RE

Religious Education

"All religions, cultures, and beliefs deserve the same amount of respect, even if they are different from your own.” “If you are unable to love and respect someone because they don’t believe as you do, maybe you need to have another look at what it is that you believe in.”

Intent- Why do we teach Religious Education?

Religious Education (RE) plays an important role in reflecting and conveying the diverse religious characteristics of our school. Religious belief is one of the nine protected characteristics, therefore embedding a deeper understanding of different faiths will help the children to make reasoned and informed responses to life issues and moral choices. The RE curriculum helps children to develop both knowledge and understanding of Christianity as well as the other major world religions, including Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism. We want to give the children a platform to develop deeper thinking and reflect on truth, belief and faith. Religious Education is also an opportunity to foster children’s feelings of awe, wonder, joy and mystery and to extend their natural curiosity in the world around them. The schools golden value of RESPECT is at the core of the subject and is a fundamental part of all lessons.

Implementation- What do we teach?

We follow the Croydon Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education. The principal aim of the syllabus will be met through the Programmes of Study which incorporate two components:

• Attainment target 1: Learning about Religion;

• Attainment target 2: Learning from Religion and Human Experience

The areas of study through which pupils will be working are

• Authority and Worship

• Sacred and Inspirational writings

• Lifestyle and Celebrations

• Challenge units

The focused religions for each key stage in the Croydon Agreed syllabus are:

• EYFS – Focuses on festivals and celebrations throughout the year such as: Harvest, Diwali, Christmas, Hanukah, Chinese New Year, Easter, Eid, Carnival
• KS1 - Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism;
• KS2 - Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism;

There are no presumptions made as to the religious backgrounds, beliefs and values of the children and staff.  We value the religious background of all members of the school community and hope that this will encourage individuals to share their own experiences with others freely.  All religions and their communities are treated with respect and sensitivity and we value the links, which are and can be made between home, school, and a faith community.  We are extremely lucky that we have such a diverse community to draw upon and we aim to use this as a strength within our curriculum.

We acknowledge that each religion studied can contribute to the education of all our pupils. We promote teaching in Religious Education that stresses open inquiry and first-hand experiences wherever possible for both staff and children.

Impact- Our expectations

At Downsview we aim to engage, inspire, challenge and encourage pupils, to equip them with the knowledge and skills to answer challenging questions, explore different religious beliefs, values and traditions and develop a more rigorous understanding of the numerous religious traditions, beliefs and practices that are followed in our multi-cultural society.

Religious education will promote pupils’ understanding of the multicultural and multi faith society that we live in today and give our pupils opportunities to explore a variety of religions. Having learned about different faiths and beliefs, pupils will have a better understanding of how we interact with each other and explore inter faith issues of contemporary society.

Through religious education we strive to enable pupils to combat prejudice, preparing them for adult life, employment and life-long learning.