Religious Education
Intent
At Isle of Ely Primary School we aim to ensure our Religious Education curriculum is fully inclusive of every child, empowering each one to enjoy and become inquisitive in the subject in order to develop a positive and confident attitude. Religious Education has a significant role for the development of pupils’ 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 of, and appreciation for, the expression of beliefs, cultural practices and of the influence of principle religions and worldviews in local, national and wider global communities.
Implementation
Early Years Foundation Stage
Early Years Foundation Stage teachers plan learning following the Primary Knowledge Curriculum and will learn about a variety of religious and cultural festivals and celebrations, special people and special places and begin to link them to their own area, their own experiences and those of others.
Key Stage One
Key stage one and key stage two teachers plan learning following the Cambridgeshire Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education. After liaising with the Ely Diocese, the scheme was adapted so that pupils learn core knowledge from a range of religions and worldviews. Progressively, pupils build knowledge linked to prior learning and are encouraged to reflect on their own relationship to their learning in order to help them begin to understand their own identities and values.
Children learn to recall and name different beliefs, practices and artefacts, including festivals, worships, stories, rituals and ways of life, in order to find out about the meanings behind them.
Children study Christianity, Judaism, Sikhism and Islam in Key Stage 1. During this they learn about different beliefs and celebrations to discover their importance. Children examine special places like the Church, the Mosque and the Synagogue. This can involve planned educational visits.
Children learn to retell and suggest meanings to some religious and moral stories, exploring and discussing sacred writings and sources of wisdom and recognising the traditions from which they come. Children look at a variety of stories and talk about their importance.
Key Stage Two
During this key stage, pupils are taught the knowledge, skills and understanding through deeper enquiry into known religions and in Year 6, encounter secular world views. Pupils in Year 5 and Year 6 consider the impact of beliefs and practices in greater detail and respond to more philosophical questions.
Children build on their KS1 learning about Christianity, Judaism, Sikhism and Islam in Key Stage 2 and, in addition, learn about Buddhism, Hinduism and Humanism. Children learn to describe and make connections between different features of the religions and worldwide views they study, discovering more about celebrations, worship, pilgrimages and the rituals which mark important points in life, in order to reflect on their significance.
Children learn describe and understand links between stories and other aspects of the communities they are investigation, responding thoughtfully to a range of sources of wisdom and to beliefs and teaching that arise from them in different communities.
Impact
At the Isle of Ely Primary School, we envision the RE curriculum impacting the pupils 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
By the end of each key stage, pupils are expected to know, understand and apply skills related to the two attainment targets and learning themes embedded with the Cambridgeshire Agreed Syllabus. This will be demonstrated through conversations with the children and in their written work.