Religious Education (RE)

Religious Education Curriculum Statement

Intent

The Linton Heights Junior School Religious Education (RE) is taken from Kapow. In line with the school’s overall curriculum statement, we aim to develop deep thinkers who are open-minded about religion and worldviews. We aim to ensure that our RE curriculum is relevant to pupils, reflecting and preparing them for life in modern Britain and opening our pupils to other faiths, beliefs and cultures that they might never have witnessed before. Through the scheme, children will secure a deep understanding of concepts to be able to make connections, ask and respond to challenging questions, learn to respect and appreciate worldviews that are different to their own and consider their personal preconceptions, responses and views.

Children will build their conceptual knowledge through studying religions and worldviews locally, nationally and globally in our progressive curriculum, enabling them to make links and connections between worldviews, develop disciplinary skills and build on their understanding of their positionality in relation to their learning. By revisiting key ‘big questions’ in RE and building on prior knowledge, pupils will learn about how religion and worldviews are lived experiences across the world, consider the impact of worldviews on society and have opportunities to consider their personal worldviews.

From a statutory perspective, our RE scheme of work enables pupils to meet the government guidance, which states that RE must reflect that ‘the religious traditions in Great Britain are, in the main, Christian while taking account of the teaching and practices of the other principal religions represented in Great Britain’.

Our scheme has been designed to fulfil the aims of a curriculum framework for Religious Education in England and is in-line with the Cambridgeshire Locally Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education 2023-2028.

Implementation

Reflecting the findings of the Ofsted Research review series: religious education (May 2021), our scheme has the following three strands running through it:

✔ Substantive knowledge (conceptual and worldviews related).

✔ Disciplinary knowledge.

✔ Personal knowledge.

These strands are interwoven across all units to create lessons that build children’s conceptual knowledge and understanding of religion and worldviews (substantive knowledge) and use a range of disciplinary lenses. Children will also be equipped to explore and express their preconceptions, personal worldviews and positionality (personal knowledge) through varied and engaging learning experiences.

Our RE scheme follows the spiral curriculum model, where units and lessons are carefully sequenced so that previous conceptual knowledge is returned to and built upon. Children progress by developing and deepening their knowledge and understanding of substantive and disciplinary concepts by experiencing them in a range of contexts.

Children begin to develop their awareness of religion and worldviews in Key Stage 1 (for the majority of pupils, this is at Linton CE Infant School), focusing on conceptual knowledge through the study of a limited range of religions and worldviews represented in the UK, with the majority of study time looking at Christianity. This supports children in building knowledge they can refer to throughout their learning in Key stage 2 while encountering a greater range of religions and worldviews and considering further the diverse nature of religious and non-religious lived experience.

Each unit includes overarching ‘big questions’ which will be revisited throughout lower key stage 2 and upper key Stage 2, allowing children to apply the breadth and depth of their learning across various concepts.

These ‘big questions’ are:

• Why are we here?
• Why do worldviews change?
• What is religion?
• How can worldviews be expressed?
• How do worldviews affect our daily lives?
• How can we live together in harmony if we have different worldviews?

A more specific, focused enquiry question frames the learning across each unit. Both the ‘big questions’ and the focused enquiry question will allow children to explore the content they are studying, make comparisons and links within and across religions and worldviews, and explore their personal views.

Lessons are designed to be varied, engaging and hands-on, allowing children to learn and record their thoughts, answers and ideas in various ways. In each lesson, children will participate in activities involving disciplinary and substantive concepts, developing their knowledge and understanding of diverse religions and worldviews.

Guidance for adapting the learning is available for every lesson to ensure that all pupils can access lessons, and opportunities to stretch pupils’ learning are available when required. Knowledge organisers support pupils in developing conceptual knowledge and schemata by summarising the key concepts covered in a unit and linking these to examples covered.

Strong subject knowledge is vital for staff to deliver a highly effective and robust RE curriculum. Each unit of lessons will focus on the key subject knowledge needed to deliver the curriculum, making links with prior learning and identifying possible misconceptions. The RE curriculum has been created with the understanding that some teachers do not feel confident delivering the R&W curriculum, and every effort has been made to ensure that they feel supported to deliver lessons of high quality with confidence. The nature of RE means that controversial and sensitive issues will be taught and discussed in some units or may come up when not directly part of a planned lesson. Throughout the units, children will learn skills to have respectful discussions and respond sensitively to one another. Kapow teacher CPD resources will include guidance on how to facilitate such discussions and how to answer and respond to controversial or sensitive questions and viewpoints.

Our RE curriculum emphasises the importance of diverse representations within and across religions and worldviews, focusing on real people’s lived experiences of their beliefs.

Impact

The impact of our RE scheme can be constantly monitored through both formative and summative assessment opportunities. Each lesson includes guidance to support teachers in assessing pupils against the learning objectives. Furthermore, each unit has a unit quiz and a knowledge catcher, which can be used at the end of the unit to provide a summative assessment.

After the implementation of our RE curriculum, pupils will be equipped with a range of disciplinary skills and knowledge to enable them to succeed in their secondary education. They will be prepared for life in modern Britain, being able to interact with others from different religious and non-religious viewpoints in a respectful, knowledgeable and open-minded way. They will be enquiring learners who ask questions and make connections. They will be confident to explore their personal worldview and have the skills to appreciate, evaluate and respond to religious, philosophical and ethical questions.

The expected impact of following the Kapow Primary Religion and worldviews scheme of work is that children will:

• Know and understand religious concepts relating to beliefs, practices, community and belonging, and wisdom and guidance.
• Develop an understanding of the influence of organised and personal worldviews on individuals, communities, countries and globally.
• Understand some of the ways religions and worldviews are studied (disciplinary knowledge).
• Develop an understanding of their relationship with the content studied, being able to talk about their assumptions and preconceptions (personal knowledge).
• Build secure vocabulary which allows them to talk confidently and fluently about their learning.
• Answer questions about worldviews through an enquiry-based approach including investigating, interpreting, evaluating, applying and expressing.
• Talk about the similarities and differences between their own and others beliefs with respect and open mindedness.
• Understand the lived experiences of religious and non-religious worldviews to be diverse within and between people and communities.
• Develop an understanding of the ways in which personal and organised worldviews may develop and change across time and place

Recommended children’s books celebrating cultural diversity.

Following Department for Education guidance,  parents and carers have the right to withdraw their child from all or part of the RE curriculum. Please let either the office or your child’s teacher/s know if this is the case.