Religious Education (RE) Intent, Implementation and Impact

Religious Education Intent 

At Greatfield Park Primary School, we share the principal aim of the Gloucestershire Agreed Syllabus. This is ‘to explore what people believe and what difference this makes to how they live, so that pupils can gain the knowledge, understanding, determination and skills needed to handle questions raised by religion and belief, reflecting on their own ideas and ways of living’.

We assert the importance of religious education (RE) for all pupils and identify the benefits this has for the creation of an open, articulate and respectful society. We aim to make sure our teaching of RE provokes ‘big questions’ about meaning and purpose in life, beliefs about God, issues of right and wrong and what it means to be human. The curriculum structure we follow is one of supportively building on top of existing knowledge developed each year and one that provides challenge and promotion of academic achievement creativity for all pupils. Greatfield is committed to ensuring that through considered differentiation and scaffolding, SEND pupils are able to achieve excellence alongside their peers and reflective, independent questioning to champion pupils’ developing religious reasoning.  It is the school’s expectation that all pupils should achieve the expected standard in the Gloucestershire agreed syllabus in RE by the end of Key Stages 1 and 2.

Our pupils learn about the impact and significance of religious and non-religious beliefs within their own community. Through RE, the promotion of, as well as  bothwithin national and global contextsawareness can be developed and impressed upon the pupils, such as using the story of Creation to encourage an active discussion on how we can be better stewards of the planet. .The pupils will benefit from experiential learning through class visits and expert visitors, augmenting not only their knowledge of their current topic, but also their cultural development.  They discover, explore and consider different answers to these big questions, using appropriate vocabulary. Pupils learn to mindfully weigh up the value of different sources and, in order to use their developing oracy skills to express their responses and to agree or disagree respectfully. Our curriculum is also tailored to encourage the promotion of cross curricular skills, with writing and presentation being a strong focus to be developed through activities such as rewriting key stories and parables in the pupils’ own words.

From the early years and throughout their school learning journey, we aspire for all pupils to be equipped with carefully sequenced knowledge and understanding of a range of religions and beliefs. All pupils s, regardless of their ability, are also challenged to express their own personal reflections with increasing clarity and understanding, enabling them to develop their own ideas, values and identities. We aim to prepare all pupils to be able to participate positively as British citizens in our society, with its diverse religions and beliefs.

RE Implementation

RE is a highly valued subject of the curriculum at Greatfield Park primary School. We follow the Gloucestershire Agreed Syllabus and the ‘Understanding Christianity’ syllabus.

The teaching and learning approach has three core elements, which are woven together to provide breadth and balance within teaching and learning about religions and beliefs. The three elements are Making sense of beliefs, Making connections and understanding the impact.

RE aims

1. To make sense of a range of religious and non-religious beliefs
2. To understand the impact and significance of religious and non-religious beliefs:
3. To make connections between religious and non-religious beliefs, concepts, practices and ideas studied,

RE is taught weekly across the school, for 50 minutes in Key Stage 1 and for 1 hour in Key Stage 2.

The Gloucestershire Agreed Syllabus guidance supports us to teach about a range of other faiths.

• EYFS- Children will encounter Christianity and other faiths, as part of their growing sense of self, their own community and their place within it.
• Key Stage 1-Christianity, Judaism and Islam.
• Key Stage 2- Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and Islam.

We study one religion at a time (‘systematic’ units), and then teach ‘thematic’ units, which build on learning by comparing the religions, beliefs and practices studied.

Each year group has 6 units to teach over the academic year:

EYFS- 3 on Christianity and 3 mixed faith comparisons.

Year 1- 2 on Judaism, 2 on Christianity and 2 mixed faiths comparisons.

Year 2 – 3 on Christianity, 2 on Islam and 1 mixed faith comparison.

Year 3 – 3 on Christianity, 1 on Islam, 1 on Judaism and 1 mixed faith comparisons.

Year 4 – 3 on Christianity, 2 Hinduism and I mixed faith comparisons.

Year 5- 3 on Christianity, 1 on Islam, 1 on Judaism and I mixed faith comparison.

Year 6 – 2 on Christianity, 1 on Hinduism and 3 mixed faith comparisons.

For each unit the class teacher provides an Overview to go in the children’s book (see the end of the document.)

This includes objectives to be taught in the unit and key vocabulary. As the unit is explored, the children will often write definitions of the key words to develop the children’s religious literacy.

RE Impact

The impact of the RE curriculum will be measured through book looks, learning walks, displays and end of unit assessments where the children are identified whether they are working below, at or above the unit’s objectives.