RE
Intent
At Marlcliffe, we believe that Religious Education (RE) plays a vital role in shaping well-rounded individuals. Teaching RE in primary schools fosters an understanding of diverse beliefs and cultures, promoting respect and empathy among students. This prepares them with essential skills beyond their school life when they encounter ways of life and beliefs that are different to their own. It is important to acknowledge that some pupils that attend Marlcliffe will have had limited experience of diversity and RE therefore becomes a special opportunity to create this link to begin to broaden their cultural experiences as global citizens.
The principle aim of our religious education curriculum is to explore what people believe and what difference this makes to how they live, so that pupils can gain the knowledge, understanding and skills needed to handle questions raised by religion and belief, reflecting on their own ideas and ways of living and engage in meaningful discussions. Pupils learn about religions and beliefs in local, national and global contexts, to discover, explore and consider different ideas.
Our curriculum for RE aims to ensure that all pupils:
- Make sense of a range of religious and non-religious beliefs
- Understand the impact and significance of religious and non-religious beliefs
- Make connections between religious and non-religious beliefs, concepts, practices and ideas studied.
Implementation
Over a half term RE is delivered through at least six thirty-minute sessions. There are further opportunities to incorporate the teaching of RE into the everyday Marlcliffe life, through assemblies and class briefing. As well as engagement with the local community and religions within the local area to enrich the children’s understanding of the world around them and their local lives. At Marlcliffe we currently use the new Teach RE scheme to scaffold the creation of our RE curriculum. This scheme was created in conjunction with the Sheffield SACRE and allows us to progressively build upon knowledge as the children journey through school, enabling opportunities to engage in meaningful discussions where they are encouraged to share their own beliefs and also to question and discuss those of others. Although a large part of our RE learning takes place through discussion activities, children also record their learning in their books to show clear learning journey. The RE curriculum encompasses 12 key themes that children encounter in progressive detail over their time at Marlcliffe, these are:
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- Belonging and stage of life
- Incarnation
- Creation
- Salvation
- Sacred places
- Gospel
- Judaism
- God/People of God
- Kingdom of God.
- Hindu
- Islam
- World and other views
For each theme children’s learning is delivered through Make sense of belief, Understand the impact and make connections.
Prior year and lesson learning are included at beginning of each lesson to continually recap and recall knowledge from both long- and short-term memory.
Assessment of RE is ongoing within lessons: through observation of learning, engagement in discussions, work in books and regular retrieval activities such as low-stakes quizzes. This supports teachers in making an overall judgement of children’s attainment against the endpoints of each unit.
Impact
Through RE learning, our children will be able to demonstrate a positive and respectful attitude towards people of any religion and show an understanding of cultural beliefs different to their own. This is continually monitored by SLT and subject leaders to ensure the curriculum is effective. Children are able to use their RE learning to develop an awareness of their own spirituality and morals. By the time children leave Marlcliffe, they will be able to articulate their thoughts, ideas and opinions surrounding RE and use rich religious vocabulary to justify and support their thinking. Children will be able to make links between their own lives, those of others in the community and the wider world. They will have a strong sense of identity which will enable them to flourish within the community and be respectful and inclusive global citizens.
Requests to withdraw a child from RE lessons
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RE lessons in accordance with the schools’ basic curriculum
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Acts of Collective Worship in schools
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Whilst parents or carers have a right to withdraw children from RE, they should note that child/ren may also encounter religions and beliefs and wider aspects of faith in other areas of the National Curriculum from which there is no right of withdrawal.
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On occasion, spontaneous questions about religious matters are raised by pupils or issues related to religion arise in other curriculum subjects such as history or PSHE. For example, schools promote community cohesion and help pupils to understand ideas about identity and diversity, feelings and emotions within both religious and non-religious contexts.