Religious Education

Religious Education

Our school's Christian vision underpins the school’s approach to the teaching of RE using the locally agreed syllabus ‘Questful RE’ by Blackburn Diocesan Board of Education.

Questful RE has been updated and redesigned to ensure that it is in line with current best practice and pedagogical strategies. Questful RE promotes the explicit teaching of Christian concepts and God’s big salvation story, therefore the content of this syllabus gives pupils a deeper understanding of Christianity. Through an open investigative enquiry approach pupils are given the opportunity to explore major religions and world views. The large number of questions included in each unit is a key feature of the syllabus. As pupils explore these questions they will discover more about themselves, their relationships with others, their relationship with the world around them and their relationship with God.

To ensure delivery of a high quality Religious Education (RE) curriculum that is essential to meet the statutory requirement for all maintained schools to teach a broad and balanced curriculum the school regularly refers to ‘The Statement of Entitlement for RE’ which can be viewed below.

Intent

R.E. will support children and young people in developing their own beliefs, values and attitudes through an exploration of shared human experience and the place and significance of Christianity and other world religions in the contemporary world, with emphasis on Anglican beliefs and practices.

At St. Oswald’s we strive to:

'Teach children how they should live and they will remember it all their life'. (Proverbs 22:6)

In living out this vision through RE lessons and the enrichment of extra-curricular activities children will develop resilience and strive to make aspirational decisions about their future with Christian values at their core.

St Oswald’s Church of England Primary has undertaken to teach Christian Values explicitly in each year group and through Collective Worship themes.

RE will support the teaching of 8 Christian values especially the whole school value of ‘Community’ as RE will enable pupils to know about and empathise with members of our Multi-Cultural, Multi-Faith society.

Christian Values

Christian values are the principles that a follower of Jesus Christ holds as necessary, the principles of life that Jesus taught. Christian values promote peace and goodwill among people following the purposes of God. Christian values are at the heart of all we deliver and the ethos of our school. We have chosen 8 specific values for year groups to focus on but Community and Forgiveness are at the heart of other policies such as the Behaviour and Relationships Policy.

Our year group Christian Values:

Community
Friendship
Creation
Thankfulness
Justice
Peace
Hope
Perseverance

In order to achieve our aims, we follow the Liverpool Diocesan recommended Questful R.E. Syllabus. Pupils will experience, explore and encounter a wide range of creative and challenging multi-sensory activities that will help them to discover the answers to a range of fundamental questions.

Through an open investigative enquiry approach the pupils will be given the sense of being on a quest of discovery. A key feature of the syllabus is the large number of questions included in each unit. The purpose of these questions is to give pupils opportunity to investigate, reflect, evaluate and make meaning. In doing so they will discover more about themselves, their relationships with others, their relationship with the world around them and their relationship with God. The questions set the route through the curriculum content.

The curriculum content is a balance of the three essential disciplines of quality RE, Theology, Philosophy and Human Social Science. This means pupils will look at concepts through a theological lens, exploring what people of faith believe. Alongside this, pupils will explore questions and answers raised in relation to the lived reality and impact of religion and world views on people’s lives. They will also think like philosophers, and be equipped with the skills that will enable them to make sense of life’s experiences.

Implementation

The Liverpool Diocese recommends a minimum of 5% of the total curriculum should be allocated to R.E. The majority of the time should be R.E with a Christian emphasis (50-60%). The remaining time will be allocated to other faiths.

The school has allocated one session per week (5% of the total teaching time) for the teaching of R.E.

However, R.E. topics and themes are also explored in other areas of the curriculum – where this is the case weekly planning will refer to the R.E. objectives and outline where work is recorded. In addition, Worship sessions take place daily for twenty minutes and our Christian values and themes are shared with the pupils.

Children will also experience Harvest, Inter Faith Week, Christian Aid Week, visits to Liverpool Cathedral and also visits to our local church for Experience Christmas and Easter Events.

Impact

Through delivering this curriculum at St. Oswald's CE Primary it develops our pupils:

spiritual growth and well being
resilience and sense of purpose
cultural understanding
academic excellence
critical thinking, curiosity and open mind-fullness
respect, acceptance and empathy
ability to become agents of change within their local and global community

Teacher assessment takes place 3 times a year. All staff assess at the end of first unit of work, Christmas unit and Easter unit based on the ‘Ladder of expectation of achievement in RE’. Data is then shared with parents at the end of the school year and Governors during the Vision and Value Committee meetings.