Religious Education
Intent:
At Ashdon Primary Schools, Religious Education is a valuable part of the curriculum offering opportunities for personal reflection and spiritual development, deepening the understanding of the significance of religion in the lives of others – individually, communally and cross culturally. It provides a key context to develop young people’s understanding and appreciation of diversity, to promote shared values and to challenge discrimination.
In-line with The Essex agreed syllabus for religious education 2015 we aim to ensure pupils:
• engage with challenging questions about the meaning and purpose of life, beliefs, the self,issues of right and wrong, and what it means to be human. It develops pupils’ knowledge and understanding of Christianity, other principal religions, and religious traditions that examine these questions, fostering personal reflection and spiritual development.
• explore their own beliefs (whether they are religious or non-religious), in the light of what they learn, as they examine issues of religious belief and faith and how these impact on personal,institutional and social ethics, and to express their responses. This also builds resilience to anti-democratic or extremist narratives.
• build their sense of identity and belonging, which helps them flourish within their communities and as citizens in a diverse society.
• learn to develop respect for others, including people with different faiths and beliefs, and helps to challenge prejudice.• consider their responsibilities to themselves and to others, and to explore how they might contribute to their communities and to wider society. It encourages empathy, generosity and compassion.
Implementation:
In 2019, we decided that there was too much content in the curriculum and we needed to cover each aspect in more depth rather than try to fit in so much content. An analysis was completed to streamline our curriculum whilst ensuring we still had a broad and balanced curriculum covering all important world religions with an emphasis on the religions in our school.
Cross-curricular learning and real world contexts.
• Wherever possible, a cross-curricular approach will be taken to the teaching of R.E. Lessons will often be linked to pupils' learning in English, History, RSHE/PHSE or Geography.
• We understand that our world is constantly changing and wherever possible, real time issues and topics will be explored throughout our R.E. curriculum.
Key learning experiences
• We understand that first-hand experience is an essential element of an outstanding R.E. curriculum and therefore ensure it is a high priority for all learners.
• Visiting places of worship, meeting religious believers and exploring artifacts ensures pupils gain these first-hand experiences.
Challenge and Support for all Learners
• We understand that every learner develops differently, and we adapt our provision continuously to ensure every pupil receives the correct balance of support and challenge in order to achieve their very best. We recognise this fact and provide suitable learning opportunities for all pupils (including those who may be gifted and talented or have additional needs) by matching the challenge of the task to the ability of the pupil. Each pupil is valued, respected and challenged regardless of ability, race, gender, religion,social background, culture or disability.
Impact:
At Ashdon Primary School, our R.E. curriculum follows the Essex Agreed Syllabus for R.E.(2023). EYFS milestones incorporated into subject progression document when we created it 2023. The school was selected to take part in the pilot, an exciting project offering schools a chance to be part of national research, and also to audit, develop and improve their R.E curriculum. Excellent R.E provided free, sustained CPD to introduce participating schools to exploring religion and worldviews through multi-disciplinary RE. In addition, schools had the opportunity to examine their whole curriculum offer and decide on priorities for improvement (commencing in January 2022).Following the announcement from Essex LA for all to schools to implement the new Essex SACRE. Agreed Syllabus by September 2023, the Saffron Academy Trust has written a comprehensive and complete scheme of work which provides primary schools with detailed lesson plans, a suite of resources and supporting Power Points for all units from EYFS to Year 6. It is an enquiry-led,multi-faith syllabus viewed, considered and explored through three distinct lenses.This was a really successful initiative that we are very pleased to be part of.