Religious Education

As a Church of England School, RE is a core subject along with Mathematics and English.  We aim to help children to become religiously literate at an appropriate level for their age group.  We teach a locally agreed syllabus as stipulated by the Diocesan Boards of Education for Durham and Newcastle which integrates the Understanding Christianity programme.  The aims of our syllabus are:

• To enable pupils to know about and understand Christianity as a living faith that influences the lives of people worldwide and as the religion that has most shaped British culture and heritage.
• To enable pupils to know and understand about other major world religions and non-religious worldviews (including secular), their impact on society, culture and the wider world, enabling pupils to express ideas and insights.
• To contribute to the development of pupils own spiritual/philosophical convictions, exploring and enriching their own beliefs and values.

RE is non-confessional and is in addition to our Christian Values and Collective Worship at Holy Trinity Church of England First School. To find out more about our Vision and Values click on the links.

Teaching Sequence

All RE lessons across the school follow a teaching sequence aimed at understanding the meaning of belief along with the impact on the lives of believers and connections to the world today. We use the following concepts to help develop this:

Themes

Every RE lesson is based around a key question focused on a particular area:

• Understanding Christianity
  eg. What does it mean if God is holy and loving?
• Other Religions
  eg. What does it mean for Muslims to follow God?
• Secular World Views
  eg. Why do some people believe in God and some not?
• Thematic Topics
  eg. Why is pilgrimage important to some religious believers?

Understanding Christianity

The teaching of the Christianity strand of our RE syllabus is focused around the Understanding Christianity resource and aims to support pupils as a contribution to their understanding of the world and their own experience within it. Understanding Christianity offers a clear, coherent approach to teaching and learning about Christianity in RE.  It is based around a selection of core Christian concepts and structured across the primary age range to support pupils in deepening their understanding, click here to visit the Understanding Christianity website.

To support children with their understanding of the Bible and Christianity we use “The Big Story of the Bible” which is focused around the following narrative:

• Creation
• Fall
• People of God
• Incarnation
• Gospel
• Salvation
• Kingdom of God

We use “The Big Frieze” to help us understand the Bible narrative (click to view):

Our scheme of work aims to allow children to understand how Bible stories and believes fit within these different areas and “The Big Story of the Bible” in order to understand Christian belief and practice.

© Understanding Christianity and The Big Frieze are copyright to RE Today