What is RE?

RE explores big questions about life, to find out what people believe and what difference this makes to how they live. RE helps pupils to make sense of religion and belief, reflecting on their own ideas and ways of living.

How does RE link to our school vision?

As a school we want staff and pupils to spur each other on with love to be the best that they can be within every area of the curriculum.  Within Religious Education this means encouraging each other to ask big questions, aspiring to grow in knowledge about what people believe and how this makes a difference to how they live their lives.

RE at St. Mary’s. We always aim to let our light shine!

At St. Mary's C of E  Primary School, we believe that RE should take a multidisciplinary approach. By the end of their time at school, all of our children will have the opportunity to study RE through different ‘lenses’ such as psychology, philosophy, sociology and theology to find out about people’s differing worldviews. This will enable our children to find out about what different people believe and how this makes a difference to how they live.

Throughout their time at St. Mary's C of E Primary School, our children will be given the opportunity to study a range of world religions and non-religious worldviews. As a school, we are committed to ensuring that our RE curriculum is based upon recent research. This will ensure that they will learn about diversity within the worldviews that they study. All of our children will be given a range of opportunities to ask big questions about religion and belief, reflecting on their own ideas and ways of living.

At St. Mary's C of E Primary School, we believe that our RE curriculum should be challenging, exciting, thought provoking and interesting. We want to ensure that our children go out into the world understanding the differing views of the people that they will come into contact with.

Pupil Intent Statement

RE explores big questions about life, to find out what people believe and what difference this makes to how they live. RE helps pupils to make sense of religion and belief, reflecting on their own ideas and ways of living.

Implementation:  At St. Mary's C of E Primary School we follow the Somerset locally agreed syllabus that includes the Understanding Christianity materials.   Each unit of work identifies and builds upon prior learning through the use of a spiral curriculum.

Teaching: RE is taught in a block unit within a half term and allows suitable links to be made to specific religious festivals taking place. It is recognised that discussion and listening to others is an important part of learning in RE, so lessons are recorded in various ways including a whole class book to gain evidence of the children’s development in learning. Written evidence is also recorded in individual books, which gives the children time to reflect on their own understanding.

Resources: Children gain a deeper understanding of the religion studied through the use of resources and artefacts.

Impact: The children at St. Mary’s enjoy learning lots about other religions and why people choose or choose not to follow a religion. Through their R.E. learning, the children are able to make links between their own lives and those of others in their community and in the wider world. R.E. acts as a hub, therefore, between social aspects of learning, science and geography. Through R.E. our children are developing an understanding of other people’s cultures and ways of life, which they are then able to communicate to the wider community.

R.E. offers our children the means by which to understand how other people choose to live and to understand why they choose to live in that way. As such, R.E. is invaluable in an ever changing and shrinking world , helping the children to understand how they can let their light shine in our school, in our community and in the wider world around them.