Religious Education (RE)
Hebrews 11:1
Developing children's understanding of Faith.
Organisation of RE
At Eltham Church of England School we aim to deliver Religious Education to reflect the Church of England Statement of Entitlement (2019), which should ‘enable every child to flourish and to live life in all its fullness. (John 10:10)’ and have an ‘engaging and challenging curriculum allowing children to explore core concepts and questions.’ RE is taught in line with this Statement of Entitlement and at least an hour a week is dedicated to delivering RE.
At Eltham Church of England school, we use the Southwark Dioceses Board of Education (SDBE) RE syllabus which we have adapted for our teaching of RE. ‘Religious Education is not just an academic subject, but, lies at the very heart of the curriculum and has an important role in reflecting and conveying the distinctively Christian character of the school’ (SDBE website). The Dioceses provides clear objectives to focus on which allow progression throughout the year groups by providing a ‘progressive, sequential, innovative, creative, exciting and engaging and relevant curriculum.’ SDBE RE policy (2022).
The RE curriculum teaches pupils about faith in accordance with two attainment targets, Learning about Religion (AT1) and Learning from Religion (AT2). Our AT1 objective allows us to learn about different religions, including festivals and key practises and beliefs in the religion. The AT2 objectives allow us to think about what we have learnt from these religions and how we can apply these in our lives.
Click here for the Religious Education Curriculum overview
Click here to see Progression in Religious Education
RE Lessons
RE in the Early Years
In Nursery, RE is embedded into the Nursery topics and included in the continuous provision.
One of the topics in Nursery is Festivals and in this they focus on the festival of Diwali. During this learning, children re-enacted the story of Rama and Sita and made Diya lamps. They also learn about Remembrance Sunday and make poppies. They use these to say prayers to think of those brave soldiers and their families. They also learn about the Nativity story and produce art work linked to this including making mangers and use puppets to retell the story as well as learn Christmas songs.
In Reception, RE is taught as an individual subject each week, as it is throughout the rest of the school. The children learn about a topic as a class. RE is then embedded into the Early Years curriculum through continuous provision and links to many of the other areas of the Early Years framework including expressive arts and design, understanding the world and communication and language. Some of the activities that the children partake in in Reception as part of their RE learning include: trying hot cross buns at Easter, acting out stories from the Bible, including the Baptism of Jesus, painting people from the Bible, as well as performing the Nativity story to parents.
RE in KS1 & KS2
At Eltham Church of England School, the RE syllabus is split into units. Each year group has 6 units that they cover throughout the school year and each unit is led by a ‘Big question.’ The ‘Big question’ is used to focus our lessons. Our AT1 and AT2 objectives, guide us to answer these questions and allow us to be curious and to reflect spiritually on what we have learnt and how we can apply this within our lives.
The 6 units per year include 4 or 5 Christianity Units which include a Christmas and an Easter unit. The other unit focuses on another faith. Throughout a child’s time at Eltham Church of England school, the children will learn about these other major faiths in the world: Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Sikhism and Hinduism. ‘Love your neighbour as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.’ (Mark 12:31)
RE lessons at Eltham have lots of cross-curricular links to engage the children. The lessons in a unit incorporate art, drama and music as well as links to RHE during debates and discussions particularly when referring to the AT2 (learning about religion) objective. This is done throughout the school but more focus is given to AT2 in KS2 with deeper discussions about these.
RE is taught throughout the school from Nursery through to Year 6. To see a breakdown of what is covered in each year group please refer to the RE long term overview.
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Enrichment
Church Visits and Visits from our school’s connected Church
As a church of England school, we are linked to Eltham Parish Church: St John the Baptist and we are very fortunate to have a very passionate vicar who supports us with our learning of the Christian faith. We often visit the Church in RE lessons and Reverend Caroline comes into lessons too. Recently in Year 1, they visited the Church to support their learning about Baptism and Year 5 visited the Church to learn about Holy communion. Reverend Caroline visited Year 2s RE lesson in school about Jesus Light of the world where they made a Christingle.
Workshops
Throughout the year, we have visitors and companies who come into school to support our learning. In Year 1, when learning about Buddhism, the children have a visit from some Buddhists. Children are given the opportunity to retell teachings of the religion, dress up and learn about Buddhist artefacts.
Trips
As well as trips to Church, during our other religions units, we visit other places of worships including Hindu temples and Synagogues to support our learning.