Religious Education (RE)

Intent

We aspire for the children of the Phoenix Federation to be theologists, who explore different religions. Our RE curriculum is designed to equip children with the tools to confidently debate issues surrounding: 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.

RE gives children a sense of personal identity and belonging by exploring different religions, cultures, beliefs, values and traditions. It offers opportunities for personal reflection and spiritual development. 

Through the teaching of the agreed syllabus for Religious Education, pupils will be challenged to reflect on, consider, analyse, interpret and evaluate issues of truth, belief, faith and ethics and to communicate their responses. It enables them to grow within their communities and as citizens in a pluralistic society and global community.

Implementation

We follow the Lewisham syllabus to teach RE. One Religious Education unit is taught discretely every half term. Each unit is built upon throughout the primary journey. Each lesson begins with a question which links to the unit of study. A lesson before the last lesson will enable children to show their knowledge and skills attained in the unit through a short quiz. The last session revisits key knowledge or misconceptions from past learning ensuring that all children can retain and build upon what they have learned.

The syllabus has allocated Christianity with the largest amount of content and has therefore been allocated more curriculum time, however, the 5 other major world faiths have each been allocated an equal amount of curriculum time with each other across the 2 Key Stages. Through engaging lessons involving the exploration of sources, meeting religious figures, visits to local places of worship and oracy, children will develop a greater sense of self, skills of empathy and their ability to make connections by asking challenging questions and learning about the life of others.

In addition to lessons, assemblies and whole school occasions celebrate some religious events relating to our curriculum.  

Impact

The impact of our RE curriculum is evident in the knowledge, confidence and open-mindedness of our children as theologist as they show they understand their uniqueness as part of a process of life and thus feel empowered to have a greater sense of self.

By the time our children leave the federation we want them to be able to:

• reflect on how spiritual and moral values relate to their own behaviour;
• identify and begin to describe the similarities and differences within and between religions
• reflect on what it means to belong to a faith community
• discuss their own and others’ views of religious truth and belief, expressing their own ideas
• respond to the challenges of commitment both in their own lives and within religious traditions, recognise and respect how commitment to a religion is shown in a variety of ways;
• debate issues of right and wrong
• find inspiration in their own and others’ lives.