Religious Education
RE Policy
Intent
Brindle St James' vision is ‘A school family rooted in God's love.’ This key statement underpins all our teaching. RE is taught weekly and we enrich our teaching and worship through 2 focus Christian Values each half term. These values help guide and support our pupils and staff daily. The children understand how these values can be seen in the bible and we focus on how the values can shine out of them. Children recognise with with peer awards.
Our worships, behaviour polices and teaching all encourage our school community to follow in God’s example. As a Church of England Primary School we aim to give all children the best RE teaching and experiences, in each year group (we have a two-year rolling programme) in an inspiring, engaging and challenging way.
RE is taught by creative and enthusiastic teachers who encourage our pupils to listen, talk, share and question. We encourage happy, confident and passionate learners who take responsibility for their own learning and share ideas, ask the big questions and can answer thoughtfully and respectfully.
Learning is rooted within our Christian faith but with a compassionate, understanding and an inquisitive nature for other cultures and faiths. We respect the cultural diversity of our world and celebrate those differences whilst understanding some of the similarities we have too. We teach Christianity as a worldwide faith alongside other world faiths.
Implementation
To ensure that high standards of teaching and learning occur in RE, we implement a curriculum that is progressive throughout the whole school. Planning for RE starts with the Blackburn Diocese planning and ‘Understanding the World’ in the Early Years Foundation Stage. RE teaching at Brindle St James' involves adapting and extending the curriculum to match all pupils’ needs. We build upon prior learning from previous years and units to ensure by Year 6 children have covered a breath of Christian and non-Christian units. As the children’s knowledge of the Bible and world faiths develop the children are able to answer more challenging questions and develop their own view of the world.
Each class has it's own RE floor book which show the quality and wealth of discussion had within our RE lessons. Children also have their own work books and e-books.
Impact
At Brindle St James' the children are interested, enthusiastic and engaged with RE. There is a clear progression of children’s work and teachers’ expectations in our school. We have teachers that love to teach the subject and an ethos where Christianity is rooted and embedded across school.
Our aim is to ensure all children leave Brindle St James' with independence, gratitude, friendships, love and generosity, who have a strong understanding of Christianity and other world faiths.
The role of other faiths and cultures
Our school promotes the fundamental British value of respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs.
As part of our aim to help children fully embrace society and the wider world community, other faiths are valued and treated with respect.
Our RE syllabus, created by Blackburn Diocese, incorporates the teaching of four other main world religions. 80% of RE teaching time is based upon Christianity, whilst 20% focuses on other world religions.
Blackburn Diocesan board of education website: http://www.bdeducation.org.uk
Our approach to worship includes celebrations and reflection of world wide faiths as well as reflecting the culture and faiths of our pupils. Each week we have an in class Picture News worship, which will focus on world wide events, often opening up to discussions about other faiths.
All children at Brindle St James' are encouraged to embrace the diversity of life offered within our world and to see the many similarities rather than differences.
The RE Subject Leader & Collective Worship Leader is Mrs Austin