Religious Education
As a Church of England School, Religious Education has a special place in our curriculum.
As a Voluntary Controlled school our curriculum has been designed to cover the essential content of the Cheshire West & Chester RE Agreed Syllabus.
The aims of Religious Education in Church Schools are:
- To know about and understand Christianity as a diverse global iving faith through the exploration of core beliefs using an approach that critically engages with biblical texts.
- To gain knowledge and understanding of a range of religions and worldviews appreciating diverstiy, continuity and change within the religions and worldviews being studied.
- To engage with challenging questions of meaning and purpose raised by human existence and experience.
- To recognise the concept of religion and its continuing influence on Britain's cultural heritage and in the lives of individuals and societies in different times, cultures and places.
- To explore their own religious, spiritual and philosophical ways of living bellieving and thinking.
(The Church of England Education Office Statement of Entitlement 2019
In an environment where people can learn, question, discuss and reflect; lessons cover the teaching and stories of Christianity and investigate other world religions and philosophies.
Learning to love ourselves: RE allows pupils to appreciate their own beliefs and cultures, to promote each pupil’s self-worth and enables them to reflect on their uniqueness as human beings. It provides the vocabulary and skills to consider their own beliefs, share their feelings and emotions with others and appreciate the importance of forming and maintaining positive relationships.
Learning to love each other: By promoting understanding and respect in RE, our children explore the beliefs of others both in their own area and the wider world. It prepares them to confidently and compassionately build relationships and prepares them to be courageous advocates: challenging prejudice, discrimination and stereotyping whilst being the person they choose to be.
Love learning: We strongly believe that the purpose of RE is about religious literacy. This means we aim for children to be able to hold a balanced and well-informed conversation about religion and belief. In order to fulfill this purpose, we provide a balance of theology, philosophy and human/social sciences within RE lessons inspired by key questions and unpinned with fundamental vocabulary.
As part of RE curriculum of the children progress through school, we visit different places of worship, including those of different Christian denominations and those of other religions. As well as timetabled RE lessons there will always be other times in the curriculum where big questions of faith arise, such as when looking at natural disasters, Space or the Second World War. We make time and space to discuss these questions as they occur, not in a prescriptive way, but in a manner as to allow the children to investigate their own and others' opinions and beliefs.
Love life: opportunites to learn and reflect on RE are provided through drama, art, photography, tetx, silence and music and supported to allow all pupils to confidently express and challenge their beliefs.
