RE

Intent 

Religious Education has a significant role for the development of childrens’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. It promotes respect and open-mindedness towards others with different faiths and beliefs and encourages pupils to develop their sense of identity and belonging through self-awareness and reflection. The principle aim of RE is to engage pupils in an enquiry approach where they can develop an understanding and appreciation for the expression of beliefs, cultural practices and influence of principle religions and worldviews in the local, national and wider global community. 

Implementation 

Our curriculum is based upon the Discovery RE scheme of Learning. This provides a guide to planning that secures progression from one year to the next. Each unit is guided by a 4-step enquiry: Engagement, Investigation, Evaluation and Expression. The enquiry question has a knowledge focus and it serves to weave the sequence of lessons together such that pupils acquire and then apply knowledge to answer the question. Each unit also demands that pupils reflect on how their learning links to their own personal identity.

Impact 

At Henbury Court Primary Academy, we envision the RE curriculum will make a profound and positive impact on the outcomes of every pupil in the following ways:

• extend their knowledge and understanding of religions and beliefs
• develop a religious vocabulary and interpret religious symbolism in a variety of forms
• reflect on questions of meaning, offering their own thoughtful and informed insights into religious and secular world-views
• explore ultimate questions of beliefs and values in relation to a range of contemporary issues in an ever-changing society 

The impact of the curriculum will be judged by how well the pupils can remember, understand and apply the core knowledge they have learned. As an assessment-led school, teachers will frequently reflect on whether pupils know more and are able to retrieve RE content through a short retrieve, review and preview session.

An extremely important part of RE is experiencing places of worship and people of faith, first hand. Where possible, we aim to visit places of worship in our local community or invite people from places of worship to talk to us in school. Visits and visitors, not only consolidate learning in the classroom, but extend the children's knowledge, thus increasing understanding of the faith and its followers and in turn, encouraging children to develop respect for all faiths. This is key to preparing our children for the wider world; their cultural capital.

In Years 1-4, we have been learning about Judaism. We were fortunate to receive a visit from Iris Segall, from the Bristol and West Progressive Jewish Synagogue, who spoke to the us about how Jews show commitment to God. We were also given the opportunity to taste Challah, a special Jewish bread.”

Several children commented, “I really enjoyed trying the bread.”

To read about our RE curriculum in full, click here