Religious Education (RE)

Intent

We are a Catholic school with Catholic Faith at the centre of our lives.  We recognise and value every individual as special and unique and made in the image and likeness of God.

RE at St. Joseph’s respects and promotes each child’s capacity for wonder, awe, reverence and spirituality. Our RE curriculum leads our children to a greater understanding of their faith and how to live it out in their everyday lives; children are taught about God’s love; they learn about their Christian responsibilities; children are provided with experiences of church, Catholic and Christian traditions, as well as being taught to be respectful and understanding of people and traditions from other faith backgrounds such as Islam, Hinduism and Judaism. Through RE, our children learn about their place within the home, school and parish community along with the opportunities and responsibilities that they bring. Central to our ethos are the opportunities for prayer and worship which lie at the heart of our faith. We will promote and encourage these at every level, together with the skills and attitudes necessary to live out the Christian message in the modern world.

Implementation

R.E. is afforded at least 10% of teaching time in accordance with the Catholic Bishops’ Conference in England and Wales. Each of the nine core topics are studied for four weeks, with a week each for the three ‘other faith’ topics. Class teachers, with assistance from the RE Co-ordinator, plan lessons using the ‘Come and See’ scheme of work. We have our own planning pro-forma for RE at St. Joseph’s and each lesson is structured as follows: opening music/image to gather; a deliberate introduction using examples from life experiences/images/artefacts; a fast input using Scripture/video/artefacts/ images; a fast response by the children through discussion/partner work/questions on sugar paper/response games; a think and discuss ending to the input where a wider question is posed and discussed; a task enabling children to respond to the learning objective; a plenary offering opportunities to share work and reflect on what has been learned; finally a link forward to the next lesson. Each lesson states the skill(s) from the Age Related Standards Framework (ARSF) being taught and used during the lesson, the learning objective (LO) – with a clearly stated verb drawn from the ARSF Skills Guide, success criteria – up to three, giving ways the child can achieve the LO and key vocabulary.

Impact

As a result of our teaching and learning, our children become knowledgeable, thoughtful and responsive to Scripture, Christian teaching, Catholic traditions, other faiths as well as experiencing and participating actively in worship and liturgy. Our scheme of work enables progression, and skills are clearly developed year on year with prior learning featuring heavily in discussions. When children’s work is marked, teachers highlight the ‘success criteria’ on the lesson strip to show that the LO has been met. Staff use this information when recording attainment of each pupil in each topic as well as when reporting to the RE Co-ordinator. Termly ‘Book Looks’ by HLT and RE Co-ordinator monitor coverage, progression, assessment and marking, and presentation of work – this is fed back to teachers by the Headteacher. Parents engage in the RE curriculum and Catholic life of our school through opportunities provided across the academic year, sharing in their child’s work and successes when exercise books go home once each month for ‘First Friday Family Learning’.