Religious Education at Kingsley Community School

Intent

At Kingsley, we are passionate about maximising our pupils’ potential: intellectually, socially, morally, emotionally and culturally. We want to see our children push the limits of their knowledge; learning to ask highly reflective questions about religion and articulate their views. We intend for our curriculum to celebrate the diversity of cultures represented in our school and promote not just an acceptance, but an appreciation of different worldviews. We want our children to leave their time at Kingsley as individuals who promote kindness and inclusivity; using their knowledge and understanding to challenge religious intolerance. We want to see teachers inspired to teach RE and equipped to deliver it in interactive, creative and experiential ways, rooted in what it means to be build community in Liverpool.

Implementation

In order to promote depth of knowledge, we teach Kingsley pupils about all the major religions and world views represented locally, nationally and globally; following the Liverpool Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education (SACRE)from years 1 to 6.

• Weekly lessons explore the beliefs of people (e.g Christians, Muslims) as opposed to religious structures (e.g Christianity, Islam) in order to immerse children in the idea of living faith.
• 3 key themes run through our RE curriculum: believing; expressing; and living. Children apply these themes to the major world religions, building upon their knowledge lesson by lesson and year by year in order to embed it in their long-term memory
• Children demonstrate the breadth of their knowledge, using various mechanisms, such as writing, art, discussion and drama.
• An enquiry approach is adopted, based upon key questions, encouraging pupils to recognise key beliefs, before moving onto higher order skills of discussing and making connections.
• To help children ‘know more and remember more’, 1 keyword or picture is introduced each lesson. In following lessons, teacher's revisit past keywords encouraging children to share what they know.
• At the end of the term, children tesselate their keywords in hexagon shapes, annotating with all their knowledge. This might be labels for images which show surface level knowledge or connections between words which show deeper knowledge. Some children will show conceptual knowledge through perhaps multiple links or references to examples.
• Enriching experiences such as visits to local places of worship, help to place pupils’ knowledge in context

EYFS

In EYFS, Religious Education is delivered primarily through the ‘Understanding the World’ strand of the curriculum. Children grow in awe of the world in which they live, developing an appreciation and curiosity. Children are encouraged to develop positive views of themselves and others, and to learn how to form respectful relationships. Teacher-led and pupil-led activities encourage them to develop moral and cultural awareness, which they will then build upon in KS1 and KS2.

Impact

We believe our childrens’ knowledge knows no limits and our ambition is to see all children make accelerated progress from their starting point in RE. The impact of teaching and learning is measured through:

• Termly monitoring of RE books
• Termly monitoring of lessons with focus on lesson sequencing
• Termly pupil interviews
• Annual ‘teacher voice’ surveys, identifying key strengths and areas for development
• Annual subject development plan highlighting priorities for the year ahead