christian beliefs and practices so that they understand the importance of the Bible, the role of the church and recognise that - for Christians - their faith provides a way of interpreting life and its meaning.
- To develop knowledge and understanding of the beliefs and practices of other major religions.
- To understand how belief may impact on culture, relationships, values and lifestyle.
- To understand how belief can be expressed in a variety of ways including art, dance, music, ritual celebration and in different cultural settings.
- To develop spiritually, morally, culturally and socially by helping them to reflect upon personal feelings, responses and relationships.
- To explore ways in which religious values and teaching have an impact on actions and decisions for people of faith.
- To be supported in their own search for meaning and purpose in life.
- To develop skills of reflection, empathy, communication, analysis, investigation, interpretation, evaluation and synthesis.
- To develop attitudes of respect, sensitivity, open-mindedness and self-esteem.
Implementation
At Woodcocks’ Well CE (VA) Primary School, Religious Education is taught on a 4-year rolling programme.
As a Church of England Voluntary Aided School, we aim to provide a foundation for Christian learning for life, through building an understanding of the nature of Christian beliefs and practices. Starting with our youngest pupils, we encourage children to build and develop their religious understanding as they progress through the school from EYFS to Year 6. By the time that the children reach Year 6, they will have encountered different learning opportunities as part of their learning journey which will embed their understanding of God and the Christian faith, as well as other faiths and religions.
The school works closely with the Chester Diocesan Board of Education following their guidelines and tailoring them to meet the specific needs of the children in our care. We use Understanding Christianity units to further enhance the children’s learning opportunities and to ‘dig deeper’ into religious concepts. The units covered within our planning ensure that pupils develop knowledge and understanding of the principal religions in Great Britain and Christianity is taught as a core religion in both key stages. Our EYFS pupils focus on Christianity alone for their first year in school to provide a foundation for learning which can be built on as they progress through the school.
Our children are encouraged to see similarities within religions to make connections through our teaching of Religious Education. Religious festivals will be explored in different classes to bring awareness to how different faiths and religions celebrate. We recognise that within classes, there is a wide variety of abilities and so we provide suitable learning opportunities that are matched to the needs of all children. This is done through providing support, differentiating activities and using a range of teaching and learning styles within lessons.
We aim to provide children with a rich learning opportunity in Religious Education lessons. To further enhance learning and to aid children to embed their knowledge further, we will provide trips to places of worship or visits from people from religious communities. Here at Woodcocks’ Well, we ensure that we visit church regularly and take part in important services throughout the year, such as Harvest, to maintain ties with the church community.
Impact
At Woodcocks’ Well, we expect to reflect the targets of children in the core subjects through the work produced in Religious Education lessons. Displays of children’s work in Religious Education are encouraged through the use of a working wall in the classroom to show the process of learning for different areas of learning.
We assess children’s work in Religious Education by making informal judgements as we observe them during lessons and through class discussions. The children complete two assessment pieces per half term (part way through and on completion of a unit of work) to evidence their learning and to keep track of their progress. We mark a piece of work once it has been completed and comment as necessary. For some activities, verbal feedback may be more appropriate. Teachers use the outcomes of each lesson to inform future planning and note any areas of interest show. On completion of a unit of work, we make a summary judgement about the work of each pupil in relation to the expectations of the unit.
The subject leader will monitor Religious Education within the school through lesson observations, work sampling and through pupil voice discussions. This information will feed into the Church school self-evaluation process.