At Eppleton, it is our intent to deliver a high quality RE curriculum which explores what people believe and what difference this makes to how they live, so that our pupils can gain the knowledge, understanding and skills needed to handle questions raised by religion and belief, reflecting on their own ideas and ways of living.
Our curriculum intent is that RE aims to ensure that all pupils:
At Eppleton, we want our pupils to know that RE is not simply about gaining knowledge and understanding about religions and beliefs. It also helps them to develop their own personal worldviews – their own understanding of the world and how to live, in the light of their learning, developing understanding, skills and attitudes. It makes a significant contribution to pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development (SMSC), as well as important opportunities for exploring fundamental British values.
Through our curriculum our children study an appropriate range of religions and beliefs (religious and non-religious worldviews) in each key stage, with scope for including worldviews represented locally and regionally, both religious and non-religious.
We have an increased emphasis on helping pupils to develop a coherent understanding of several religions, by studying one religion at a time (systematic study) before bringing together and comparing different traditions (thematic study). The thematic study allows pupils to draw together their learning each year, as well as offering planned opportunities for retrieval and recall
We give our children an open, enquiring, exploratory RE, suitable for pupils who have a religious faith of their own as well as for those who have no religious background.
Our syllabus forms a ‘spiral curriculum’, so that pupils encounter and engage with the core concepts on a number of occasions, embedding their learning.
Within RE, we promote the SMSC values (spiritual, moral, social and cultural), preparing children for the experiences of later life. Ultimately, we strive to ensure that all children become listeners and communicators, develop empathy and respect, and form their own sense of identity and belonging.
Our RE topics start with a questions: ‘How and why do people mark the significant events of life?’, ‘Why is the Torah important to important to Jewish poeple? or’ Why do some people believe in God and some people not?’ These questions encourage our children to enquire and ask thought-provoking questions themselves.
From these questions, each lesson is tailored to our children’s needs as well as focusing on the skills and understanding linked to the specific question.
Our RE lessons will vary depending on the learning outcome being focused on. In many lessons, there will be hands-on learning investigating artefacts and resources from specific religions. There could be a local visitor in school or even a class visiting a local place of worship. In a lot of lessons, our children will be having time to personally reflect on their learning and their own thoughts and feelings. This could be religious or non-religious.
In all of our lessons or series of lessons, our pupils will be making sense of religious and non-religious beliefs, understanding the impact of these beliefs and making connections between the two. These are our three aims, which are embedded across our RE curriculum.
In all RE lessons, our pupils will be using specific RE vocabulary linked to each unit. This could be in their class discussions, conversations with each other or in their written work.
At Eppleton, we have adopted the Sunderland Agreed Syllabus 2021–2026. From this syllabus, we use the long-term plan and focused questions.
Our lessons are planned using the focused questions for each half term. We use the learning outcomes from the syllabus to ensure that we have the coverage and progression for our year group – these are linked to our three main aims. From this, we use the syllabus to suggest ways for teaching and learning and teachers use their own knowledge and skills to create engaging, meaningful and enquiring activities. Teachers can use, and adapt, the schemes of work from the Agreed Syllabus as well as creating their own, bespoke tasks, which are specific for the needs of the children in their classes.
In our EYFS, our children will encounter Christianity and other faiths, as part of their growing sense of self, their own community and their place within it.
In Key Stage 1, our children learn about Christians, Jews and Muslims.
In Key Stage 2, our children learn about Christians, Muslims, Hindus and Jews.
Consideration of other religions and non-religious worldviews can occur at any key stage, as appropriate to when our class teachers feel they link with each unit.
Our teachers can teach RE flexibly, through weekly timetabled lessons – or supplemented by RE days or RE weeks, for example, or a combination of different models.
Schools have to teach RE but parents can withdraw their children for all or part of the lessons if they wish to. Requests to withdraw your child should be made to Mrs Jackson (our Headteacher)
Teacher/ PE Lead/ RE Lead
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