RE at St Bede School

INTENT – Why teach RE? What do we want our children to experience?

At St Bede, our intent is the provision of high quality Religious Education (RE) as part of a balanced and broadly based curriculum with promotes spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of pupils, preparing them to contribute to the wider society and community cohesion and to flourish as active global citizens.

As a Church of England school, our religious teaching is prioritised and at least 50% of the curriculum covers Christianity. At St Bede, we value and celebrate similarities and differences in our local community and in the wider world. We aim to provide pupils with an understanding of religious and non-religious world views, that will allow them to develop tolerance and respect. We aim to foster a desire for knowledge and understanding through our RE curriculum, learning about and gaining an insight into different religions and beliefs. 
Our school values of love, peace, courage, trust and friendship are grounded in Christian teaching, but we are also able to explore these values through the teachings of other faiths. We believe that our values set a strong moral foundation for our children to walk with throughout their lives.

We intend to provide a curriculum that will...

• To foster and promote our key values of love, peace, courage, trust and friendship.
• Learn tolerance and respect towards different religions they may not follow themselves.
• To engage pupils in enquiring into and exploring questions arising from the study of religion and belief, so as to promote their personal, spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.
• Be creative and engaging – to foster a love of learning in RE to develop their religious literacy and curiosity about other people.
• Be discussion orientated, allowing children to form their own opinions, listen respectfully and learn from one another.
• To develop critical thinking and reasoning skills e.g. enquiry, evaluation, and meta-cognition, which can be applied across the wider curriculum and also to their wider lives.

IMPLEMENTATION – How do we teach RE?

• As one of the Church of England schools in the Portsmouth and Winchester Dioceses, we follow the Locally Agreed Syllabus in Hampshire, Living Difference IV which is complimented by the Understanding Christianity resources – a high-quality resource for teaching about Christianity.
• By following these resources, we can ensure a clear and consistent progression of the learning of key skills and topics across the whole school.
• The units follow Living Difference 5-step Cycle of Enquiry, comprising of the steps: Communicate, Apply, Inquire, Contextualise and Evaluate. It may be that learning journeys start at the Communicate or Inquire steps, according to which lends itself the journey better.
• The long-term overview identifies the religions and concepts to be taught in each year groups.  In EYFS and key stage 1, pupils study Christianity and the Hindu faith.  In key stage 2, pupils learn about the Jewish faith, the Muslim faith, Humanism and Buddhism.  
• Within these units of study, the 4 golden threads (Special, Love, Belonging and Community) ensure that progression and continuity of these values is taught throughout the whole school.
• Medium-term plans identify what will be taught within each unit, following the cycle of enquiry (as above.)
• Learning is adapted to meet the needs of individual children so it is accessible and allows every child to reach their potential.  For a few children, this may involve an individualised learning pathway.
• We teach RE in creative and engaging ways that help children to relate concepts to their own lives. 
• The curriculum is planned to take account of key religious events and festivals.  This may involve inviting visitors or parents to share their experiences of events in their own lives or visiting places of worship.  This helps children to understand religious practices and put them in context and develop empathy and respect. 
• RE is assessed half-termly to ensure that every pupil is making progress and to adapt the teaching where necessary.
• The RE leader monitors the subject regularly, including book-looks, learning walks, pupil voice and planning scrutiny.  This is fed back to teachers and the Head Teacher, who may also be directly involved in the process.

IMPACT – How do our intentions and what we implement impact on children’s learning?

Religious Education at St Bede:

• Reinforces the school rules and values to encourage personal and spiritual development, including compassion, empathy and generosity. 
• Develops knowledge and understanding of Christianity and other world religions, including non-religious world views, so that children learn to value and appreciate other perspectives.
• Develops the ability to reflect on questions of meaning, offering their own thoughtful and informed insights into religion.
• Enables pupils to become critical and creative thinkers, considering different viewpoints, explaining their own thinking and listening to the views of others with respect and tolerance. 
• Provides a moral compass, allowing pupils to think about issues of right and wrong, what it means to be human and a global citizen in a diverse world. It helps them to consider how they might contribute to their community and to wider society.

Our RE Learning Journey: Visitors to the School

Autumn Term - Year R (EYFS):

In conjunction with our current RE unit on 'Special Things,' the Reception children were excited to welcome Reverend Karen into our classrooms this week. She brought a mystery satchel filled with meaningful items from her life in the church. The Butterflies and Ladybirds were fascinated by her ornamental cross, another smaller rounded prayer cross, and her beautiful stole (a type of intricately embroidered scarf that symbolises her connection to God.)

Reverend Karen admired our worship tables, where the children proudly highlighted our special candles and the variety of children’s Bibles we use in class worships. She spoke to the children about Christianity and what God means to her, sparking curious conversations among the children. Some reflected on their own knowledge of places of worship, locally and further afield. Others talked fondly of visiting churches for weekly services or for celebratory events like weddings or Christmas carols! Together, we then explored how places of worship can offer peace and calm, and reflected on our own special objects and why they hold meaning to us. It was a wonderful opportunity to provide real life context for our learning and the children look forward to Reverend Karen's next visit!

Autumn Term - Year 1:

In RE this half term, Year 1 are thinking about why Christmas matters to Christians, with a concept of 'waiting'. On Monday, we welcomed one of our parents into school with her baby to talk about how families might prepare for having a new baby, and Year 1 had the opportunity to ask a few questions too. Afterwards, we went on to think about how this differs from Mary in the Bible. 

Autumn Term - Year 2:

In Year 2 the children have been learning about how Christians say thank you to God for the creation of the world. Reverend Karen visited the children to talk to them about how harvest is celebrated in a church and how Christians say thanks to God. It was lovely to give the children opportunity to ask Reverend Karen questions about Harvest ahead of their Harvest service in school and they enjoyed thinking about what we do in school at this time of year to celebrate Harvest. 

This term Year 2 are learning about light as a symbol in the Christian and Hindu faiths. We were lucky enough to have a visit from Mrs. Pathak (LSA in year 3) to talk to us about light as a symbol in the Hindu festival of Diwali. She explained how during Diwali people often decorate their homes and dress in special clothes. Also, how special lights called diva lamps are put out to remember the story of Rama and Sita, the children even got to have a go at making their own! We look forward to decorating them later in the term.

Autumn Term - Year 5:

In RE this half term, we are learning about Incarnation. Recently, we have been looking specifically at some of the prophecies that foretold of a saviour, or messiah. We invited Father Jamie from Holy Trinity church in so we could as him some questions.

Autumn Term - Year 6:

Last week, Year 6 welcomed Reverend Karen to join our RE Lesson.  We are learning about two gospel interpretations of the story of Jesus’ birth and were interested to learn what Rev Karen could teach us about the two authors, Matthew and Luke, and why they wrote the version of the story they did. Reverend Karen also bought some crib figures from the church and we helped sort them into whether they fitted into Matthew’s story, Luke’s story, both or neither story.  It was really interesting to hear about the different Bible stories from her point of view.

Withdrawal from RE at St. Bede

Parents have the right to withdraw their children from parts or all of the RE curriculum at St. Bede CE Primary School. 

In the first instance, the Headteacher would like to discuss with parents their particular concerns.  This also provides an opportunity to draw up a clear agreement which parts of the RE curriculum a child is being withdrawn from.