Religious Education at St Joseph's

RE Curriculum Statement

INTENT

At St Joseph’s we are committed to the Catholic faith, valuing every individual as special and unique, made in the image and likeness of God. We recognise Religious Education is a core curriculum subject and as such, is taught as a subject in its own right.  The Gospel Values and teachings of the Catholic Church permeates through everything that we do, across all areas of the school curriculum.

Religious Education at St Joseph’s respects and promotes each child’s innate capacity for wonder, awe, reverence and spirituality. Through effective use of  the following schemes - the Vine and the Branches (in years 1,2,3, and 4) and the ‘Come and See’ Programme (in Reception and years 5 and 6), our Religious Education curriculum enables our children to develop their faith journey, in a progressive manner, enabling them to grow in their religious literacy and understanding.

They are taught about God’s love and learn about their Christian responsibilities; they are provided with experiences of church, Catholic and Christian traditions.  Children are taught about other faith religions and are provided with the opportunity to visit different places of worship, to support their understanding.

The teaching of British Values is paramount in the development of our children and so tolerance and respect are pivotal in their leaning.

Through Religious Education, our children learn about their unique place within the home, school, parish and global community.

IMPLEMENTATION

Teaching

At St Joseph’s, RE is a core subject. 10% of curriculum time is allocated to RE ( excluding collective worship time). This is usually two RE lessons, on two separate days.

 Planning

• The planning for Early Years, Year 5 and Year 6 is based on the ‘Come and See’ scheme of work. The planning for Years 1-4 is based on 'The Vine and The Branches' scheme of work.  Class teachers plan lessons accordingly, to ensure suitable curriculum coverage, sufficient challenge and creativity is implemented to motivate and inspire.
• Teachers plan and adapt where necessary, to meet the specific needs of the children. Each unit of learning includes the opportunity for pupils to relate the concept of the unit to their own lives.

Across each Key Stage

Scripture forms the basis of work within the RE curriculum. Pupils explore the Word of God, its meaning within a historical context and its relevance to us today. This can be through reading from the Bible, scriptural video clips and cartoons, contemporary and historical scriptural art, the work of religiously inspirational people, listening to guided meditations or singing hymns.

Children are engaged in learning religious doctrine and the meanings behind it. They explore practices within Catholicism, so that they can understand their own faith more, and explore the doctrines of other faiths at set points within the year. 

Pupils are guided along their faith journey through prayer development. Children are taught how to write their own prayers, write group prayers or join in with spontaneous prayer. Pupils are also taught common catholic prayers, to enable them to engage more thoroughly in masses and other practices.

RE learning is embraced through a range of responses. Written activities are interspersed with discussion, drama, music responses, art, technology based responses, presentations and collaborative tasks. This makes learning in RE distinctive and engaging.  All pupils have the opportunity to learn about other faiths throughout the school year, including: Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Sikhism.  Classes are encouraged to visit places of worship, as part of their RE curriculum, to consolidate their learning.

With the support of our parish priest, Canon Nicholas James, who plays an active part in pupils’ faith development, a sense of respect and reverence is fostered and dispersed throughout the school. This is also evident in RE lessons and in other prayerful activities. It is modelled by adults in school and mirrored by the pupils.

Assessment

Lesson by lesson, pupils’ learning is assessed, in order to provide effective feedback. This ensures the pupil has a clear understanding of what they have achieved and what their next steps are.  Mis conceptions are also addressed as part of effective class teacher feedback. 

At the end of the topic pupils complete a hot task, which provides the teacher with the opportunity to assess how much knowledge and understanding has been achieved.

The attainment and progress of each child is tracked using the ‘Age Related Standards’  key skills document for each year group, as outlined by the Catholic Education Service. Over the term, skills are planned for within the broader areas of ‘Knowledge and Understanding’ (learning about), ‘Engagement and Response’ (learning from) and ‘Providing Opportunities for Spiritual Reflection’.

IMPACT

We ensure that pupils:

• develop a sense of respect and reverence within their own faith and for the beliefs of others;
• build an ability to pray, in a range of different ways, to support pupils on their own faith journey;
• foster an enthusiasm for faith learning, by providing engaging and challenging activities;
• develop a sense of awe and wonder through deeper activities that give pupils an opportunity to explore and question;
• learn key scriptural stories that underpin practices within the Catholic church and the wider Christian faiths.

The high-quality provision of  Religious Education enables pupils to make good and better progress in this subject, as a core subject within the whole school curriculum. It enables pupils to flourish, grow and work in the love of Christ as we live out our mission statement.

 

Learning all about other faiths in RE

 

 

Judaism

Our Mission statement is re-affirmed by staff, parents, governors and children working together. It brings together their beliefs of the purpose and daily mission at the heart of our school.

Religious Education at St Joseph’s

Our rich curriculum embraces our Catholicity at its heart and complies with the Religious Education Directory requirements.

We currently follow the 'Come and see’ programme. Links are made with the children’s own experiences and the curriculum is adapted to make it real and meaningful to our children. We teach Religious Education through the process of Explore, Reveal, Respond. This follows the pattern of the human search for meaning, God’s initiative in Revelation and the response in faith.

We are very blessed to be supported by weekly class visits from our Parish Priest, Father Nicholas James. He helps us to understand the scripture from our current topics and relate these teachings to our everyday lives. Father Nick works closely with the children, guiding their journey of faith and being on hand to help them wherever he can.

We are also fortunate to be able to experience the richness of the liturgical life of the church in many ways throughout the year such as Feast Day Masses, the celebration of the sacrament of Reconciliation at least twice a year, as well as a special Advent Concert to prepare us for the coming of Christmas.

OUR LENTEN PROMISES

It is important to us that our children see themselves as part of a wider community. To ensure we have real and lasting experiences we include a variety of visits and trips so that children can learn about the many similarities between major world religions. Therefore other religions are taught from EYFS to Year 6. These are Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism and the philosophy of Buddhism.

At St Joseph’s we always strive to provide quality experiences of prayer and liturgy that support pupils’ spiritual development. These communal acts of prayer and the liturgical celebrations of the Church form part of everyday life in our school. Every child is given the opportunity to pray by giving praise and thanks to God using traditional prayers of the Catholic Church and many other sources of prayer that enable this to take place. We encourage the children to nurture a relationship with God through words, symbols, song, gestures and silence. Prayer is such an integral part of school life that it can never be confined to ‘timetabled’ slots but may take place in a variety of contexts other than those specifically structured.

 

The Sacrament of Reconciliation

All children who are preparing for, or have received, their First Holy Communion are able to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation in school with Father Nicholas James during both Advent and Lent.