A member of Dales Academies Trust 
Subject leader: Mr Gatrill
‘Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of all garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.’
Matthew 13 vs.31-32
Our entire curriculum, including Religious Education, is underpinned by the ‘Parable of the Mustard Seed’ and summarised by our motto:
Together may we give our children: roots to grow and wings to fly.
Intent
Religious Education in our schools aims to enable pupils of whatever ability and level of development to:
- Enable pupils to know about and understand Christianity as a living faith that influences the lives of people worldwide and as the religion that has most shaped British culture and heritage.
- Enable pupils to know and understand about other major world religions and non-religious worldviews, their impact on society, culture and the wider world, enabling pupils to express ideas and insights.
- Develop an understanding of the influence of beliefs, values and traditions on individuals, communities, societies and cultures, including the local community;
- Contribute to the development of pupils’ own spiritual/philosophical convictions, exploring and enriching their own beliefs and values.
- Recognise the right of people to hold different beliefs within an ethnically and socially diverse society.
Implementation
Our RE curriculum will allow children to encounter diverse religious traditions, alongside non-religious worldviews, and present a broad and flexible strategy that allows different traditions to be treated with integrity.
In line with the Leeds and York Diocesan Syllabus (September 2022), children study Christianity for 50% of the curriculum, with the other 50% being made up of other world faiths and non-religious world views.
Teaching and learning in the classroom will encompass 3 different elements:
- Making Sense of Beliefs/Texts: Identifying and making sense of core religious and non-religious concepts and beliefs; understanding what these beliefs mean within their traditions; recognise how and why sources of authority are used, expressed and interpreted in different ways, and developing skills of interpretation.
- Understanding the Impact: Examining how and why people put their beliefs into action in diverse ways, within their everyday lives, within their communities and in the wider world.
- Making Connections: Reasoning about, reflecting on, evaluating and connecting the concepts, beliefs and practices studies; allowing pupils to challenge ideas and the ideas to challenge pupils’ thinking; discerning possible connections between these ideas and pupils’ own lives and the ways of understanding the world.
Our Religious Education encourages all participants to reflect on their own beliefs and values and to acknowledge that others hold beliefs different from their own.
In our early years setting, RE is introduced through the EYFS statutory educational programmes for ‘Personal, Social and Emotional Development’ and ‘Understanding the World’ and helps children to develop their own moral and cultural awareness. Through books, stories and visits, children learn about places of worship, different beliefs and celebrations. As a church school, children learn about Christian Values during collective worship and children in Reception enjoy weekly RE lessons.
It is our belief that, through the investigative nature of our RE curriculum, all children are able to ask deep and meaningful questions that deepens their knowledge and understanding of their own spirituality and the multi-cultural world that they live in. All children, regardless of ability, are exposed to a thoughtful and exciting RE curriculum. The careful scaffolding of lessons, through questions or support, enables all children to access our rich RE curriculum.
Our RE curriculum is assessed through a combination of whole class and individual activities. The combination of the two create a clear picture of child’s journey in the subject and, through the monitoring and assessment of this, teachers are better able to identify children who may need additional support in a particular area, or extend the learning of others.
Impact
Our promotion of Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural understanding, underpins everything that we strive to achieve. Our most recent Statutory Inspection of Anglican Schools (SIAMS) inspection (2020) recognised how our children make connections between Christianity and other faiths. They initiate their own conversations about Jesus’ character and identity. Our pupils, recognise that ‘People in different parts of the world will see Jesus like themselves, but underneath he is the same everywhere’.
We are proud to be a distinctive and recognisable church school. The extremely positive relationship between the schools and the local churches facilitates a consistent and aspirational Christian vision for the school which enhances pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.
Our RE curriculum provides children with the understanding, empathy and compassion for others as they make their way into the diverse and multi-cultural world in which they live.
Additional Information
For more information regarding our RE curriculum (including our curriculum map and key procedures), please click on the ‘Useful Documents’ links below.
Similarly, under ‘Useful Links’, you can find more information regarding supplementary resources and other useful websites.
Useful Documents
Religious Education Curriculum Map
Latest SIAMS Report (February 2020)
Useful Websites
