RE
Curriculum Intent
The role of RE at the Grange is to help prepare and equip all pupils for life and citizenship in today’s diverse Britain. Each pupil fosters an increasing awareness of the diversity of religious and non-religious beliefs, practices, spiritual insights and world views they will encounter.
By inquiring, contextualising and evaluating, pupils will develop the knowledge, insights and skills necessary for them to be able to live authentically and responsibly as adults in today’s world. They will acknowledge how religious and non religious communities seek to uphold and develop the well-being of the human family.
Religious Education intends to provide our children with understanding about beliefs that are represented broadly in the UK but not specifically in the local community as a way of preparing children for life in multicultural Britain.
The school follows the Hampshire Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education. This scheme seeks to introduce children to what a religious way of looking at, and existing in, the world may offer in leading one’s life, individually and collectively, the idea that to live a religious life is characterised by a particular way of being in and with the world, with a particular kind of awareness of, and faith in, the world and in other human beings.
Through RE at the Grange Community Junior School, we will aim that all pupils:
- Engage pupils in an enquiry approach where they can develop an understanding and appreciation for the expression of beliefs, cultural practices and influences of principle religions.
- Gain a respect and open-mindedness towards others with different faiths and beliefs.
- Develop their own sense of identity and belonging through self-awareness and reflection.
- Cultivate their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development
- Develop a religious vocabulary and interpret religious symbolism in a variety of forms.
Implementation of the curriculum
At Grange Junior School, children are taught about a range of religions, learning to respect and ask questions about different religions, traditions and cultures around the world. We make R.E relevant by studying and celebrating real events and providing children with hands-on, relevant experiences. Learning about various aspects of different cultures, and comparing them with those within our communities.
RE is taught weekly. Children study aspects of what it means to live in the Christian tradition as well as depth studies of two additional religions; this is Hinduism in year 3 and 4 and Islam in 5 and 6. These religions are the top three largest groups. To give our pupils a more rounded Religious Education, we also teach short units on Buddhism, Sikhism and Humanism as we believe this will lay a good foundation for work in Key stage 3 and ensure that children will have opportunities to come into contact with a range of differing religious and secular views in order to formulate and articulate their own views.
The Living Difference approach to teaching RE is concept driven, and always begins with the teacher finding interesting ways to bring the concept alive for children in different ways in which they will experience what they encounter.
The cycle of enquiry then usually moves into the communicate step where children are introduced to the concept and invited to share their own experiences in different ways.
At the apply step the teacher opens up the classroom conversation so that children can become aware of the experience of others beginning with those in their class.
The teacher then introduces the material to be encountered and studied at the inquire step. Here the children engage with the concepts, words or religious traditions and practices.
The formal study of a tradition or other way of life will always include living examples or case studies where the concept studied can be seen in real life contexts. This is the contextualise step.
Children begin to discern at the evaluate step. This is in two ways. First the concept is discerned for those living within the context/religion studied and second is where they are brought to discern how the concept studied might matter in their own lives.
We believe children learn best from exciting and real experiences to encourage curiosity and facilitate learning. Children are encouraged to share primary and secondary sources of evidence from home that are linked to the theme being taught in class. The RE curriculum is enriched through celebration of dedicated days, visitors and visits. At Grange we have close links with the Church of the Good Shepherd. Members of CoGS regularly visit school to lead assemblies and support Christian based RE lessons. In addition we have whole school assemblies to celebrate Harvest, Remembrance, Christmas and Easter. Where links are meaningful, we enhance our curriculum by relating our R.E. to other curriculum work for example the study of particular values in PSHE.
Religious Education at Grange plays a vital part in the spiritual, moral, social and cultural climate within our school. Also within our RE lessons, we teach our pupils about the values and moral beliefs that underpin individual choices of behaviour. Correspondingly, we promote the values and attitudes required for citizenship in a democracy by teaching respect for others and the need for personal responsibility. In general, by promoting tolerance and understanding of other people, we enable children to appreciate what it means to be positive members of our diverse society. Whole school collective worship often supports RE as it provides a place where the children develop school and British values and help pupils to see how they are valuable members of our society in school and in the community. Assemblies instil a sense of belonging and motivate the children towards living their life in a meaningful way.
Impact of our curriculum
The desired impact of adopting Living Difference IV at Grange Juniors is to introduce children to what a religious way of looking at, and existing in, the world may offer in leading one’s life, individually or collectively; the overarching ambition is to support children in coming to discernment about what has been studied, and especially what this may mean for their own life.
At Grange, the outlined programme of study seeks to help our children discern their own responses to wide ranging and challenging concepts from a variety of traditions while thriving in a world that is diverse and can never mean simply one thing at all times.
By the time our pupils leave Grange Juniors we hope they will be enthusiastic about religious education and will have achieved the intended outcomes of the agreed syllabus and have:
- A developing capacity to engage with concepts alongside the consideration of the responses from religious and non-religious groups and world views, to formulate their own sense of identity and values and explain concepts within the traditions of a variety of religions. (INQUIRE – BELIEFS)
- An increasing core of insightful knowledge concerning religion(s), beliefs and world views, both in Britain and in more global terms and being able to explain the meanings of and way in which concepts are encountered in a variety of religions. (CONTEXTUALISE – PRACTICES)
- A growing range of the social, spiritual, and emotional skills and dispositions appropriate to living well in a religiously diverse society and being able to discern the value of concepts to their own and other peoples experiences. (EVALUATE – COMMUNITY AND BELONGING)
Whole school overview
