Religious Education (RE)
RE Lead – Mrs H Stanfield
At Rossington St Michael’s, we believe that RE is an extremely important curriculum subject because it makes a unique contribution to the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of pupils and it supports wider community cohesion. Our vision of ‘All are Welcome, All are Accepted, All are Loved and All Achieve’ encompasses everything we do at St Michael’s.
RE in our school aims to develop children’s knowledge and understanding about the principal world religions of Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and Islam and their beliefs and practices, which form part of contemporary society. We aim for our children to develop mutual respect and tolerance towards these religions that exist in our diverse society. Learning about RE teaches the children to ask and answer challenging and thought provoking questions about the ultimate meaning and purpose of life, beliefs about God, the self and the nature of reality, issues of right and wrong and what it means to be human. Through our teaching of RE, we offer opportunities for personal reflection and spiritual development, deepening the understanding of the significance of religion in the lives of others both individually, communally and cross-culturally. Our pupils are encouraged to explore their own beliefs, whether they are religious or non-religious, in the light of what they learn, as they examine issues of religious belief and faith and how these impact on personal, institutional and social ethics and to express their responses.
How we teach our RE Curriculum
Our school’s RE curriculum has been designed to cater for the needs of our children and have taken into account the different religions we have in our school.
Our curriculum is planned using Understanding Christianity and Discovery RE using guidance from the Doncaster agreed syllabus.
Understanding Christianity helps all teachers support pupils in developing their own thinking and their understanding of Christianity, as a contribution to their understanding of the world and their own experience within it.
The aims of Understanding Christianity are:
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To enable pupils to know about and understand Christianity as a living world faith, by exploring core theological concepts
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To enable pupils to develop knowledge and skills in making sense of biblical texts and understanding their impact in the lives of Christians
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To develop pupils’ abilities to connect, critically reflect upon, evaluate and apply their learning to their own growing understanding of religion and belief (particularly Christianity), of themselves, the world and human experience.
Throughout the year, children will also learn about other faiths and religions.
For this teaching, we use Discovery RE. Other religions are taught across the school and cover Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism.
These lessons are delivered in engaging and challenging ways to develop children’s confidence in expressing their own theological ideas and their own religious literacy skills.
How our Curriculum has been Designed
Our Key Concepts:
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Believing (Making Sense)
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Behaving (Understanding Impact, Expressing)
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Belonging (Making Connections, Living)
These concepts have been linked with the Key Concepts from Discovery RE, Understanding Christianity and Doncaster SACRE.
Our key concepts and the design of the curriculum thread within our theological rationale.
When children are all welcomed, accepted, achieve and are loved, then they feel safe to explore the RE concepts within Christianity and other faiths. The main faiths we will be learning about are: Christianity, Sikhism (within our school we have Sikh children), Judaism, Islam, Hinduism. However, children in our Foundation class will explore all faiths and their celebrations. When exploring the concept of believing, our children will feel welcome to share their own beliefs and those of their family and friends, they will feel accepted and loved within our school. When exploring the concept of behaving, our children will be able to talk about their own religion and those of others and how they compare and are similar. They will feel welcome, accepted, achieved and loved. When exploring the concept of belonging, our children will be able to confidently share about how they feel and help others to feel welcome, accepted, achieved and loved.