INTENT

At Broad Square Primary School, the intent of the Religious Education curriculum is to help children to acquire and develop knowledge and understanding of world faiths; to appreciate the way that religious beliefs shape life and behaviours, develop the ability to make reasoned and informed judgements about religious and moral issues and enhance their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.

At Broad Square Primary School, we believe that it is vital for all our pupils to learn from and about religion, so that they can understand the world around them. Through Religious Education, pupils will develop their knowledge of the world faiths, and their understanding and awareness of the beliefs, values and traditions of other individuals, societies, communities and cultures. We encourage our pupils to ask questions about the world and to reflect on their own beliefs, values and experiences. Our Religious Education curriculum is enhanced further with trips to places of worship in our local area.

As an inclusive school, we strive to ensure that all pupils are able to access a broad and balanced RE curriculum offer. Pupils with SEND are supported within lessons to ensure that a ceiling is not put on their learning. This is achieved through regular retrieval activities, over learning of vocabulary and different ways of recording evidence of learning. Where adaptations are necessary, these are planned carefully by the teacher to ensure that each pupil has rigour within their curriculum.

Religious Education has National Guidelines but the local SACRE (Standing Advisory Council for Religious Education) has created a Locally Agreed Syllabus and a model scheme of work.

We have implemented the SACRE syllabus for RE in EYFS, Year 1 and Year 2.

In Years 3-6, we have implemented a new scheme of work called 'Opening Worlds' from the Haringey Partnership, which has been designed by Christine Counsell and Steve Mastin, leading experts in the field of Humanities. One of the huge benefits of this is that it is a humanities project, with planned units in RE, Geography and History that are designed to create a wonderful sense of how these subjects are interconnected. This has ensured that our RE curriculum now has even greater scope, rigour, coherence and sequencing as a result of these links.

The RE curriculum map gives an overview of how both the SACRE and Opening Worlds schemes fit together across the school.

Through use of both of these schemes, we intend our children to deepen their understanding of religion around the world and link cultural heritage to the beliefs and values people hold within each different religion.

 

 

RE Implementation

RE is taught from EYFS to Y6. EYFS and KS1 children record their thoughts and ideas in their class 'Big Book'. This allows children to share their learning with others and discuss their opinions and feelings. Through sharing their work in the class book, children feel part of a community where all opinions and feelings are valued. The SACRE scheme encourages children to look at artefacts and stories from different religions and link them to our life today.

In KS2, children have their own RE book to record their learning and understanding. RE in KS2 links with both History and Geography , therefore giving children to the opportunity to understand how religions around the world began and pinpoints the locality religions originated from. Storytelling is a major factor in RE. Children learn through storytelling, this allows for a deeper and more meaningful understanding.

Impact

At Broad Square Primary, we envision RE curriculum impacting the pupils in the following ways:

· extend their knowledge and understanding of religions and beliefs

· develop a religious vocabulary and interpret religious symbolism in a variety of forms

· reflect on questions of meaning, offering their own thoughtful and informed insights into religious and secular world-views

· explore ultimate questions of beliefs and values in relation to a range of contemporary issues in an ever-changing society

 

By the end of each key stage, pupils are expected to know, understand and apply skills related to the attainment targets and learning skills developed within the assessment criteria and progression outcomes laid out in the Agreed Liverpool Syllabus, to enable teachers to assess the progress of the children as they move through the key stages.

 

In KS2 children complete synoptic tasks at the end of each Opening Worlds unit