Religious Education at Hillmorton Primary School
Intent (Aims)
At Hillmorton Primary School we are passionate about the teaching of RE. We believe that our RE curriculum is an essential part of preparing our pupils for life in a diverse, multi-religious Britain. At Hillmorton Primary School, we follow the Coventry and Warwickshire Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education 2017-2022.
RE is taught weekly as part of our broad and balanced curriculum.
During their time at our school, our children learn about the six major world religions – Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Sikhism and Buddhism, as well as the beliefs and opinions of people with non-religious views. Exploring different faiths helps our pupils to understand one another and to take their place within a diverse multi-religious society.
The aims of RE teaching at Hillmorton Primary School is to enable pupils to:
1. Know about and understand a range of religions and worldviews, so that they can:
Describe, explain and analyse beliefs and practices, recognising the diversity which exists within and between communities and amongst individuals
Identify, investigate and respond to questions posed, and responses offered by some of the sources of wisdom found in religions and worldviews
Appreciate and appraise the nature, significance and impact of different ways of life and ways of expressing meaning.
2. Express ideas and insights about the nature, significance and impact of religions and worldviews, so that they can:
Explain reasonably their ideas about how beliefs, practices and forms of expression influence individuals and communities
Express with increasing discernment their personal reflections and critical responses to questions and teachings about identity, diversity, meaning and value, including ethical issues
Appreciate and appraise varied dimensions of religion.
3. Gain and deploy the skills needed to engage seriously with religions and worldviews, so that they can:
Find out about and investigate key concepts and questions of belonging, ,meaning, purpose and truth.
Enquire into what enables different individuals and communities to live together respectfully for the wellbeing of all
Articulate beliefs, values and commitments clearly in order to explain why they may be important in their own and other people’s lives.
We return to these threshold concepts throughout a child’s journey in our school, each time building on their prior knowledge, extending their confidence and understanding. The development of these key historical concepts is the cornerstone of our history teaching here at Hillmorton.
Our RE curriculum strives to provide each child with cultural capital, giving them the skills and vital background knowledge required to be informed and thoughtful members of our community who understand and believe in British values.
Implementation (Teaching and Learning)
We form a foundation for RE in Early Years. In Reception, the children learn about some religious celebrations including; Diwali, Eid, Easter and Christmas. Teachers ensure that children are introduced to a wide range of characters in stories from a variety of cultures and the children are taught to recognise that people have different beliefs and celebrate special times in different ways. The children are also provided with resources such as dressing-up clothes and small world figures from different cultures for them to explore.
We teach RE through weekly discrete lessons in years 1-6 so that the learning has a clear focus and the children have time to build on knowledge, understanding and skills. Having discrete RE lessons helps to ensure sufficient time is allocated to RE and that the subject matter can be revisited frequently, allowing learning to remain in our pupils’ long-term memory. Our long-term curriculum overview identifies which units each year group explore and shows when the different units are taught across the academic year. Our yearly overview is carefully planned so that the units progress through the years. Many units build upon prior learning to enable the children to become confident, curious and challenging in their outlook on worldviews and beliefs.
In addition to RE lessons, religious celebrations are shared in school and class assemblies at appropriate times. This is a chance for the children to revisit learning from previous RE days and helps them to understand celebrations that some people celebrate. Teaching the children about different religions and non-religious beliefs will help them to understand and respect others in the world around them.
Impact (Assessment)
Through our carefully structured RE curriculum and high-quality teaching, we will see the children’s knowledge, understanding and spirituality develop throughout the school.
Discussions in the classroom and pupil voice will enable our pupils to share their knowledge and their ability to discuss their own ideas and beliefs.
Our pupils will be able to show a range of subject knowledge across different world religions and their ability to compare religious beliefs, traditions and celebrations will develop.
Our RE books will show a progression through the year groups through a mixture of photos and practical activities as well as written work.
By the end of Key Stage 1, our pupils will be able to know about the 6 major world religions and talk about some of them in detail. They should be able to discuss how religion can encourage some people to make life choices and they should recognise that religion can help many people to forgive others.