Religious Education

Intent

1. To have very high expectations in RE across the whole school so that children are ready for an ever changing world with many different religions and cultures.

2. To provide a broad and balanced curriculum which is progressive in knowledge, skills and vocabulary.

3. To develop our children's tolerance and respect to others views.

4. To support and encourage our children to reflect on their own beliefs and appreciate the awe and wonder of the world.

5. To offer children new and exciting opportunities and experiences.

6. To promote our school and British Values.

7. To prepare our children for the next steps in their learning journey.

Implementation

At Nicol Mere, our outstanding RE curriculum is designed to fulfil the aims of our mission statement. We follow the locally agreed Wigan Syllabus for Religious Education, which has been designed by a high-skilled team of professionals and enhances our pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. The curriculum we implement provides all our pupils, regardless of their backgrounds or abilities, with a positive experience of Religious Education through a series of carefully sequenced modules which enables knowledge and skills to be built upon over time. Every lesson equips our pupils with knowledge and values which they can carry with them throughout the next stages of their lives.

All staff promote a love and kindness towards every member who is part of our Nicol Mere family, and we inspire pupils to welcome new families and pupils into our school community, regardless of their race or religion. To really promote this in addition to our daily ethos, we dedicate quality time to undertake activities every year during Inter Faith Week, which is an opportunity for pupils across both key stages to connect with other children living in a more diverse community, to break down stereotypes and consider potential barriers to living in a multi-faith society.

As Nicol Mere is a community school, we pride ourselves on teaching our pupils about the religious beliefs and practices from a range of faiths, including worldwide views and non-religious views so they have a wider understanding of how their personal beliefs or family traditions compare or differ to those around them, including their peers at school and those within their community. To successfully achieve our high standards and aspirations of pupils in RE, we believe that our children learn best when we:

·        Provide them with access to, and are able to handle religious artefacts in lessons

·        Organise visits to places of worship

·        Invite guest speakers into school, e.g. Imam, Vicar, local Christian preacher

·        Give children access to religious books, i.e. Holy Bibles, Children’s Bibles and Holy Qur’an, and ensure these are stored in a respectable way

·        Read a variety of religious stories and parables to share key messages, morals and beliefs.

·        Allow pupils to explore images, videos and music which convey a range of religious beliefs and practices

·        Allow pupils to participate in moments of quiet reflection

·        Encourage children to use the correct religious vocabulary and pose their own enquiry throughout

·        Allow pupils to debate and communicate worldviews, philosophical ideas and beliefs and asking and answering ultimate questions posed by these

·        Instil mutual respect and tolerance towards others with differing beliefs to themselves

·        Ensure staff have sound knowledge within every module of RE being taught, and they enthuse pupils to develop a passion for RE.

·        Group pupils based on their abilities within RE and support our lower attaining pupils within RE through the use of additional adults and setting accessible learning challenges.

In addition to RE lessons, our children take part in a Collective Worship session once a week where we give children, and staff, opportunities to come together to worship God. Once every month, a local Christian preacher (Mr J. Heyes) joins us for Collective Worship to share Christian teachings and Bible stories with KS2. During the weekly Collective Worship, we also talk about different religious festivals being celebrated throughout the year. The children also attend two whole school assemblies throughout the Liturgical year, at Christmas and Easter.

Impact

The impact of our RE curriculum is measured by the confidence and competence of our children within the subject.

Our curriculum offers:

·        opportunities for reflection, personal development and spiritual development

Our curriculum develops pupils’:

·        knowledge and understanding of world religions, religious traditions and world views

·        skills of enquiry and response through questioning and the use of religious vocabulary

·        abilities to interpret religious symbolism in a variety of forms

·        explorations of ultimate questions of belief and values in relation to a range of contemporary issues in an             ever-changing society.

Our curriculum enhances pupils’:

·        awareness and understanding of multiple faiths and beliefs, teachings and religious duties and practices

·        ability to reflect on and consider questions of meaning, offering their own thoughtful and informed insights into religious and secular worldviews.

Children’s knowledge and skills are obtained through the use of teacher assessments and end of unit knowledge tests. Action can be taken to further develop RE using summative assessment and pupil questionnaires which reflect pupils’ voices.

RE Curriculum and Knowledge Organisers