Subject Leader – Mrs L Blakey
Our pupils’ backgrounds, our culture and our climate for learning provide the following drivers that underpin our curriculum and our vision and weave through all that we do.
- Catholic values – which helps pupils grow spiritually and give them values for life outside of school
- Historic Environment – which helps pupils to understand and appreciate their locality which facilitates their relationship to the wider world
- Resilience – which helps pupils grow as learners
- Independence – which helps pupils to grow as independent learners, not dependent on adults to learn
- Subject knowledge and skills – which help pupils develop their knowledge and skills and give them knowledge for life
- Tolerance – respecting and valuing the beliefs, values, choices and opinions of others
Intent
The intent of our RE curriculum is to ensure that our mission and vision are embedded across the school. This sits alongside the Gospel Values which are inextricably linked through everything we teach. As a Catholic school, the RE curriculum is central to the whole school curriculum and underpins all teaching. It the ‘core of the core’.
Our intent is to promote Catholic values based on the teachings of Christ and to bring all members of the school community – staff, children, parents and governors – closer to God through the daily practice of those values in all areas of school activity.
It is also our intention that pupils at St Michael’s will enjoy their RE lessons and they will not be seen as something in which they are purely ‘taught’. RE lessons should be faith-filled, enjoyable lessons where each child feels they belong to our school community. Lessons should be places where everyone is respected for their beliefs and expressions of faith, but where ultimately, they all achieve.
We aim for our pupils to:
- teach content which is the based on the knowledge and understanding of the Catholic faith;
- continually deepen their religious and theological understanding and be able to communicate this effectively;
- present the Church’s moral and social teaching so that pupils can make a critique of the underlying trends in contemporary culture and society;
- raise their awareness of the faith and traditions of other religious communities in order to respect and understand them;
- stimulate their imagination and develop a desire for personal meaning as revealed in the truth of the Catholic faith
- relate the knowledge gained through Religious Education to their understanding of other subjects in the curriculum;
- bring clarity to the relationship between faith and life, and between faith and culture.
- Use religious vocabulary consistently and accurately, showing a continuously developing understanding of religious terms
Implementation
We are a Catholic school, and proud of that fact. The Catholicity of the school underpins what we do every day. This also directs us to implement an RE curriculum whereby the Catholic faith permeates everything we do. We ensure that families are supported in bringing their children up in the Catholic faith and we provide a well-rounded Catholic education. For RE we follow the Diocese’s ‘Come and See’ scheme as a starting point for planning and coverage. As RE is the ‘core of the core’ at St. Michael’s, we ensure that 10% of each class’ weekly timetable is allocated to RE lessons.
‘Come and See’ is taught through a series of 9 topics exploring:
Community of faith – Church
Celebration in ritual – Sacraments
Way of life – Christian Living
Other faith traditions are also explored through discreet topics.
The process for delivering the topics in ‘Come and See’ has three stages – Explore, Reveal and Respond which enable the pupils with the development of knowledge, understanding, skills and the fostering of attitudes.
The Process
Explore (1 week) This is the introduction to the topic where the children’s life experience is explored, the questions it raises are wondered at, shared, investigated and their significance reflected on. This work is shared in the class floor books and on our RE displays.
Reveal (usually 2 weeks) This is the heart of the programme where knowledge and understanding of the Catholic faith is revealed through the Word, in Scripture, Tradition, doctrine, prayers, rites and Christian living.
Respond (1 week) This is where the learning is assimilated, celebrated and responded to in daily life. This reflective work is collated in the class floor books.
OTHER FAITHS and RELIGIONS
Judaism is studied in the Autumn term and Islam in the Spring term.
RE Overview 2021-2022 (taken from the Diocesan guidance)
Following Diocesan guidance, the progression of our RE teaching is based upon the statements provided in the Age Related Standards interim document.
Age Related Standards – Progression
Impact
The impact of our RE curriculum will be evident in the progress of our children and their ability to know more, remember more and do more and their developing personal faith. Teachers continually give feedback to children to further their understanding and provide challenge, and children act upon this feedback.
The impact of our RE curriculum will be apparent in the children’s engagement, enjoyment and enthusiasm towards RE and their individual faith, as well as the progress evidenced in their books, through their discussions and in their increasing confidence, independence and resilience in RE. Children are assessed at the end of each topic using a RAG rated system to show their understanding of the objectives covered in each lesson (taken from the Diocesan Age-Related Standards document). At the end of each term, these topic assessments are then used to inform a teacher judgement for each child to say if they are working below, towards, at or exceeding expectation for their age.
If you would like to learn more about the teaching of RE at St Michael’s School please read our RE policy RE Policy 2021.
