“RE plays an important role in preparing children for adult life, employment and lifelong learning. It helps children and young people become successful learners, confident individuals and responsible citizens. It gives them the knowledge, skills and understanding to discern and value truth and goodness, strengthening their capacity for making moral judgements and for evaluating different types of commitment to make positive and healthy choices.” Religious Education in Schools 2010

Intent of our Religious Education Provision

RE provides opportunities for children and young people to reflect and analyse, to discuss and debate, to explore and discover, and to learn more about the world in which they live.

At Whitehouse Community Primary School, we aim to provide our children with an inclusive, diverse and engaging curriculum exploring many areas of religion and culture. Our school has children and families with a wide range of religions so our curriculum is designed to allow our children to explore and understand the multi-cultural world around them with both curiosity and respect. Many opportunities are provided for children to explore religions in a variety of ways; such as external visits to places of worship as well as visitors coming into our school to share information. It is our belief that exposing children to these religions will allow them to be not only be curious about the wider world but also be understanding and tolerant of others’ beliefs. Our whole school values of the Whitehouse Way, our golden rules and the RRSA initiative aim to support our children to become knowledgeable, reflective and compassionate Global Citizens.

Implementation of our Religious Education Provision

Our RE curriculum is based on the highly recommended programme ‘Discovery RE’ with adaptions to suit the diverse needs of our children. This resource provides full coverage of the required key skills and an abundance of engaging activities accessible to all our children. Throughout the course of a year all children will be exposed to six different RE units, these are all based on a key question. The units are planned using a progressive spiral approach and allow children to revisit, build upon and deepen knowledge, skills and vocabulary as they move through the key stages.  A range of Religions are taught and revisited through the key stages, beginning with basic factual knowledge of the beliefs, building up to understanding individual’s commitments and sacrifices and then learning how to express, reflect on and justify their own opinions of each religion.

RE is mostly taught through discrete RE lessons or whole school RE days. Where possible cross-curricular links to RE will be made in other lessons, for example studying the religious beliefs of different Historical people or cultures. In every year group, a range of carefully written targets guide teachers to plan and assess children’s RE learning. All RE lessons are scaffolded using our three-step learning objectives and gold challenges. RE lessons are also closely linked to our SMSC curriculum. RE lessons often include a large focus on discussion and debate and teachers are encouraged to plan as many educational visits, guest speakers or parental engagement sessions as possible to support and enrich the learning of RE within their year group.

Impact of our Religious Education Provision

RE helps young people develop beliefs and values, and promotes the virtues of respect and empathy, which are important in our school and the diverse society we live in today.

• Children have well-rounded knowledge of religious beliefs and figures and how they have shaped the world and their daily lives.
• High quality work is evidenced in learning journals and displays around the school.
• Children enjoy RE lessons and are motivated to learn about others’ beliefs, opportunities for discussion allow all children to take part in lessons with less pressure on written skills, increasing engagement and breaking down barriers to achievement.
• Our children’ increased religious awareness not only helps our children understand the world but also understand each other, creating our school’s positive and inclusive environment and helps children understand and have empathy for other children and families in our school.
• Giving children the freedom to share opinions with no judgement increases children’ confidence, reduces anxiety and increases their understanding and acceptance of others and cements their place within the school community.
• Our spiral curriculum develops our children’s vocabulary and understanding year on year which supports children’s confidence and ability to contribute to lessons and reduces cognitive load.
• Teacher assessment, peer assessment and children’ self-assessment are used to track progress and attainment. Assessments are recorded and monitored on classroom monitor and analysed through pupil-progress meetings termly.