Our RE curriculum
Intent - Aims of our RE Curriculum
The study of religious and non-religious worldviews is a core component of a rounded academic education. This has long been recognised as essential in Britain. Indeed, one could argue that it is more important now than ever. Young people today are growing up in a world where there is increasing awareness of the diversity of religious and non-religious worldviews, and they will need to live and work well with people with very different worldviews from themselves. One need only glance at a newspaper to know that it is impossible fully to understand the world without understanding worldviews – both religious and non-religious
Final Report of the Commission on RE – September 2018
Bearing this in mind, the principal aim for Religious Education is “to enable pupils to hold balanced and informed conversations about religion and belief”.
This over-arching aim can be further broken down into the following (taken from the “Church of England Statement of Entitlement 2019”). For pupils to:
- Know about and understand Christianity as a diverse global living faith through the exploration of core beliefs, using an approach that critically engages with biblical text;
- Gain knowledge and understanding of a range of religions and worldviews, appreciating diversity, continuity and change within the religions and worldviews being studied;
- Engage with challenging questions of meaning and purpose raised by human existence and experience;
- Recognise the concept of religion and its continuing influence on Britain’s cultural heritage and in the lives of individuals and societies in different times, cultures and places;
- Explore their own religious, spiritual and philosophical ways of living, believing and thinking.
Implementation
We follow the Northamptonshire Agreed Syllabus for RE. We draw on Understanding Christianity and the Peterborough Diocese RE Syllabus to support our teaching. Children explore the answers to questions about faith and belief in a range of ways recording these in individual RE books or in class Big Books.
Impact
Appropriate to their age at the end of their education in Church schools, the expectation is that all pupils are religiously literate and, as a minimum, pupils are able to:
- Give a theologically informed and thoughtful account of Christianity as a living and diverse faith;
- Show an informed and respectful attitude to religions and non-religious worldviews in their search for God and meaning;
- Engage in meaningful and informed dialogue with those of other faiths and none;
- Reflect critically and responsibly on their own spiritual, philosophical and ethical convictions.