Religious Education in a Church Aided School has a unique position in the curriculum. Whilst it is approached as an academic subject in its own right, it is a means to help children explore the spiritual dimensions of life and to lay the foundations for understanding Christianity as a living faith and as the religion that has most shaped British culture and heritage. RE is organised in accordance with the Church of England’s Statement of Entitlement for RE and with Diocesan recommendations in the Leeds and York Diocesan RE Syllabus 2017. 

RE enables pupils to know and understand about other major world religions and non-religious world views, their impact on society, culture and the wider world. RE offers the opportunity for pupils to deepen their understanding of the religion and world views as lived by believers. It teaches pupils to express ideas and insights and contributes to children’s understanding of British values; to their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development; to a greater appreciation of global issues and other broader educational dimensions.

We believe, at St Stephen’s, that RE both supports and strengthens what we aim to do in every aspect of school life. It allows pupils to explore and enrich their own beliefs and values. Our caring ethos and the value which we place on the development of the whole child is reflected in the RE curriculum. It is central to the ethos of the school. 

RE and the Law (Quoted from the Leeds and York Diocesan Syllabus 2017)

RE is for all pupils 

• Every pupil has an entitlement to Religious Education. 

• RE is a necessary part of a ‘broad and balanced curriculum’ and must be provided for all registered pupils in state-funded schools in England. 
• This requirement does not apply for children below compulsory school age (although there are many examples of good practice of RE in nursery classes). 
• The ‘basic’ school curriculum includes the National Curriculum, RE and Sex Education. In Church schools RE has the status of a core subject. 

Religious Education in Voluntary Aided (VA) schools 

• In a Voluntary Aided Church of England school, governors are ultimately responsible for the subject and they must ensure that their Religious Education syllabus and provision is in accordance with ‘the rites, practices and beliefs of the Church of England’ and we strongly recommend that they are based on the Diocesan syllabus. 
• RE at St Stephen’s is taught for 1 hour a week as a discreet lesson. The curriculum incorporates the use of Understanding Christianity as the primary resource for the teaching of Christianity together with the Leeds York Diocesan Syllabus units of study which focus upon other world religions.

This syllabus sets out an approach to teaching and learning, supporting teachers to help pupils encounter core concepts in religions and beliefs in a coherent way, developing their understanding and their ability to hold balanced and informed conversations about religions and beliefs. The syllabus is underpinned by three core elements: ‘Making Sense of Beliefs, Making Connections and Understanding Impact’, which are woven together to provide breadth and balance within teaching and learning about religions and beliefs.

Each of the three elements of the teaching and learning approach is important and pupils should make progress on all of them. The three elements are:

Element one: making sense of the text (purple)

Developing skills of reading and interpretation

understanding how Christians interpret, handle and use biblical texts

making sense of the meaning of texts for Christians.

Element two: understanding the impact (red)

Examining ways in which Christians respond to biblical texts and teachings, and how they put their belief into action in diverse ways within the Christian community and in the world.

Element three: making connections (green)

Evaluating, reflecting on and connecting attacks and concepts studied, and discerning possible connections between these and pupils’ own lives and ways of understanding the world.

End of KS1 Outcomes

Lower Key Stage 2 Outcomes

Upper Key Stage 2 Outcomes

At St Stephen’s it is a spiralling vocabulary for Christianity where children will revisit and extend language relating to each unit of study. Independent of this, other faiths have language specific to the religion studied in addition to Christianity in that year group. 

Details of the language to be taught in each topic are outlined on each topic page.

Each topic has the knowledge to be learnt and retained specified. eatils of these are outlined on each topic page. 

Each half-term, pupils and home are provided with a booklet outlining what pupils are learning, how home can help, useful websites and the vocabulary we will be using. To see the religious education examples of these, click here or on the picture below

Within each of our units of learning, there will be details of websites that can support home and further learning beyond the classroom.

RE can make a key educational contribution to pupils’ explorations of British values, and excellent teaching of RE can enable pupils to learn to think for themselves about them.

Questions about whether social and moral values are best described as ‘British values’ or seen as more universal human values will continue to be debated (not least in the RE classroom!), but for the purposes of teachers of RE, the subject offers opportunities to build an accurate knowledge-base about religions and beliefs in relation to values. This in turn supports children and young people so that they are able to move beyond attitudes of tolerance towards increasing respect, so that they can celebrate diversity.

Values education and moral development are a part of a school’s holistic mission to contribute to the wellbeing of each pupil and of all people within our communities. The RE curriculum focuses learning in some of these areas, but pupils’ moral development is a whole-school issue.

Mutual tolerance

Schools do not accept intolerant attitudes to members of the community: attitudes which reject other people on the basis of race, faith, gender, sexual orientation or age are rightly challenged. A baseline for a fair community is that each person’s right to ‘be themselves’ is to be accepted by all. Tolerance may not be enough: RE can challenge children and young people to be increasingly respectful and to celebrate diversity, but tolerance is a starting point. It is much better than intolerance.

Respectful attitudes

In the RE curriculum, attention focuses on developing mutual respect between those of different faiths and beliefs, promoting an understanding of what a society gains from diversity. Pupils will learn about diversity in religions and worldviews, and will be challenged to respect other persons who see the world differently to themselves. Recognition and celebration of human diversity in many forms can flourish where pupils understand different faiths and beliefs, and are challenged to be broad-minded and open-hearted.

Democracy

In RE, pupils learn the significance of each person’s ideas and experiences through methods of discussion. In debating the fundamental questions of life, pupils learn to respect a range of perspectives. This contributes to learning about democracy, examining the idea that we all share a responsibility to use our voice and influence for the wellbeing of others.

The rule of law

In RE, pupils examine different examples of codes for human life, including commandments, rules or precepts offered by different religious communities. They learn to appreciate how individuals choose between good and evil, right and wrong, and they learn to apply these ideas to their own communities. They learn that fairness requires that the law apply equally to all, irrespective – for example – of a person’s status or wealth. They have the opportunity to examine the idea that the ‘rule of law’ focuses specifically on the relationship between citizens (or subjects) and the state, and to how far this reflects or runs counter to wider moral codes and precepts.

Individual liberty

In RE, pupils consider questions about identity, belonging and diversity, learning what it means to live a life free from constraints. They study examples of pioneers of human freedom, including those from within different religions, so that they can examine tensions between the value of a stable society and the value of change for human development.