RE
Intent
At Buckhurst Hill Community Primary School we believe that RE is an important subject, developing an individual’s knowledge and understanding of the religions and beliefs which form part of multicultural society. Good quality RE lessons contribute to pupils’ personal development and well-being by promoting mutual respect and tolerance in a diverse society. An enquiry based approach offers opportunities for personal reflection and deepening pupils' understanding of the significance of RE in the lives of themselves others both within our community and around the world.
In Religious Education we aim to:
- To be respectful and open-minded with regard to all religions.
- To develop an understanding and appreciation of the different beliefs, values, traditions and cultural practices that are followed in our multicultural society.
- To ask questions about world faiths and to reflect on their own beliefs.
- To develop the ability to make reasoned and informed judgements about religious and moral issues.
- To challenge prejudice
Implementation
At Buckhurst Hill we follow Discovery RE. Discovery RE is an enquiry-based scheme of work, covering the 6 principal world faiths in a progressive way from Reception to Year 6. In the early years, the learning is closely matched to Development Matters to contribute meaningfully to children’s holistic development. Throughout all the enquiries, the children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural education is carefully considered.
Lessons are taught over the cause of a half term and are based around a ‘big’ question e.g. What is the best way for a Christian to show commitment to God? Children discuss the theme of enquiry from their own experience. Once children have an understanding of the key concept, they move on to investigating what the people following the studied religion believe about it.
In week 5 they will complete an activity which can assess their learning, by answering their “big” question. The assessment activities are child friendly and can be answered in a variety of ways, as long as the child can justify their view with the knowledge they have gained throughout the enquiry. This demonstrates the level of critical thinking that the children can apply – a valuable skill for them throughout the school curriculum.
The final week in every enquiry gives the children time to reflect on what they have learnt about the concept and apply to it their own lives, thus allowing them to form their own beliefs and identity
Impact
Our RE curriculum is high quality, well thought out and is planned to demonstrate progression. The children make progress through the study of big questions, building on key concepts and knowledge from previous learning. creating transferable skills which can be used in the study of all religions.
We measure the impact of our curriculum in the following ways:
- Children demonstrate a positive attitude towards people of any religion and show an understanding of cultural beliefs different to their own.
- They demonstrate respectful behaviour to all and this is transferable outside of school in the wider community and beyond.
- Assessing children’s understanding of each unit’s big question
- Images and videos of the children’s learning.
- Interviewing the pupils about their learning (pupil voice).
- Pupil’s books are scrutinised and there is the opportunity for a dialogue between teachers to understand their class’s work.
- Marking of written work in books
Gallery
