At Newton Primary School our vision is to develop children's skills of enquiry, reasoned argument and reflection. In school, we follow the national guidance issued by the Derby City and Derbyshire Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education 2020–2025 for teaching  our Religious Education.

Religious Education is one of our key drivers for our curriculum. We start with an enquiry question and look at the concepts for this unit of work. We actively encourage children to contribute their own questions, which we hope to answer within the units of work we are covering. 

Intent

RE at our school is a curriculum driver, giving it a prominent and important role in the lives of all our pupils. The aim of R.E. is to engage pupils in the systematic enquiry in significant human questions which religion and worldviews address, so that they can develop the understanding and skills needed to appreciate varied responses to these questions, as well as develop responses of their own.

For the children this means:

A chance to consider the big questions about life, to find out what people believe and how that affects the way they live, in order to make sense of religion and worldviews, reflecting on their own thoughts, ideas and ways of living. This will enable them to understand the wider world around them.

Implementation

Based on the Derbyshire and Derby City Agreed Syllabus for RE, pupils learn from religions and world views about different ways of life. They discover, explore and consider many different answers to questions about human identity, meaning and value. They learn to weigh up for themselves the value of wisdom from different communities, to disagree respectfully, to be reasonable in their responses to religions and world views and to respond by expressing insights about their own and others’ lives. They think rigorously, creatively, imaginatively and respectfully about their ideas in relation to religion and world views.

In the EYFS (F2), RE is taught within ‘Understanding of the World’.

The RE topics follow a 2 year cycle to ensure children learn new content, make progress and develop enquiry skills to be able to answer the Key Questions. Where possible, visits are made to places of worship and faith adherents are invited into school to develop the children’s knowledge and empathy. The main focus of our teaching is built up from the representation of faiths and beliefs within our community and wider local area.

Reception:
Children will encounter Christianity and other faiths, as part of their growing sense of self, their own community and their place within it.

Key Stage 1:
Christians, Judaism and an introduction to Islam

Key Stage 2:
Christians, Muslims, Hindus and Jewish people, alongside other world views, such as Humanism and Spiritualism.

Impact

Our Religious Education Curriculum impacts pupils in the following ways:

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

By the end of each key stage, pupils are expected to know, understand and apply skills related to attainment targets and learning themes embedded with in the Derbyshire Agreed Syllabus for RE.