Religious Education

Welcome to Humanities!

Here is the team: Mrs K Gilbert, Mrs J Griffin-Brown and Miss H McCallum. All are willing and able to help, but our resident expert is Mrs K Gilbert.

Mrs K Gilbert (Year 4) loves to learn about the differing beliefs in the world. She believes that this helps children to understand that the world is a varied place and it is incredibly important to lead the life that makes you happy. This is an important right for everyone. 

Intent

In line with the current SEFTON Syllabus for Religious Education (R.E), Religious Education will be delivered in school to meet the agreed syllabus aims by:

• Including knowledge and reference to religious and nonreligious beliefs.
• Develop knowledge and understanding of all members that make up our community.
• As part of the syllabus at each Key Stage, visits to local places of worship are encouraged as are visits by members of SACRE and faith communities.
• Develop understanding of concepts and mastery of skills to make sense of religion and belief, at an appropriate level of challenge for their age.
• Develop positive attitudes and values and to reflect and relate their own experience.

The syllabus has been created in a cyclical format to enable children to revisit and build on their prior knowledge of the different beliefs and practices taught across the school. The syllabus also allows for teachers to be flexible and adapt the term in which units are taught in their year group, to allow for cross-curricular links or involvement with parents or other members of the community. At Norwood, 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. We believe in bringing our learning alive through as many visits and visitors as possible. Throughout our school, we are constantly developing our enquiry skills.

Implementation

R.E is taught through a fortnightly timetable every term, planned by the teacher to link with key dates and religious festivals, providing opportunities to celebrate festivals and religions with greater relevance and consistency. Work is recorded in Knowledge and Understanding books and can be evidenced with a variety of outcomes suggested on the scheme of work; written piece, artwork, photo.

Impact

At Norwood, we seek to ensure that all pupils in our school are educated to develop spiritually, academically, emotionally and morally to enable them to better understand themselves and others and to cope with the opportunities, challenges and responsibilities of living in a rapidly changing, multicultural world. Regular assemblies and celebrations of work taught and learnt during each year group’s R.E week will 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.

By the end of a pupil’s time in Norwood, we want our children in R.E to:

• Describe and understand links between stories and other aspects of the communities I am investigating, responding thoughtfully to beliefs and teachings that arise from them.
• Describe and make connections between different features of the religions and other world views, discovering more about prayer, celebrations, worship, pilgrimages and the rituals which mark important points in life.
• Observe and understand varied examples of religions and other world views so that I can explain, with reasons, their meanings and significance for the choices made by individuals and communities.
• Discuss and present thoughtfully my own and others’ views on challenging questions about belonging, meaning, purpose and truth, applying ideas of my own in different forms including (e.g. through
• Discuss and respond to ethical questions, including what is right, wrong, just and fair, and the complexity of these questions;
• Consider and apply ideas about ways in which diverse communities can live together for the wellbeing of all, responding thoughtfully to ideas about community, values and respect.
• Know that some people choose to have a religion, some people don’t, and some people are unsure, and can talk about reasons for both points of view.
• Know there are lots of different religions (and some non-religious systems of belief such as Humanism) and can name at least six.
• Can roughly locate on a map where some key world religions are most popular.
• Know at least religious symbols and can match them to the correct religion.
• Know at least four key facts about Christianity, Islam, Sikhism and Judaism (e.g. sacred texts, significant figures, festivals, symbols, places of worship, dietary requirements, rules and moral codes).

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