All school aims and policies reflect the outcomes of the Every Child Matters document.

As a whole school, we have agreed to adopt Nottinghamshire’s Religious Education Agreed Syllabus 2003 in full, using the QCA syllabus as a guideline for specific activities. Alongside this we are also using the sample scheme of work produced by Nottinghamshire LEA. We aim to ensure that in each age range the relative content devoted to Christianity should predominate.

AIMS FOR RELIGIOUS EDUCATION:

We aim that Religious Education will provide opportunities for the children to:

• develop their knowledge and understanding of Christianity and other principle religions represented in Great Britain.

• explore issues within and between faiths to help them understand and respect different religious beliefs, values and traditions.

• develop the ability to make reasoned and informed judgements about religious and moral issues, with reference to the teachings of principle religions.

• develop their sense of identity and belonging in society.

• enhance their spiritual, moral, cultural and social development by developing an awareness of fundamental questions of life raised by human experiences and how religious teachings relate to them.

• reflect on their own beliefs, values and experiences in the light of what they have learnt.

Time allocation for Religious Education in Key Stage 1 - one hour per week
Time allocation for Religious Education in Key Stage 2 - one hour per week

FOUNDATION STAGE 1.

In Foundation Stage 1, children will have opportunities to find out and learn about the world they live in. Such experiences include:

• learning about their own culture and the beliefs of others.

• sharing the celebration of different festivals.

• hearing stories from a variety of cultural and religious traditions.

FOUNDATION STAGE 2.

In Foundation Stage 2, children will follow Nottinghamshire’s Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education 2003 alongside the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum.

We aim to build on children’s early experiences by developing their knowledge and understanding of celebrations within religions. Activities will be closely linked to PSED, relating to attitudes, values and a sense of worth.

At Key Stage 1, each year group will study one other major religion other than their own. [Islam in Year 1, and Judaism in Year 2]. At the end of this policy is the School’s long term plan for RE, which covers all aspects within the Nottinghamshire Agreed Syllabus. Throughout Key Stage 2 children will study Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, Hinduism, Buddhism and some aspects of Judaism.

PLANNING AND ORGANISATION/TEACHING AND LEARNING:

The Religious Education curriculum will be based on two Attainment Targets:

• Attainment Target 1-Learning About Religions

• Attainment Target 2-Learning From Religion.

There is a yearly cycle for Key Stage 1 and Foundation Stage 2, and a four year cycle for Key Stage 2, both closely linked to the Nottinghamshire Agreed Syllabus. A copy of these long term plans can be found attached to this policy. This long term planning also requires the flexibility to include work on religious festivals that punctuate the calendar, but not necessarily at fixed times of the year.

Staff plan their own medium term and short term work for RE.

SKILLS FOR LEARNING IN RE [taken from Nottinghamshire Agreed Syllabus]:

• investigation

• expression

• interpretation

• reflection

• empathy

• application

• discernment

• analysis

• synthesis

• evaluation

ATTITUDES  IN  RE [taken from Nottinghamshire Agreed Syllabus]:

• curiosity

• enquiry

• commitment

• fairness

• respect

• self-awareness

• open-mindedness

• critical mindedness

PROCESSES FOR LEARNING IN RE [taken from Nottinghamshire Agreed Syllabus]:

• Open questioning

• Thinking skills

• Literacy for RE

• Discussion

• Expressive arts and creativity

• Visits and visitors

• Resources for learning

ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF C0-ORDINATOR AND OTHER STAFF:

The RE Co-ordinator will keep well informed of any new developments and initiatives in RE, and will report these to the rest of the staff and the Curriculum Team for RE. The RE Co-ordinator will monitor the teaching and learning of RE throughout school. The RE Co-ordinator will give staff any necessary support for their planning of RE.

The Curriculum Team for RE will work together on action plans, schemes of work and policies. The role of the curriculum team is flexible, thereby allowing staff to carry out individual work and work which needs to be done as a group.

LINKS WITH OTHER CURRICULUM AREAS:

Children will have the opportunity to respond to material in a variety of ways. This may be through poems, stories, reports on visits, art work, design technology, music, drama, maths work and discussion.

LITERACY:

We believe that the key goal for teaching RE should develop children’s understanding of the nature and influence of religious beliefs. It can also provide valuable opportunities to reinforce work from the National Literacy Strategy, enabling children to practise their literacy skills in a different context. An example of such an activity is shown in the following table:

NUMERACY:

RE can provide opportunities for links to develop mathematical skills by working with numerical data that relate to real situations. These may include:

• the use of maps, distance and scale.

• non-standard units of measurement.

• use of graphs and pie charts.

• use of dates and recognition of numbers.

ICT:

ICT can help children’s learning in RE by:

• providing a range of information sources to enhance their knowledge and understanding of religious beliefs, practices and expression.

• providing access through the internet to maps of religious buildings and pictures of people actively expressing their faith.

• using ICT to present a range of different pieces of information eg, use of digital camera and word processing.

PSHE AND CITIZENSHIP:

  RE deals with religious and moral beliefs and values that underpin individual choices and behaviour, social policies and practices. It promotes the values and attitudes needed for citizenship by helping pupils to understand and respect people of different beliefs, practices, races and cultures.

COLLECTIVE WORSHIP:

  Collective worship is identified in law separately from RE. It is therefore not part of any agreed syllabus and is not circumscribed by schemes of work or curriculum requirements. As a school, we aim to link collective worship, wherever possible, to work taking place in the classrooms in a flexible and varied way. Some pupils, at the request of their parents or carers, may be withdrawn from collective worship.

ASSESSMENT:

The key purposes of assessment in RE are:

• to aid progression in learning by identifying pupils’ strengths and weaknesses.

• to enable realistic and challenging goals to be set for future learning.

• to form the basis of written reports to parents/ carers.

• to provide information about the effectiveness of the teaching programme.

RE needs to be assessed through the two main attainment targets:

• AT 1- Learning about religion.

• AT 2- Learning from religion.

In both Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2, assessment tasks are completed at the end of a unit of teaching.

RECORDING INFORMATION:

Effective recording in RE will:

• show evidence of progress through the key stages.

• record end of key stage attainment in relation to the attainment targets.

• be useful in the writing of reports to parents/carers.

• enable transition information to be passed on from one teacher/ key stage to another.

EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES/SEN:

All our children have access to the RE curriculum whatever their ability, race, gender, social, cultural or economic groupings.

RESOURCES:

RE resources can be found in two separate places in School: in the dining area outside the Foundation Stage Unit, and in the Resources Room at the end of the corridor in Upper School.

Suzal Mehmet, RE Co-ordinator.
January 2007

This policy will be reviewed again in January 2010.

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