Religious Education
Intent
At St. James’, Religious Education has a significant role for the development of
pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. It widely promotes respect,
tolerance and open-mindedness towards others with different faiths and beliefs and
encourages pupils to develop their sense of identity and belonging through self-
awareness and reflection. The key aim of RE is to engage pupils in an enquiry
approach where they can develop an understanding and appreciation for the
expression of beliefs, cultural practices and influence of principle religions and
worldviews in the local, national and wider global community.
Implementation
At St. James’ we follow the Hampshire recommended syllabus, Living Difference IV
and we use the newly introduced resource Understanding Christianity for the
teaching of Christianity. Teaching and learning is based around a cycle of enquiry
approach and through this the children are encouraged to participate in critical
thinking. Each unit of learning is underpinned by a key concept and this drives the
learning journey that follows. RE lessons provide the opportunity for reflection,
discussion, dialogue and debate and promote the development of positive values
and attitudes. As the children journey through the school, they will encounter the
teaching of key concepts and practices within our principle religion Christianity as
well as Hinduism, Judaism and Islam. By revisiting concepts at each key stage, this
enables pupils to retrieve and deepen their knowledge and understand about the key
concepts and practices set down in the agreed syllabus.
Impact
At St. James’, we envision the RE curriculum impacting the pupils in the following
ways:
- extending their knowledge and understanding of a wide range of religions and
worldviews - gaining a wider appreciation of the diverse world within which we live
developing and refining their enquiry skills, as they are increasingly asked to think
more critically - Half-termly summative assessments are used to determine the children’s’
understanding and inform teacher’s planning and further differentiated support for
pupils.
Please click here to view our RE long term overview
Please click here to view Living Difference IV, the Hampshire agreed syllabus.