Religious Education
Intent
At Greenfield Primary school, we follow the Walsall Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education in accordance with Walsall’s ‘Standing Advisory Council of Religious Education’ (SACRE). In accordance with the agreed syllabus, Religious Education at Greenfield:
- Is open and objective. It does not seek to urge religious beliefs on young people, nor compromise the integrity of their own religious position by promoting one tradition over another.
- Endeavours to promote a positive attitude toward people, respecting their right to hold different beliefs from their own.
- Promotes the values and attitudes necessary for citizenship in the multi-faith and multi-racial society that our children live in through developing understanding of, respect for, and dialogue with people of different beliefs, practices, races and cultures.
- Recognises similarities and differences in commitment, self-understanding and the search for truth. Respecting and valuing these for the common good.
- Is not the same as collective worship, which has its own place in the educational life of the school, contributing to an informed, reflective, compassionate and caring school community.
The RE curriculum at Greenfield is organised to support the development of children’s knowledge of religious and non-religious beliefs and world - views, practices and ways of life and enable children to make links between these. Knowledge and skills are mapped to support children’s understanding of religion and faith. The RE curriculum is also designed to support positive attitudes and values, and encourage children to reflect and relate learning to their own experience. Children learn that there are those who do not hold religious beliefs and have their own philosophical perspectives, as part of its commitment to ensure mutual respect and tolerance for those with different faiths.
The syllabus recommends that any themes are explored by investigating and reflecting on the responses of more than one religion or belief system. Walsall SACRE promote RE and Collective Worship in the Borough, develop the good teaching of Religious Education in schools and support community cohesion. At Greenfield, we are committed to providing our children with an exciting and positive learning environment, in which they have the opportunity to develop their knowledge and understanding of religions to support their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.
RE makes a key educational contribution to pupils’ explorations of British Values. Teaching the Walsall Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education will enable the pupils at Greenfield School to learn to think for themselves about British Values; to question whether social and moral values are best described as ‘British Values’ or seen as more universal human values. For the purposes of teachers of RE, the subject offers opportunities to build an accurate knowledge base about religions and beliefs in relation to values.
Implementation
At Greenfield, RE is taught weekly over a two year cycle.
As children progress through the different RE units, they are able to look deeper into spiritual, ethical, moral and social issues and with increasing breadth across different religions and worldviews through time and around the world. Learning is planned and sequenced to support pupils in building an ever-increasing picture over time, constantly building their knowledge and understanding of key subject knowledge and specialist vocabulary. This ensures that the investigation, exploration and reflection of their own and others’ responses to ‘Big Questions’ can continuously increase in depth, breadth and complexity. As pupils move through the Religious Education curriculum and the units increase in complexity, depth and breadth, the expectations of pupils to explain ‘what’ the beliefs, practices and values are and the relationships between them, as well as explaining ‘why’ these are important and may make a difference to people, and ‘how’ they relate, change or impact on a wider world view also increases.
Impact
to ensure a high standard of RE in school and that by the end of school children have a good understanding of a variety of religions we;
- Regularly review the curriculum throughout the year.
- Work is regularly reviewed through book trawls and staff feedback.
- Record all work in a designated RE book for each child from Year 1 to Year 6 to show each child’s journey through written, practical, role play and discussion tasks.
- Track planning against the curriculum throughout the year.
- Give children the opportunity to share their voice, asking for their experiences of RE learning through pupil conferences;
- Regularly monitor the progress against a skills ladder which matches the attainments expected by Walsall SACRE this supports teachers with their planning. The coordinator also carries out an audit of this to help staff develop their skills.
- Audit of skills ladders show that each cohort of children have experienced all the skills they need to. This also helps to identify those who need more help or are able to show strengths which can be built on in following phase, which assists teachers in their planning.
- Feedback to staff allows an opportunity for the coordinator to give advice and recommend training for staff either through coaching or staff meetings.
L. Howship 2021
The following document was updated July 2017 guidance from the Department for Education - National Curriculum.
The word document below gives an overview of the R.E. taught at Greenfield. Throughout the year, the children are taught four units of R.E. The children are taught about specific religions and festivals; they also learn about different important and inspirational figures and the older children begin to explore religious values and their importance in everyday life.