RE

Our Religious Education curriculum follows the The Church of England Statement of Entitlement for Religious Education 2019 document, which outlines the expectations of the Church of England Education Office in relation to Religious Education.  We also follow the Essex Agreed Syllabus 2022.

Our INTENT in the RE curriculum: 

Through the teaching of religious education in our school we hope that our pupils will develop knowledge and understanding of the religions and beliefs which form part of contemporary society.   

We aim to ask challenging questions about the ultimate meaning and purpose of life, beliefs about God, the self and the nature of reality, issues of right and wrong, and what it means to be human. It will develop our children's knowledge and understanding of Christianity, of other religions, other religious traditions and worldviews.

Our intent is that RE will contribute to pupils’ personal development and well-being and to community cohesion by promoting mutual respect and tolerance in a diverse society. It offers opportunities for personal reflection and spiritual development. 

Our IMPLEMENTATION in the RE curriculum: 

The main emphasis of RE in our school is on Christianity, as we are a Church of England Christian school. We are required to devote more time to the teaching of Christianity than to any other single religion and this is reflected in the amount of content specified for Christianity. We have carefully considered which other religions to teach based on the context of our school and have focussed our learning on Hinduism, Islam and Humanism. Our planning links to the main Christian celebrations and ideas. 

Our RE lessons are taught weekly and have a main focus on philosophy, theology or human and social science. We start our RE topics with an enquiry question and find out what the children already know and make connections to prior learning where possible. The lessons are sequenced over the term to build on their knowledge and end with an assessment using the enquiry question again. This shows good progress. We have planned in school trips and visitors to school to enhance the children's understanding and experiences further. 

You can see our whole school planning below. 

The IMPACT of our RE curriculum:

You will see the impact of our curriculum in the progress the children make across the whole school. By looking at the work in their books and by speaking to the pupils, their learning and achievement will be clear. The children are encouraged to ask and answer bigger thinking questions about religion and this often shows the depth of their understanding. 

We assess the children in RE formally once a term and the results of this are given to the RE leader in school to monitor and analyse.