RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

(RE) 

St. John’s CE Primary School is a Voluntary Aided (VA) School. As such, the management of Religious Education is a distinctive role of the governors and headteacher.  Our RE curriculum is provided in accordance with the school’s Trust Deed and in accordance with the rites, practices and doctrines of the Church of England.  The Governing Body as a whole is responsible for determining the nature of Religious Education provided at St. John’s CE Primary School.

RE lies at the very heart of the curriculum. It is driven by our deeply Christian vision and is intrinsic to the Christian ethos and the Christian values of St. John’s CE Primary School, based upon the teaching, love, and example of Jesus Christ.

St. John's CE Primary School, pupils, and their families can expect a RE curriculum that is rich and varied and both engaging and challenging, enabling learners to acquire a thorough knowledge and understanding of the Christian faith. The RE curriculum at St. John’s gives the children an opportunity to explore Christianity in depth and to learn about Christianity as a diverse and living faith around the world starting locally, thinking nationally and then globally. While the majority of the curriculum is centred on Christianity, our syllabus also incorporates the teaching of  other main world faiths.  RE at St. John’s  also supports pupils to develop a sense of fairness and justice for all peoples whatever their background and wherever they live.

At St. John's CE Primary School, the RE curriculum develops knowledge, vocabulary, and skills in ordered sequential learning. We use an enquiry approach that engages with biblical text and aims to develop religious and theological literacy. The school provides a wide range of opportunities for learners to understand and make links between the beliefs, practices, and value systems of the range of faiths and world views studied. 

Pupils are encouraged to ask important questions and consequently become confident in expressing their views and discussing challenging issues in RE within the context of our Christian values of respect, courage, compassion, friendship, trust, and perseverance.

Our strong RE curriculum is highly influential in pupils' spiritual, moral, cultural, and emotional development, making a significant contribution in preparing pupils for the opportunities, responsibilities, and experiences of later life. It strengthens our understanding of Christian values, empowering pupils to make positive choices. 

RE is central to preparing our pupils to become resilient, respectful, compassionate, and responsible citizens who are encouraged to make valuable and sustained contributions to local, national, and international communities.

Each class teacher is responsible for the teaching of RE for his or her class unless otherwise stated by the Headteacher.

Close to 10%, but not less than 5%, of curriculum time is devoted to RE. Christianity plays a central role in RE, taking up two thirds of the RE curriculum. Appropriate teaching about other faiths and worldviews are included in each year group’s yearly overview.

St. John’s CE Primary School follows ‘Questful RE’, the Blackburn Diocesan Board of Education Syllabus for RE (fully revised in 2017, based on practical research and development in schools in Blackburn and Liverpool dioceses). ‘Questful RE’ fulfils all legal requirements and the RE Statement of Entitlement from the Church of England Education Office 2016 and the requirements of SIAMS.

The school curriculum is further enhanced and strengthened by the ‘Understanding Christianity’ resource, developed by the Church of England Education Office. Units of the ‘Questful RE’ are supplemented and paired with units from ‘Understanding Christianity’ to provide a deep, rich RE education for the pupils at St. Johns CE Primary School.

The eight core concepts in the ‘Questful RE’ syllabus match those identified by the authors of ‘Understanding Christianity’ so that the two resources are highly compatible. These eight core concepts or big ideas are expressed in the Bible and lived out by Christian people each day. These big ideas reveal God’s salvation plan, the big story, and are the starting point of each unit throughout the RE curriculum.  

Each unit of RE will focus on one or more of the eight key concepts: God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit), Creation, Fall, People of God, Incarnation, Gospel, Salvation and Kingdom of God.

Teachers will regularly and frequently refer to ‘the big frieze’, (Understanding Christianity resource) when teaching RE lessons, to introduce and reinforce the eight core concepts throughout each unit of RE. The big frieze is important in helping pupils to understand the big story (God’s salvation plan) and the big ideas in Christianity (the concepts).

Teachers will use first-hand experience, visits, visitors and artefacts and the local and wider environment to engage children’s interest, imagination and to deepen knowledge and understanding in RE.

A variety of resources will be used to support effective implementation of the RE curriculum such as high-quality books, posters, photographic packs, video clips, persona dolls, toys and games and artefacts. All resources should be stimulating, authentic and have educational validity. When using resources, teachers and pupils should handle with great respect and sensitivity.

In Reception, we follow the Liverpool Diocesan Board of Education Chatterbox units. These begin with the children opening a 'chatterbox' filled with objects and artefacts that prompt discussion, or 'chatter'.

At the start of the unit, the children will open the chatterbox together and discover what is inside. They take turns looking at and handling the objects. The conversation and questions will generate ideas for the learning activities. The children’s ideas, comments, questions, work, pictures, writing and photos are recorded by the teacher

Assessment is in accordance with guidance given in the Blackburn syllabus. Teachers assess and confirm professional judgements based on the ‘Ladder of Expectation and Achievement’. The ladder is intended primarily to contribute to planning excellent tasks at the right level appropriate for the pupils’ experience, knowledge and ability. However, the ladder is also used to make judgements about the level of individual pupils’ achievement.  Assessments should be based on overall understanding of each unit of work.

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As part of Year 3's RE curriculum, they lead our school Harvest assembly and Year 1 lead our harvest prayers.