Rationale

Rationale

RE Vision and Rationale.pdf

	The Religious Education Curriculum
	Our Vision: At Locking School our RE curriculum is enquiry based, providing children the opportunity to explore religious ideas while reflecting on their own beliefs and identity. Children are encouraged to develop their own self-worth and beliefs while gaining knowledge of, and respect for, different people’s faiths, feelings and values.
The RE curriculum at Locking will:
explore religious ideas through reflection, empathy and imagination help children to recognise their own uniqueness as human beings, and affirm their self-worth allow children to feel confident about their own beliefs and identity and share them without fear of embarrassment or ridicule provide children an opportunity to develop a realistic and positive sense of their own religious and spiritual ideas become increasingly sensitive to the impact of their ideas and behaviour upon other people encourage children to listen carefully to the views of others and acknowledge bias in their own views recognise the rights of others to hold their own views appreciate that people’s religious beliefs are often deeply felt
RE teaching at Locking will:
encourage pupils to develop their own patterns of belief and behaviour through exploring religious beliefs and practices and related human experiences provide opportunities for pupils to develop spiritually, morally, socially and culturally encourage pupils to relate to a way of life that is different from their own, by introducing them to material from religious traditions and helping them to connect it with their own personal knowledge and experience challenge pupils to develop their own world views by relating their own experiences and reflecting on their own patterns of belief and behaviour help children to distinguish between opinion, belief and fact. To recognise bias, prejudice and stereotyping and to distinguish between the features of different religions
Assessment of RE at Locking will:
be formative, informing planning and how to best deliver further teaching focus on ensuring the learning of the National Curriculum statements through children’s responses to retrieval tasks and in books draw on planning and knowledge organisers to understand the progress that has been made by children provide quality responses (verbally and written, if required) to children, ensuring all knowledge is firmly embedded identify children who require additional support and those who excel in the knowledge, skills and understanding required of a theologian (through identifying these children it is assumed that all others – the vast majority – have achieved the objectives at the level expected of their year group)

Curriculum Rationale - RE

The choices made within our RE curriculum will allow children to develop a deep understanding of religious beliefs. The curriculum promotes children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural development while preparing them for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of life. The RE curriculum has a vital role to play in developing children as successful learners, confident individuals and positive contributors.

Children will know religious education both as a discipline to be studied and as a field of knowledge that can shape their outlook now and in the future. Knowing that they could, should they wish to, have a career in this area in the future. They will recognise and appreciate how religion may affect the future on a personal, national and global level.

Programme: We follow the Somerset SACRE Scheme: Awareness, Mystery and Value (2019 Syllabus). This scheme reflects the fact that the religious and cultural heritage in Britain are in the main Christian, while taking into account the teaching and practices of Islam, Hinduism and Judaism.

Timetabling: Children are taught RE every week for a minimum of 30 minutes with units spread across 2 terms. Each unit is given equal importance with approximately 6 hours of focused teaching and study during the term. In addition, specific ‘sticky tasks’ are planned throughout the learning sequence to promote retrieval of important, useful and powerful knowledge.

Awareness Mystery and Values

The focus of the RE curriculum is to provide children the opportunity to explore and develop religious beliefs while reflecting on their own beliefs and identity. There are some attitudes that are fundamental to religious education in that they are prerequisites for entering fully into the study of religion and belief, and learning from that experience. Our curriculum will help children to develop their self-esteem, curiosity, fairness and respect by providing them opportunities to recognise their own uniqueness as human beings, and affirm their self-worth; explore religious ideas through reflection, empathy and imagination; acknowledge bias in their own views and recognise the rights of others to hold differing views.

Teaching about religions and beliefs is provided in ways that are fair, accurate and based on sound scholarship. Children learn about religions and beliefs in an environment respectful of human rights, fundamental freedoms and civic values.

The curriculum in EYFS:

Christianity and Judaism are introduced to the children
Non-religious views are also represented in lessons
There are six units covering special times, places and stories for both Christianity and Judaism
Lessons encourage children to start thinking about who they are and special religious events celebrated around the world
Children begin to learn stories for both religions and explore religious ideas through reflection and imagination

The curriculum in Key Stage 1:

Children continue to build on their knowledge of Christianity and Judaism
Children begin to listen to others opinions and recognise their own uniqueness
By the end of Key Stage 1, children will be secure in their knowledge of the key beliefs of salvation, the belief in God and creation, incarnation and agape in Christianity. In Judaism, children will be secure in the knowledge of God and the Covenant and the Torah
Teaching is based on fact and accuracy and will give attention to key historical and contemporary developments pertaining to religion and belief, and reflect global and local issues.

The ‘Opening Worlds’ Curriculum:

At Locking Primary School, we are using the ‘Opening Worlds’ Humanities Curriculum where our History, Geography and RE sessions are slowly transitioning. Currently, this curriculum is implemented in Year 3 and Year 4. Over the next two years, all of KS2 will be following this approach.

Intent of the ‘Opening Worlds’ curriculum:

The uniqueness and background of every child is recognise and valued. Because of this, our curriculum covers a range of cultural, historical and ethical backgrounds and offers purposeful and meaningful experiences to apply, share and develop this knowledge . Our diverse, culturally rich, wide-scoping and rigorous/coherent curriculum is underpinned by the teaching of basic skills, knowledge, concepts and values in a rigorous and coherent way. Explicit links to story telling and creativity are made to ensure children to engage and enthuse learners. Many enhancement and enrichment activities are used throughout the curriculum to engage learners and create purposeful, high leverage outcomes that give children the opportunity to use and apply their developing knowledge and skills. Our aim is to create an environment that prompts curiosity, critical thinking and allows learners to connect strands of learning across all aspects of the curriculum.

The Structure of the curriculum:

This approach has a coherent, chronological and rigorous structure that ensures that links are not only made across individual subjects but also across each of the topics covered. This means that knowledge is gradually and successfully built upon and children make explicit links using their previous knowledge. This is consistently revisited and retrieved. Below, the coverage of each humanities subject

	History	Geography	RE
Year 3
Autumn Term	Ancient Egypt Cradles of Civilisation – Ancient Mesopotamia	Rivers Mountains and Famous Mountain Ranges	A Hindu Story – Rama and Sita Hinduism origins: places and stories from the Indus Valley.
Spring Term	Indus Valley Civilisation Ancient Greece	Settlements and Cities Agriculture and Farming	Living as a Hindu Judaism How have stories from the Hebrew Bible shaped Judaism?
Summer Term	Ancient Greece – The Culture Alexander the Great	Volcanoes and the earth’s structure Climate and Biomes	Moses and Exodus Samuel, Saul and David Stories
Year 4
Autumn Term	Ancient Rome The Roman Empire	The Rhine and Mediterranean Populations, diversity and migration	Christianity and Palestine – The stories from the New Testament The New Testament – why are stories important to Christians
Spring Term	The Ancient Britons – The Celts and Roman Rule Constantine, Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire	Coastal Processes and landforms Tourism – A study of the Rhine/Mediterranean and National Parks	New Testament Stories – Jesus and the meaning for Christians New Testament Stories
Summer Term	Ancient Arabia and the Bedouin Culture The rise of Islam	Earthquakes and tectonic plates Climate change and deserts	Christian traditions and practices around the world Christianity in London today

	History	Geography	RE
Year 5 (September 2024)
Autumn Term	Baghdad – the round city – comparing cities in the early medieval world Anglo-Saxons and their arrival in Briton	Why is California so thirsty? Oceans and trade	Muslim beliefs – claims about truth and worldviews The festival of Eid around the world
Spring Term	Viking raids Norse Culture	Migration in Europe and the world – global trade North and South America	Islam in Britain and London Buddhism and its Hinduism origin
Summer Term	Christianity in the British Isles Early civilisations in the Americas (Amazonian tribes)	Rainforests and the Amazon basin Agriculture in the Amazon basin	Buddhism – Buddhism today Sikhism today
Year 6 (September 2025)
Autumn Term	London and migration through time – changes from the Saxons to the 1500s Tudor London	Comparing three contrasting cultures (Wales/London, Mediterranean/Rhine, Amazon/California) Polar regions	The origin of two key religions Changing religion in England over time – Henry VIII and reformations
Spring Term	The Kingdom of Benin 17th century London – Samuel Pepys	Natural resources in London	Changing religion in England over time – Islam and Hinduism Changing religion in England over time – Judaism
Summer Term	Eighteenth and Nineteenth century London Britain, London and the Second World War	Local fieldwork	Deepening understanding of religious traditions through religious art, music and literature

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