This syllabus offers increased flexibility and extra support for planning as well as providing practical strategies, guidance and resources for teachers. In EYFS, children will encounter Christianity and other faiths, as part of their growing sense of self, their own community and their place within it. The children will focus on 2 religions per year band in Key Stage One while in Key Stage Two, they will be exposed to 4 of the 6 main religions across the academic year to make progression clear. By having pupils within Key Stage Two exploring the same religions as they move through the school, it allows us to track their progression and makes staff explicitly aware of the knowledge the children have gained previously. As an academy, we have developed some fantastic techniques to ensure that our children can retain their learning and become confident with their own subject knowledge. We have embedded a range of strategies to support with recall such as knowledge maps at the start of a new unit to recap key information for each religion, weekly learning recall grids and showcase sessions at the end of each unit.
We are lucky enough to provide many fascinating experiences for our children with regards to RE alongside their learning inside the classroom. Collective worship is used to explore religious themes, practises and celebrations as well as giving the children the opportunity to reflect. We have a visit from our local Reverend at the end of each term often to recognise key religious events and to support our learning in Christianity. Last academic year, children in each year band had visits to religious buildings to provide them with a breadth of experience, and again, to see their learning in a real-life context. As an academy, we celebrate ‘World Religion Day’ and have a whole-school assembly to recognise the world religions and their key beliefs and practices.
The Subject Leader
I am Miss Hayes, class teacher and Religious Education curriculum leader at Eaton Park Academy. In my role, it is my responsibility to oversee the effective planning and delivery of this subject, ensuring our children are provided with diverse experiences. With a degree in Primary Education and an A-Level in RE, it is my passion to expose children to the different religions and cultures during their time with us. We, as a school, believe in using the wealth of knowledge and expertise of our growing percentage of religious children and parents to provide the very best opportunities; we encourage staff to invite children to teach during lessons. As a curriculum leader, I have taken great care in mapping the appropriate skills for each year band to ensure that RE is planned and sequenced effectively so that new knowledge and skills build on prior learning, ensuring that progressive skills are covered through each of the main religions that we explore across the year.
It is essential that, as a subject leader, I strive to keep up to date with any curriculum changes by attending Primary RE Network meetings and feed this back to staff. It is important for me to have a clear picture of religious education at Eaton Park; therefore, learning walks to observe classroom practise along with book scans are a common feature of tracking how teaching and learning impacts on the progression towards end points. Ensuring staff have high-quality resources to aid their teaching also falls under my remit as well as conducting pupil voice in order to gain an understanding of the knowledge the children have acquired within this subject area. Feedback will always be provided in order to maintain the high expectations and very best provision for our children, ideas to improve retaining subject knowledge are shared, and advice will always be offered to raise the confidence of our staff. I believe that our children learn best when they have ample opportunities for learning both about and from religion: it is important that they are able to compare their learning to their own experiences and beliefs.
The Curriculum
The curriculum for RE aims to ensure that all pupils:
- Know about and understand a range of religions and worldviews, so that they can:
– describe, explain and analyse beliefs and practices, recognising the diversity which exists within and between communities and amongst individuals
– identify, investigate and respond to questions posed, and responses offered by some of the sources of wisdom found in religions and worldviews
– Appreciate and appraise the nature, significance and impact of different ways of life and ways of expressing meaning.
- Express ideas and insights about the nature, significance and impact of religions and worldviews, so that they can:
– explain reasonably their ideas about how beliefs, practices and forms of expression influence individuals and communities
– express with increasing discernment their personal reflections and critical responses to questions and teachings about identity, diversity, meaning and value, including ethical issues
– Appreciate and appraise varied dimensions of religion.
- Gain and deploy the skills needed to engage seriously with religions and worldviews, so that they can:
– find out about and investigate key concepts and questions of belonging, meaning, purpose and truth, responding creatively
– enquire into what enables different individuals and communities to live together respectfully for the wellbeing of all
– Articulate beliefs, values and commitments clearly in order to explain why they may be important in their own and other people’s lives.
At Eaton Park, we follow the Stoke-on-Trent Agreed Syllabus 2021-2026, and the following religions have been selected for study: Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Each unit within the syllabus is based around a key question which, by the end of the teaching sequence, children will be able to answer when presenting their knowledge. The teaching and learning approach within this syllabus has three core elements: making sense of beliefs, making connections and understanding the impact, which are intertwined to provide breadth and balance when learning about religions and beliefs. These elements set the context for open exploration and offer a structure through which pupils can encounter diverse religious traditions alongside non-religious worldviews. We value the religious backgrounds of all members of our school, and we encourage individuals to share their own experiences and culture with others where possible.
Early Years Foundation Stage
As part of the ‘Understanding the World’ strand of EYFS, the children will explore basic religious stories and acts of prayer. In Reception, the units focus on Christianity but also include opportunities to encounter Christians, Hindus, Jews and Muslims, as well as non-religious ways of living. Although a lot of their learning will surround Christianity, key festivals will be an integral part of how religious education is shared with their children. Work linked to Diwali, Chinese New Year and many other celebrations will teach the children about diversity. They plan opportunities for their children to explore cultures and the traditions, for example looking at African dancing. PSHE and circle time will be a main factor for EYFS children and where they will learn about showing mutual respect and how to behave in places of worship. Religious songs and music will be a focus, particularly around the time that we attend church as a whole school.
Assessment for learning
The learning outcomes in the Stoke on Trent Agreed Syllabus support our teachers in assessing whether pupils are on track to meet end of key stage expectations by assessing knowledge by using a range of retrieval strategies. Teachers will assess their children within lessons as a way of providing quality first teaching through the use of their activities, high-quality questioning and intervention marking in order to address misconceptions and to extend learning to further challenge pupils and to deepen their subject knowledge.
RE within other curriculum subjects
SMSC & PSHE – Spiritual, moral, social and cultural learning underpins all content within RE at Eaton Park, working alongside our MASTER Values. RE is a flagship subject for championing and promoting the teaching of thinking skills, British Values and links to PSHE. It provides opportunities for pupils to ask questions, seek answers and develop ideas in a quest to discover more about their own identity and that of others. Within their learning in RE, pupils develop specific attitudes that are open, reflective, and critical and a skill base which allows them to be curious, play with ideas, empathise, listen, imagine, question, make links and reason. Asking children philosophical questions gives them to opportunity to explore and develop their moral compass.
History – Most religions have a huge focus on history as this forms the basis of their beliefs. Links can be made to history when exploring historical timelines, the origins and history of religions and remembering important dates in religions.
English – The opportunities for children to explore religious stories within RE is plentiful, and this gives them a much better grasp of the key morals hidden within them. We promote using stories to compare religions during lessons. This approach will also benefit the children’s understanding of language, giving them an enriched vocabulary. Even children lower down in the academy will be able to improve their basic inference of feelings during festivals by looking at pictures of religious followers.
Maths – The teaching of RE can contribute to children’s mathematical understanding in a variety of ways: most commonly, the children can find the difference between key dates and track how many years the religion has been recognised for. When on religious visits, the children also have the opportunity to spot patterns that may be evident around religious buildings. At the beginning of each unit, children higher up in the school have also looked at the percentages of religions in different areas of the world and compared these to their assumptions.
Computing – Computing forms part of RE mostly when conducting research and presenting information. Another link comes when the children look at how technology fits into the modern world in religions.
Art & DT – Art is a subject which works well when teaching religious education: the obvious link of stained-glass windows will be clear for the children when visiting St Mary’s Church. Exploring how religions use art to express meaning and beliefs; the use of light in portraits help the children to see the importance of religious figures. It is also important for our children to learn about how art reflects religious celebrations and the use of colour as a representation.
Geography – Map work has been a feature of teaching religious education where children explore the religious beliefs of specific areas, most recently for their knowledge maps at the start of a new unit.
Enrichment
The children have the opportunity to visit different religious buildings to witness their learning first-hand. Each year band has a different religious building to attend; therefore, by the time the children leave us at the end of Year Six, they would have gained a breadth of experiences. Religious leaders and visitors are invited into the school to supplement the children’s learning, and each year, a group of pupils attended the annual R.E. conference. The aim of the annual conference is for the pupils to learn from one another through shared experience and dialogue. A variety of themes are explored on this day and the children feed back to the rest of the school. Each term, the children are invited to take part in a service at St Mary’s Church, where they will contribute to Easter, Christmas and end of year services. At Christmas time, children in each key stage will create a performance linked to the key Christmas messages.
Pupil Voice
Y6 – “I enjoy RE lessons because we get to learn about religious and non-religious beliefs. I found it interesting when we learnt about atheists and agnostics.”
Y5 – “We have been learning about Judaism, and we learnt about the differences between Orthodox and Progressive Judaism.”
Y4 – “I like learning about different religions and their festivals.”
Y3 – “I like learning about lots of different religions in RE. We have learnt about Muslims and that they fast when it is Ramadan.”
Useful websites
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zqbw2hv/resources/1
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/znwhfg8
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zdykjxs/resources/1
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/ztkxpv4/articles/zvfnkmn
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zh86n39
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zj3d7ty
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zpdtsbk/resources/1
