Ashwicken RE rationale and National Curriculum Coverage
This curriculum has been designed to support the planning and teaching of RE to enable children to flourish through the fields of life.
At Ashwicken CE (VA) School we believe in developing our children’s religious literacy. This means that children will not only have the ability to develop an understanding of the influence of beliefs, values and traditions on individuals, communities, societies and cultures, they will be able to develop a positive attitude towards other people, respecting their right to hold beliefs different from their own and hold balanced and well-informed conversations about religion and worldviews.
Through the Norfolk Agreed Syllabus and Understanding Christianity resource, we seek to provide a Christian ethos and environment in which the spiritual aspects of children's lives are developed and fostered.
As an inclusive community, we also learn about other world religions, thereby fostering respect for them. We provide a wide range of opportunities for learners to understand and to make links between the beliefs, practices and value systems of the major world faiths and address fundamental questions, concerning, for example, the meaning of life and the existence of a divine spirit. Children reflect on what it means to have a faith and to develop their own spiritual knowledge and understanding, through our enquiry-based curriculum, helping them to develop religious and theological literacy. Links between the Christian values of the school and spiritual, moral, social and cultural development are also intrinsic to the RE curriculum and have a significant impact on learners.
RE is taught as a multi-disciplinary subject allowing children to view different ideas and religions ‘through a particular lens’. These disciplines include theology, philosophy and the human/social sciences, which are re-contextualised through the context of the school, teacher and pupil.
RE lessons are taught through a weekly topic block for each half term or term, planned by the teacher and based on a Big Question. These lessons are planned and delivered using the Norfolk Agreed Syllabus enquiry-based approach, which includes 5 stages
- Engage
- Enquire
- Explore
- Evaluate
- Express
Through this enquiry-based approach;
- an appropriate level of challenge is provided for all pupils
- all pupils know they can achieve and there is an expectation of success
- the learning is set in a real and authentic context, with a clear purpose, learning and relevance
- a safe environment is created where all pupils are valued, so they can confidently agree to disagree and express themselves freely
- pupils have a sense of ownership over what is being learned and how they are learning it
- there is a clear learning journey and identifiable outcomes
- there is space and time for reflection
- assessment for learning is at the heart of teacher planning
At Ashwicken CE (VA) School our evidence of learning is recorded in a whole-class floor book. The final express task can be evidenced against the Age Related Expectations in their dedicated ‘’Express book’, which they add to throughout their journey through the school.
We seek to ensure that all pupils in our school are educated to develop spiritually, academically, emotionally and morally enabling children to have developed religious literacy. Thus, enabling them to understand and cope with the opportunities, challenges and responsibilities of living in a rapidly changing, multicultural world. As a result, children have developed a mutual respect for and tolerance of those of different faiths and beliefs and for those without faith.
Regular collective worship and celebrations of work taught help to celebrate the diversity of the school community and promote positive images of people in the wider community, including their beliefs, traditions, culture, language and history and are based around our school values of:
- love
- joy
- peace
- patience
- kindness
- goodness
- faithfulness
- gentleness
- self-control
At Ashwicken CE (VA) School, we chose the following Bible passage to ‘root’ our vision and values in biblical teaching:
“Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit”
Galatians 5:25
Teachers should use the AREs to help inform their planning. Where units link to the Norfolk Agreed Syllabus exemplar curriculum map, these have been plotted within the curriculum and provide a useful starting point for planning. Please be aware the Norfolk Agreed Syllabus units’ big question may not completely match our big questions. To share best practice, ideas, planning and resources, there is a shared folder on google drive which contains a variety of resources and planning that teachers use.
Our big questions focus on a concept/ big idea, with questions phrased at an appropriate level for the age of the children. The enquiries build on one another, so that a coherent and systematic understanding of Christianity and each key religion is developed through the key stages. For example, in Christianity, the concepts of incarnation, salvation and creation are developed through the key stages. The operational questions are a starting point for the teacher for the enquiry part of the planning cycle. The children may ask other ‘little’ questions linked to the big question. These will and can be used to direct the journey of lessons and units of work. Each unit has been linked with the key principle set of AREs. The key principle is that good teaching in RE allows children both to learn about religious traditions and to reflect on what the religious ideas and concepts mean to them. Our teaching enables children to extend their own sense of values, and promotes their spiritual growth and development. We encourage children to think about their own views and values in relation to the themes and topics studied in the RE curriculum and where possible, make links with other curriculum areas.
As a V.A. Church school, exploring the key aspects of Christianity must form 51% of our RE curriculum in accordance with the Church of England Education Office Statement of Entitlement (2019). This entitlement is met both through the weekly teaching of RE, and through additional RE days which focus on an aspect of the Christian Faith. The use of the resource Understanding Christianity particularly supports the development of the theological perspective.
Our teaching and learning styles in RE enable children to build on their own experiences and to extend their knowledge and understanding of religious traditions. We use their experiences at religious festivals such as Easter, Christmas, Diwali, Passover, Eid, etc. to develop their religious thinking. When possible, we organise visits to local places of worship and invite representatives of local religious groups to come into school and talk to the children.
We recognise the fact that all classes in our school have children of widely differing abilities, so we provide suitable learning opportunities for all children by:
- setting tasks which are open-ended and can have a variety of responses;
- setting tasks of increasing difficulty {we do not expect all children to complete all tasks);
- providing resources of different complexity, adapted to the ability of the child;
- using classroom assistants to support the work of individuals or groups of children.
As a Church school we develop the children's knowledge and understanding of the Christian faith, In line with the current Norfolk Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education (2019):
- To know about and understand a range of religious and non-religious worldviews by learning to see these through theological, philosophical and human/social science lenses
- To express ideas and insights about the nature, significance and impact of religious and non-religious worldviews through a multi-disciplinary approach.
- To gain and deploy skills rooted in theology, philosophy and the human/social sciences engaging critically with religious and non-religious worldviews. At Ashwicken CE (VA) School, we are committed to providing our children with an exciting and positive learning environment, in which they have the opportunity to develop their knowledge and understanding of religions while contributing to their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.
