Red Oak Primary School, Lowestoft

Religious Education at Red Oak Primary          

Why teach RE?

It is important in RE that children are given the opportunity to learn about and understand other cultures and religions. In preparing for adult life, they need to learn to respond well to a local, national and global landscape of religion and belief diversity. In the context of today’s world, we are advocating that RE should help children and young people to hold balanced and well-informed conversations about religion and belief, i.e. be religiously literate. This will enable the children to build respect and understanding for others and help them to understand that everyone should be treated with respect. By having this opportunity to experience other cultures will help to combat racism by building understanding and respect.

Intent: At Red Oak children will access a high quality RE curriculum that engenders an interest in exploring, improving understanding of and showing respect for different faiths and cultural diversity. This will enable them to develop a knowledge and acceptance of religions and worldviews, with the skill to “disagree agreeably”.  Children will know where beliefs come from- how they have changed over time, how they are applied differently in different contexts and how they relate to each other; They will find out how and whether things make sense; dealing with questions of morality and ethics; taking seriously the nature of reality, knowledge and existence; They will explore the diverse ways in which people practise their beliefs; engaging with the impact of beliefs on individuals, communities and societies.

Implementation: We will create a safe and stimulating environment in which children are entitled to question, evaluate and express themselves through debate and discussion - “disagree agreeably”. RE is taught weekly covering each of the themes across the year groups, enabling children to build on prior knowledge and understanding of each faith. Lessons will include opportunities for discussion, debate, role-play, singing and art. They will look at key texts and traditions; beliefs, teachings/doctrines and sources; practices and ways of life; forms of expression; identity and belonging; They will investigate and observe lived religious practices within local, national and international contexts; and consider how they have shaped and continue to shape society. Use of assessment will show progression through each of these skills.

Impact: Children will have a knowledge and understanding of: The major world religions and non-religious worldviews: key texts and traditions; beliefs, teachings/doctrines and sources; practices and ways of life; forms of expression; identity and belonging; They will begin to recognise how religion has influenced humanities’ search for meaning and purpose; They will investigate and observe lived religious practices within local, national and international contexts; and consider how they have shaped and continue to shape society. Children will have the skills to analyse a range of primary and secondary sources; understand symbolic language; use technical terminology effectively. They will interpret meaning and significance; evaluate and reflect upon beliefs and ethics and how they impact upon the lives of others and themselves; refine the way they think about the world and their place in it; consider moral principles, including the nature of good and evil. They will respectfully critique and value the wide range of beliefs and cultural influences that have shaped their own heritage and that of others, considering both differences and commonalities; recognise bias and stereotype; represent a range of views, other than one’s own, with accuracy. Use of pupil voice will demonstrate what they know and what they can remember that they did not know before.

Our Key Actions 2023-2024

We aim to make the golden thread between themes of RE across year groups explicit.

We aim to provide visits to religious places to enable the children to have first hand experiences of religious beliefs.

We will continue to make more links to local, national or global events which link to religious festivals/celebrations throughout the year and develop knowledge and understanding of world views.

We will continue to aim to invite more visitors into school from different denominations.

We will continue to develop CPD for RE across the school to ensure that we continue to provide a high quality RE curriculum that engenders an interest in exploring, improving understanding of and showing respect for different faiths and cultural diversity.

Improvements so far:

• Children are already demonstrating curiosity and exploring aspects of RE independently.
• Understanding of different faiths and cultural diversity is improving.
• Children are beginning to understand the impact of religion on people’s lives by exploring religious places around the world.
• Children are beginning to express clearly their responses to questions and offer their own viewpoints and opinions.

Curriculum

There is a long term plan for RE which maps out the curriculum across the year groups.

Each Year group from Year 1 to Year 6 studies one of the six major religions in detail over half a term. These units of work incorporate the learning themes (see below) as set out in the Suffolk and Norfolk RE Syllabus.

Red Oak's long term RE plan can be viewed below, please click on the PDF: