Religious Education
Intent | What and why do we teach what we teach?
At the Learning Academies Trust, we believe that Religious Education provokes challenging questions about the meaning and purpose of life, about faith, issues of right and wrong and what it means to be human. It develops children’s knowledge and understanding of the principles of world religions and living faiths, as well as non-religious perspectives such as Humanism. We have carefully curated a Religion and Worldviews curriculum in line with the 'United Learning Curriculum', which engages, inspires and challenges pupils to learn and remember more. Within the United Learning curriculum, there are six core principles, which are: entitlement, coherence, mastery, adaptability, representation, education with character.
The United Curriculum for Religion and Worldviews provides all children, regardless of their background, with:
•Entitlement - All pupils have the right to learn what is in the United curriculum, and schools have a duty to ensure that all pupils are taught the whole of it
•Coherence - Taking the National Curriculum as its starting point, our curriculum is carefully sequenced so that powerful knowledge builds term by term and year by year. We make meaningful connections within subjects and between subjects. Religious Education or Religion & Worldviews currently has no National Curriculum; the United curriculum design takes account of statutory requirements and current research.
•Mastery -We ensure that foundational knowledge, skills and concepts are secure before moving on. Pupils revisit prior learning and apply their understanding in new contexts
•Adaptability - The core content – the ‘what’ – of the curriculum is stable, but schools will bring it to life in their own local context, and teachers will adapt lessons – the ‘how’ – to meet the needs of their own classes
•Representation - All pupils see themselves in our curriculum, and our curriculum takes all pupils beyond their immediate experience
•Education with character - Our curriculum - which includes the taught subject timetable as well as spiritual, moral, social and cultural development, our co-curricular provision and the ethos and ‘hidden curriculum’ of the school – is intended to spark curiosity and to nourish both the head and the heart
Implementation | How and when do we teach what we teach?
Across the LAT, RE is taught from EYFS to Year 6 through our LAT-wide curriculum. There is a clear progression of practical, theoretical and disciplinary knowledge from EYFS to Year 6.
Across our schools, a variety of tools, models and methods are used to scaffold pupils’ learning to enable pupils to remember more and deepen their understanding. This may include, but is not limited to: live modelling, questioning, retrieval practice, knowledge organisers, graphic organisers and modified or specialist tools. It is essential that all pupils receive an ambitious and challenging RE curriculum from when pupils join us in EYFS to when they leave us in Year 6 and make the transition to Key Stage Three.
In EYFS, Religion and Worldviews is taught through the ‘Understanding the world' strand. Understanding the World involves guiding children to make sense of their physical world and their community. The frequency and range of children’s personal experiences increases their knowledge and sense of the world around them –visiting parks, libraries and museums; meeting important members of society such as police officers, nurses, firefighters; and meeting representatives of different faiths and worldviews. In addition, listening to a broad selection of stories, non-fiction texts, rhymes and poems will foster their understanding of our culturally, socially, technologically and ecologically diverse world. As well as building important knowledge, this extends their familiarity with words that support understanding across domains. Enriching and widening children’s vocabulary will support later reading comprehension.
In Key Stage 1, pupils will develop their knowledge and understanding of religions and worldviews, recognising their local, national and global contexts. They are encouraged to use basic subject-specific vocabulary. They should raise questions and begin to express their own views in response to their learning and be able to answer questions about their personal worldviews. Pupils will make sense of a range of religious and non-religious beliefs through stories, sacred texts, artefacts and other religious materials. They should learn to recognise that beliefs are expressed in a variety of ways, and begin to use specialist subject vocabulary.
Pupils will be encouraged to understand the impact and significance of religious and non-religious beliefs through examples of how people use stories, texts and teachings to guide their beliefs and actions and examples of ways in which believers put their beliefs into action.
Children make connections between religious and non-religious beliefs, concepts, practices and ideas studied by thinking, talking and asking questions. They will be encouraged to articulate their own views, providing reasons for their thinking.
During the key stage, pupils should be taught knowledge, skills and understanding through learning about Christianity, Judaism and Hindu Dharma as well as non-religious perspectives.
Moving into Key Stage 2, pupils should extend their knowledge and understanding of religions and worldviews, recognising their local, national and global contexts. They are introduced to an extended range of sources and subject-specific vocabulary. Pupils should be encouraged to be curious and to ask increasingly challenging questions about religion, belief, values and human life. Children learn to express their own ideas in response to the material they engage with, identifying relevant information, selecting examples and giving reasons to support their ideas and views.
Pupils will make sense of a range of religious and non-religious beliefs by making clear links between texts/sources of authority and the key concepts studied. They will be encouraged to offer suggestions about what texts/sources of authority can mean and give examples of what these sources mean to believers.
Pupils should understand the impact and significance of religious and non-religious beliefs by making simple links between stories, teachings and concepts studied and how people live, individually and in communities. Children will explore how people show their beliefs through worship and in the way they live, identifying some differences in how people put their beliefs into action.
In upper Key Stage 2, using evidence and examples, children show how and why people put their beliefs into action in different ways, e.g. in different communities, denominations or cultures.
Pupils are encouraged to make connections between the religious and non-religious beliefs, concepts, practices and ideas they have studied: making links to life in the world today; expressing some ideas of their own; raising important questions and suggesting answers about how far the beliefs and practices studied might make a difference to how people think and live.
Children should give good reasons for the views they have and the connections they make. They need to understand that others might think differently based on their faith and/or culture. They should consider and weigh up how the ideas studied relate to their own experiences of the world today, developing insights of their own and giving good reasons for the views they have and the connections they make.
During the Key Stage, pupils should be taught knowledge, skills and understanding through learning about Christianity, Islam, Hindu Dharma and Judaism. Pupils may also encounter other religions, e.g. Buddhism and world-views, including non-religious world-views, as they progress through each of the units of study.
Impact | How do we assess the impact of what we teach via pupil outcomes?
Religious Education follows the LAT assessment framework. This informs our own school's approach to assessment to determine:
- The depth of a pupil's knowledge, understanding and ability to make links in learning.
- The ability for pupils to apply procedural knowledge to skill-based activities.
Within the context of Religious Education, the following methods of assessment are used:
Recall knowledge: Pupils will demonstrate an ability to recall facts and information about the different religions studied through short quizzes at the beginning and end of each unit of study. The assessment of pupils’ knowledge in these areas will be used to inform future lessons, identify pupils that might require additional practice, pre-teaching or other forms of intervention.
Explore and Question: Using graphic schemas, pupils will be challenged to demonstrate an ability to use their knowledge through rich, varied questioning related to each unit of study. Pupils should be able to use an extensive vocabulary to communicate their ideas and raise questions for further exploration.
Communicate: Teachers will provide pupils with opportunities to articulate what they have learnt, express their own views, demonstrate their depth of understanding and make connections with other curriculum areas. This could be through, but not limited to: blogging stations, exhibitions, debates and project shares.