Intent

Religious education contributes dynamically to children and young people’s education in schools by provoking challenging questions about meaning and purpose in life, beliefs about God, ultimate reality, issues of right and wrong and what it means to be human. In RE they learn about and from religions and worldviews in local, national and global contexts, to discover, explore and consider different answers to these questions. They learn to weigh up the value of wisdom from different sources, to develop and express their insights in response, and to agree or disagree respectfully. Teaching therefore should equip pupils with systematic knowledge and understanding of a range of religions and worldviews, enabling them to develop their ideas, values and identities. It should develop in pupils an aptitude for dialogue so that they can participate positively in our society with its diverse religions and worldviews. Pupils should gain and deploy the skills needed to understand, interpret and evaluate texts, sources of wisdom and authority and other evidence. They learn to articulate clearly and coherently their personal beliefs, ideas, values and experiences while respecting the right of others to differ.

Aims

The curriculum for R.E. aims to ensure that all pupils at Holy Trinity:

• reflect theologically and explore the ultimate questions and challenges of life in today’s society;

• reflect critically on the truth claims of Christian belief;

• see how the truth of Christianity is relevant today;

• understand the challenge faced by Christians in today’s pluralist and post-modern society;

• develop the skills to handle the Bible text;

• recognise that faith is based on commitment to a particular way of understanding God and the world;

• begin to develop their own commitments, beliefs and values;

• develop a sense of themselves as significant, unique and precious;

• experience the breadth and variety of the Christian community;

• engage in thoughtful dialogue with other faiths and traditions;

• become active citizens, serving their neighbour;

• find a reason for hope in a troubled world;

• understand how religious faith can sustain believers in difficult circumstances and in the face of opposition.

Religious Education at Holy Trinity also helps pupils to:

• learn about other faiths, their beliefs, traditions and practices and from them through encounter and dialogue;
• recognise and respect those of all faiths in their search for God;
• recognise areas of common belief and practice between different faiths;
• enrich and expand their understanding of truth while remaining faithful to their own tradition;
• enrich their own faith through examples of holy living in other traditions.

As a Church School, the Religious Education curriculum at Holy Trinity includes:

• opportunities to explore the experience of the Church’s year;
• study of the story of the local Christian community with its saints and martyrs;
• visits to places of worship, especially the local parish Church and a Cathedral, to develop the understanding of the Church as a living community;
• welcoming visitors from the local parish to share their experience of Christian belief and life;
• liaison with the local parish to enable these visits and links to occur;
• skills to confidently use religious language to express knowledge and opinions;
• a well-used set of Bibles in language that can be understood by the learners and examples of Bibles and prayer books from a variety of contexts;
• the facility to listen to Christian ‘psalms, hymns and spiritual songs’ from a wide variety of traditions;
• access to Christian artefacts that are used with care, respect and confidence;
• a sacred space that can be used as a focus for prayer and silent reflection;

Religious Education in Holy Trinity enables:

• pupils and teachers to talk openly and freely about their own personal beliefs and practice without fear of ridicule;
• pupils to make excellent and appropriate progress in their knowledge and understanding of Christianity;
• pupils from Christian families to talk openly about their beliefs and values in lessons and to grow in their faith;
• pupils from other faith backgrounds to understand and be encouraged in their faith;
• pupils with no religious background to be given an insight into what it means to be a person of faith;
• pupils of all backgrounds to have a safe place to explore the ultimate questions and challenges of life in today’s society.

Organisation of Teaching

The Religious Education curriculum is carefully and coherently sequenced to enable our children to develop a growing knowledge of the themes outlined above. Pupils’ knowledge builds towards clearly defined end points so everyone knows what we expect our pupils to achieve by the end of each topic, each year and each key stage.

In Reception class Religious Education, is taught as part of the Understanding the World and Communication and Language areas of learning within the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum. Further details of how the Early Years curriculum is organised can be found on our Early Years policy.

In Years 1 to 6 Religious Education is taught as a discrete subject, though meaningful links are made with other subjects in our curriculum (such as English and PSHE). The topics we teach are outlined in the curriculum map for Religious Education (see below).

To support high quality knowledge rich lessons, the school follows the Blackburn Diocesan syllabus 'Questful RE', which has been adopted by the Liverpool Diocese, and it meets all the requirements set out in that document and 'Understanding Christianity'.  All teaching materials are adapted to meet the requirements of our Christian vision and curriculum intent.  The ERA states that the R.E. syllabus should reflect the fact that the religious traditions in Great Britain are in the main Christian and that it should, at the same time, take account of the teachings and practices of other major religions. The amount of curriculum time devoted to R.E. at Holy Trinity follows the recommended guidance from the Blackburn Diocesan syllabus which is that at least 5% of curriculum time is devoted to R.E.  Christianity plays a central role in R.E. and the curriculum coverage at Holy Trinity consists of 80% Christianity and 20% other faiths.

The school curriculum for Religious Education meets the requirements of the 1988 Education Reform Act. It forms an important part of our school’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural teaching.  It also promotes education for Citizenship.