Intent

Religious Education (RE) is a core subject at our school and is taught weekly.  At Herne Church of England Junior school, pupils and their families can expect a high quality religious education (RE) curriculum that is rich and varied, enabling learners to acquire a thorough knowledge and understanding of a range of faiths and world views. As a church school, the teaching of Christianity is at the heart of our RE curriculum. Through the Understanding Christianity resource, the use of an enquiry approach engages with significant theological concepts and the pupil’s own understanding of the world as part of their wider religious literacy. Using the Kent Agreed Syllabus and the Understanding Christianity (UC) resources, in line with Canterbury Diocese, we learn about other religions and worldviews, fostering respect for them.

Our RE curriculum ensures that children are well prepared for life in a world where there are a multitude of viewpoints.  We enable the children to make their own informed decisions and to have the confidence to voice their views.  It is a subject for all pupils, whatever their own family background and personal beliefs and practices. 

We aim to develop pupils’ understanding of world faiths and other beliefs by exploring their commonality and diversity.  There is both depth and breadth of study.   The RE curriculum is also about ‘belonging’.  It aims to nurture pupils’ awareness of diversity as well as sensitivity to the questions and challenges that different views and cultures can present.  We all share a common humanity and we share our view of the world with an understanding of others’ views.

We aim to provide our children with religious literacy where they will develop their knowledge and understanding of Christianity, other religious traditions and world views and explore their responses to life's challenges. This gives pupils the knowledge and skills to flourish both within their own community and as members of a diverse and global society.

We shall help our pupils prepare for their future by:

• Developing awareness of the fundamental questions raised by human experiences, and of how religious teachings can relate to them;
• Responding to such questions by referring to the teachings and practices of religions and other belief systems, relating them to their own understanding and experience;
• Encouraging pupils to reflect on their own beliefs, values and experiences in the light of their study.

Implementation

Our curriculum includes the study of religious traditions from Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and Jewish people.   RE in Herne endeavours to learn from encounters with living faiths rather than the history and belief structures of traditions.  Understanding Christianity is a spiral curriculum throughout the Key stage, where units of work are revisited in subsequent years.  70% of our curriculum is based on Christianity; the remaining 30% is focused on other world faiths and non-religious worldviews.  It is our aim that RE is delivered in an objective, critical and pluralistic manner, which challenges, enabling all children to flourish.

Links with our Christian values and vision, and support for pupil’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural (SMSC) development, as well as their understanding of British Values, are intrinsic to our RE curriculum and have a significant impact on learners. We provide a wide range of opportunities for learners to understand and to make links between the beliefs, practices and value systems of the range of faiths and worldviews studied.

 The children make progress by knowing more, remembering more and being able to do more. They need to transfer and embed key concepts into their long-term memory and apply them fluently.

Impact

We measure the impact of our curriculum in the following ways:

• Children demonstrate a positive attitude towards people of any religion and show an understanding of cultural beliefs different to their own.
• They demonstrate respectful behaviour to all and this is transferable outside of school in the wider community and beyond.
• Assessing children’s understanding of each unit’s linked vocabulary before and after the unit is taught.
• Images and videos of the children’s learning and lesson visits.
• Interviewing the pupils about their learning (pupil voice).
• Pupil’s books are scrutinised and there is the opportunity for a dialogue between teachers to understand their class’s work, assessed in line with R,W&M
• Marking of written work in books.

Children make good to accelerated progress in RE from their start point.  Children leave Herne CE Junior School with a deep knowledge of religious studies.  The have good understanding of religions and cultures.  They demonstrate thoughtfulness and learn to agree or disagree well with respect, open-minds and fairness.  They leave our school as global citizens.