Religious Education at St John's School

‘Treasure the Moments that RE brings to the Curriculum’

 Our Christian vision ensures that all our pupils experience engaging activities in Religious Education that contribute to pupils becoming active learners and engage as active members of the school, local, national and global community.

How do we 'OPEN THE DOORS OF POSSIBILITY' for our pupils in RE?

 Our RE Curriculum, enhanced by the Understanding Christianity resource, is designed using carefully selected units from the Questful RE (Blackburn Diocese Board pf Education) syllabus to reflect our vision and values. Its organisation, along with the pedagogy of RE ensures a balance between three disciplines of Theology, Philosophy and Human/Social Sciences and provides our pupils authentic encounters with living faith.

In encountering religion and belief through the use of big questions, pupils enquire into the nature of religion; its key beliefs and teachings, practices, it’s impact upon the lives of believers and communities, and the varying ways in which these are expressed. Pupils learn to understand, reflect upon and respond to important questions, and as a result they learn to communicate their knowledge and understanding using a specialist vocabulary through the language of enquiry - which drives our standards in RE. There are clear learning outcomes for all units of work, based on the end of phase outcomes as set out in the RE syllabus.

Providing Wisdom

How do we NURTURE these POSSIBILITIES?

At the heart of RE in this school is the teaching of diverse religion that enables learners to acquire a thorough knowledge and understanding of religion and world views studied via key theological concepts and recognition of shared values. It provides opportunity for enquiry, questioning, and meaningful conversations; enabling Pupils to flourish - seeing how religion shapes the world and how they themselves engage with it.

We recognise the impact that RE can have upon the open hearts and minds of learners, ultimately equipping them to become confident and compassionate adults.

RE is taught as a discrete subject but may also be referenced in a cross curricular context where possible to provide relevance, context and breadth of learning.

We also enrich RE through planned RE days or weeks, and invite a range of visitors to support the teaching of RE and it’s learning experience, and whenever possible, there will be planned visits to places of worship.

Parents have a legal right in accordance with the Education act 1996 to withdraw their children from Religious Education lessons, but as RE is central to the life and identity of St John’s, we would ask parents to discuss with the Head teacher any reasons they might have for doing this.

What DO WE MAKE POSSIBLE for our pupils in RE?

The purpose of teaching Religious Education in school is to show children that Christianity is about following the living God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit that is relevant to their daily lives. It is to extend children’s ability to reflect upon themselves as whole people, experiencing life through body, mind and spirit. To help pupils understand the significance of religion and its contribution to their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. We aim through our teaching, to provide a programme of Religious Education within the framework of the Chester Diocesan Religious Education Guidelines appropriate to the educational needs of the children in our school, at their different stages of development and to contribute to the spiritual, social and moral development of the school as a caring community and the pupils as individuals.

At St Johns, our intention for the Religious Education curriculum is to:

• To ensure children know about and understand Christianity as a diverse global living faith through the exploration of core beliefs using an approach that critically engages with biblical text.
• To enable children to gain knowledge and understanding of a range of religions and worldviews appreciating diversity, continuity and change within the religions and worldviews being studied.
• To allow children to engage with challenging questions of meaning and purpose raised by human existence and experience.
• To ensure children recognise the concept of religion and its continuing influence on Britain’s cultural heritage and in the lives of individuals and societies in different times, cultures and places.
• To enable children to explore their own religious, spiritual and philosophical ways living, believing and thinking

(Religious Education in Church Schools, Statement of Entitlement)

God’s Big Story through Questful RE

Whilst learning in RE we can look at God’s Big Story to find help us in our answers and to make connections.