Through teaching Religious Education, we aim to help children to understand how religion and peoples’ beliefs impact on the way they live. They will have the opportunity to consider their own beliefs and practices, contemplating the meaning of life and being, as well as listening to, and learning about, the beliefs and practices of others.

 We believe that through teaching RE, children will grow up to be knowledgeable and accepting of similarities and differences around the world, respecting diversity and beliefs different to their own.

They will gain a deeper insight and understanding into the differences of the communities in which they live and communities around the world.

We hope that through our curriculum pupils will leave us at the end of Year 6 informed and knowledgeable about the world in which they live – understanding and respecting their own beliefs as well as the beliefs and values of others.

Aims and purposes of Religious Education in the Church school

At Richard Coates CE School we follow the Durham and Newcastle Diocesan RE Syllabus Oct 2018, alongside the scheme “Understanding Christianity”.

The syllabus identified the principal aim of RE in a church school is:

“to enable pupils to hold balanced and informed conversations about religion and belief,”

• ‘To enable pupils to know about and understand Christianity as a living faith that influences the lives of people worldwide and as the religion that has most shaped British culture and heritage.

• To enable pupils to know and understand about other major world religions and non-religious worldviews, their impact on society, culture and the wider world, enabling pupils to express ideas and insights.

• To contribute to the development of pupils’ own spiritual/philosophical convictions, exploring and enriching their own beliefs and values.

Legal Requirements and Time Allocation

RE is taught in line with the Statement of Entitlement (February 2019).

Each class receives a minimum of one hour RE per week. In addition to this, additional time is given to RE through thematic/focused days and visits to places of worship.

In Early Years, RE is integrated into the planning for child initiated tasks and teacher led tasks, as part of the “Knowledge and Understanding of the World”.

Coverage:

Two thirds of the curriculum covers Christianity as a World faith, and one third on other world faiths, including Islam, Hinduism, Judaism and Atheism

RE has a high profile within the curriculum and is a priority for senior leaders and Governors. The RE curriculum is intrinsic to the school’s Christian vision in enabling all pupils to flourish. In addition, the RE curriculum contributes to British values and spiritual moral social and cultural development.

Teaching and Learning Strategies

Our policy is to aim to ensure the use in RE of art, drama, thinking skills, speaking and listening as well as reading and writing activities, visits, posters, photographs, videos, ICT use, display work and other active learning strategies. Cross curricular work is encouraged, in line with whole school policy on teaching and learning. We recognise the importance of teaching syllabus in a creative, knowledge-rich, broad and balanced way.

Resources

We have a wide range of resources, to support our RE teaching, that we continue to develop. The main resources used to plan from are;  “Understanding Christianity” and the “Durham and Newcastle Diocesan RE Syllabus”.

The school is a member of NATRE and uses high quality resources recommended, including RE Today and RE Quest

Planning and resources are saved for easy access by teachers in the shared Google planning drive. We also have a collection of RE topic boxes, artefacts, DVDs, picture packs and books which can be borrowed from the school library. We maintain an RE story shelf in the library, which offers many stories from different traditions.

A regular audit of resources takes place by the RE subject leader in order to update our collection. We encourage school families to donate appropriate artefacts/utilise our local resource centre for RE. The school is a member of the Resource Centre at Church House as well as the School’s Library Service – both can support the planning of resources.

Visits and visitors

We are able to visit places of worship in the immediate vicinity of the school, where faith leaders and other members of the community are willing to meet with children and be involved in the teaching of RE. We aim to use this valuable resource for all classes. All pupils have the opportunity to visit a place of worship and participate in the visit of a representative to their RE class.

Children will have the opportunity to make the following visits during their time at Richard Coates CE Primary School. An example of some of these are below:

Year 1 – St Mary’s Church, Ponteland

Year 2 – Newcastle University Mosque, Ponteland Methodist Church and St Mary’s Church

Year 3 – St Mary’s Church and IKSON Hindu Temple

Year 4 – St Mary’s Church Ponteland

Year 5 – Newcastle Cathedral, Hindu Temple

Year 6 – Newcastle City Mosque

The RE subject leader supports class teachers to organise these educational visits.

Assessment

We report on pupils’ progress and attainment in RE to parents, as required by law, in an annual report to parents. We make specific individual, accurate comments on each child's progress in RE in annual reports, based on regular monitoring of work and transfer this information to new schools when pupils leave us.

Assessment of pupils’ learning and progress is made in each year group against the Learning Outcomes and Objectives as set out in the agreed syllabus for each unit of work. Teachers use a mixture of discussion, creative and written activities to assess children’s level of understanding and knowledge as they move through the unit: it is from this work that teacher assessment is made. Teacher assessment happens continuously lesson by lesson against the objectives taught and is used to inform future planning.

Termly assessment judgements against the taught curriculum are recorded on SIMS and this data is used, alongside moderation exercises, pupil voice and teacher discussion, to analyse pupil progress.

Training and Development of Staff

The school ensures continuous development of teachers and plans for RE training in staff meetings/INSET as well as through courses. The school subscribes to Newcastle Joint Education Team’s SLA and works closely with RE advisers to ensure the teaching of RE is high quality and staff training/knowledge is up-to-date.

Withdrawal from RE

We note the human right of parents to withdraw their children from RE. The school must comply with any request from a parent to withdraw their child and parents are not required to give their reasons for wanting to do so. However, in view of the importance placed on RE as a core subject in a church school, we would hope that all children admitted will participate fully in RE. We aim to provide an open curriculum which can be taught to all pupils, by all staff. Teachers are asked to refer to the head teacher any questions from parents about withdrawals. We ask that and that anyone wishing to withdraw their child would discuss this with the Headteacher before making this decision. Requests for full or partial withdrawal from RE should be made in writing to the head teacher and a record kept of them.