RE Curriculum

2022-27 Curriculum Map

Religious Education at Plymouth Grove Primary School

Our RE leader is Mrs Abbas

Article 29 of the UNCRC: a child or young person's education should help their mind, body and talents be the best they can

Global Goal 4: Quality Education

In Religious Education (RE), pupils enter into a rich discourse about the religious and non-religious traditions that have shaped Great Britain and the world. RE enables pupils to take their place within a diverse multi-religious and multi-secular society. At its best, it is intellectually challenging and personally enriching. It affords pupils both the opportunity to see the religion and non-religion in the world, and the opportunity to make sense of their own place in that world - OFSTED 2021

Intent

Our Religious Education curriculum is taught through the new Manchester SACRE Agreed Syllabus (2022-27). This syllabus continues in the tradition of ensuring that RE is responsive to the changing nature of schools and education. As a rights respecting school, we know that children have a right to choose a religion, or to have no religion (Article 14), and that they must show respect and tolerance for all. The principal aim of RE is to engage pupils in systematic enquiry into significant human questions, which religion and worldviews address, so that they can develop the understanding and skills needed to appreciate and appraise varied responses to these questions, as well as develop responses of their own. 

As a community primary school we encourage the children to acquire reasoned and positive attitudes and beliefs which include a respect for and understanding of other peoples’ spiritual, religious, moral and cultural ways of life. We help the children to appreciate the world in which they live and the interdependence of individuals, groups and nations. We draw upon their beliefs, cultures and backgrounds to achieve these outcomes. School encourages children to ask and discuss challenging questions about human life, beliefs, communities and ideas. In RE, pupils learn from religions and world views about different ways of life in local, national and global contexts. They discover, explore and consider many different answers to questions about human identity, meaning and value.

Through our Religious Education curriculum we aim:

• To develop children’s understanding of their fundamental rights, respect for others and tolerance for all.
• 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.
• To provide learners with knowledge and understanding of Christianity and other principal religious traditions and beliefs represented in Great Britain.
• To develop their understanding of the ways in which beliefs influence people in their behaviour, practices and outlook.
• To enable learners to apply the insights of the principal religious traditions to their own search for identity and significance.
• To enable learners to become aware of their own beliefs and values and to have a positive attitude to the search for meaning and purpose in life.
• To encourage learners to develop a positive attitude towards other people who hold religious beliefs different from their own or who do not have a faith.

Implementation

Children begin their RE learning in Nursery, and continue this until they leave us at the end of Year 6. Our ambitious RE curriculum has been created using the SACRE Agreed Syllabus as a base, with themes and questions chosen to ensure the curriculum is bespoke to the needs of our community. It has been designed to give all learners, especially the most disadvantaged, the knowledge they will need to succeed in life. Our question-based spiral model covers key content around four major world religions - Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Hinduism - while children also learn about non-religious groups, agnosticism and atheism, Humanism, spirtualism and ‘green religion’. Core knowledge of these major religions is used as a springboard to explore big questions around life, death, prayer and relationships. The plans and objectives follow our school’s age related expectations (AREs) and enable progression and consistency throughout the school. 

In EYFS, RE is taught through topics. In KS1, children are taught discretely, on a weekly basis, in five of the six half terms. In KS2 this increases to every half term. Teachers may develop the key questions linked to the themes in the syllabus, allowing links with other subject areas where appropriate. Lessons are planned and delivered in a variety of ways ensuring that all children can access and participate in lessons. Interactive, practical activities encourage the children to discuss their ideas and extend their understanding of difficult concepts and challenging questions.The spiral model of our curriculum ensures that children are constantly revisiting important content, and retrieval practice is built into RE lessons. As well as timetabled weekly lessons, special days throughout the year - such as Christmas Nativity celebrations, Holi and Eid - are planned in addition to these weekly sessions.

Each half term, knowledge organisers detail the key learning points of each topic. Children are able to explore a topic through key questions. Some work is recorded in books, and other lessons may be talk-based. Children are encouraged to explore big questions, making links to prior learning and develop listening, debate and discussion skills. Links are made with reading, and children are encouraged to explore key linked texts to develop their learning. Children with SEND or particular barriers are scaffolded and included in RE lessons, and are encouraged to share their views alongside other learners. A particular barrier at Plymouth Grove is that many children have English as an Additional Language, and the use of retrieval practice, vocabulary support and knowledge organisers are vital in supporting these learners. Teachers implement individual targeted support through a quality-first-teach approach to empower all children to achieve.

Staff are trained to effectively challenge intolerance and misconceptions, and children are empowered to explore difficult topics in age-appropriate ways. We aim to ensure that all religions are represented precisely and accurately, with nuances and differences within a religion explored and discussed. Although we make sure that all lessons are balanced, appropriate and sensitive to children’s backgrounds and the needs of our community, parents have a right to withdraw their children from RE. Those wishing to do so should contact the headteacher at the first instance.

We track individual pupils’ progress in different ways, whilst also bearing in mind that the statements do not cover all aspects of teaching and learning in RE. For example, pupil’s personal views and ideas are not subject to formal assessment, and yet are central to good RE. The class teacher’s judgement and knowledge of progress within a school year is a crucial part of this picture. Children are judged against the age related expectations, taken from the curriculum as our progression model, and a snapshot of progress is recorded on FFT. We aim to make sure that every child is able to know more, do more and remember more, every year. As a rights respecting school, it is crucial that pupils are informed how they are doing and what they must do next to make progress. Pupil voice questionnaires are used in Rights Parliament meetings to check pupils' views on the teaching of RE. The RE subject lead also conducts interviews with staff and children to monitor teaching and progression across the school. Progress in RE is reported annually to parents and has a prominent position in the end of year report.

Impact

In our school we enjoy learning about other religions and why people choose to follow religion, or choose not to follow a religion. Through their RE learning, the children are able to make links between their own lives and those of others in their community and in the wider world. We can be sure that progress is made across all year groups. 

RE at Plymouth Grove develops:

• Knowledge and understanding of, and their ability to respond to principal world religions, religious traditions and world views.
• Understanding of the influence of faith and belief on individuals, societies, communities and cultures;
• Skills of enquiry and response through the use of religious vocabulary, questioning and empathy;
• Understanding of challenging questions of the meaning and purpose of life, death and beliefs about God, issues of right and wrong and what it means to be human.
• Learning from different religions, beliefs, values and traditions while exploring questions of meaning and their own beliefs.
• Sense of identity and belonging, preparing children for life as engaged and empowered citizens.
• Respect for and sensitivity to others, in particular those whose faiths and beliefs are different from their own.
• Awareness and understanding of religions and beliefs, teachings, practices and forms of expression.