Intent
At J H Godwin primary school, we endeavour to provide all children with a purposeful, progressive, language rich RE curriculum. We make sure that our curriculum is engaging and inclusive of all, encouraging children to be creative and experimental throughout their time at the school and beyond.it.
Our religion and worldviews curriculum aims to develop deep thinkers who are open-minded about religion and worldviews. We aim to ensure that our R&W curriculum is relevant to pupils, reflecting and preparing them for life in modern Britain. Through the scheme, children will secure a deep understanding of concepts in order to be able to make connections, ask and respond to challenging questions, learn to respect and appreciate worldviews that are different to their own and consider their personal preconceptions, responses and views.
Children will build their conceptual knowledge through studying religions and worldviews locally, nationally and globally in our progressive curriculum, enabling them to make links and connections between worldviews, develop disciplinary skills and build on their understanding of their positionality in relation to their learning. By revisiting key ‘big questions’ and building on prior knowledge, pupils will learn about how religion and worldviews are lived experiences across the world, consider the impact of worldviews on society and have opportunities to consider their personal worldviews.
Implementation
At J.H Godwin school, we follow a long term overview created using the agreed syllabus for Religious Education provided for our local area – Cheshire West and Chester. RE is either taught as a weekly lesson in our class or blocked into a unit of work across a day.
At J.H Godwin we aim that Religious Education will:
• Adopt an enquiry-based approach as recommended by Ofsted beginning with the children’s own life experience before moving into learning about or from religion.
• Incite challenging questions about the meaning and purpose of life, beliefs, the self and issues of right and wrong, commitment and belonging.
• Develop the children’s understanding of world religions and traditions that examine these big questions; fostering personal reflection and spiritual development.
• Encourage our children to explore their own beliefs (religious or non-religious), in the light of what they learn, as they examine issues of religious beliefs and faith and how these impact on personal and social ethics and to express their responses.
• Enable our children to build their own sense of identity and belonging, which helps them to flourish within their community.
• Teach our children to develop respect for others, including people with different faiths and beliefs, and help to challenge prejudice.
• Enable our children to consider their responsibilities to themselves and others, and to explore how they might contribute to their community and wider society.
• Encourage empathy, generosity and compassion.
• Develop a sense of awe and wonder.
Progressive Subject Coverage Teachers will use Kapow Primary’s Religions & Worldview scheme of work. This enables pupils to meet the government guidance, which states that RE must reflect that ‘the religious traditions in Great Britain are, in the main, Christian while taking account of the teaching and practices of the other principal religions represented in Great Britain’. This scheme has been designed to fulfill the aims of A Curriculum framework for Religious Education in England.
Units of lessons are sequential, allowing children to build their skills and knowledge, applying them to a range of outcomes. They are fully scaffold and support age appropriate sequenced learning.
Outstanding Practice in lessons: Teachers will use their flair, enthusiasm, and professional judgement to identify the most sensible, enjoyable and safe methods for the work being conducted. Activities will be planned and delivered in such a way as to encourage full and active participation by all children irrespective of ability or educational need, gender or ethnicity.
Lessons should ideally always be practical in nature to encourage to develop deep thinkers who are open-minded about religion and worldviews.. Differentiated guidance is available for every lesson to ensure that lessons can be accessed and enjoyed by all pupils and opportunities to stretch pupils’ learning are available when required. Knowledge organisers for each unit support pupils by providing a highly visual record of the key knowledge and techniques learned, encouraging recall of skills processes, key facts and vocabulary.
Kapow provides expert support to ensure teachers feel confident in their own abilities.
Pupil videos are created by subject specialists.
Vocabulary Saturated Environments: RE vocabulary is directly taught and modelled through Word Aware Strategies.
Impact
The impact of Kapow Primary’s scheme can be constantly monitored through both formative and summative assessment opportunities. Each lesson includes guidance to support teachers in assessing pupils against the learning objectives. Furthermore, each unit has a unit quiz and a knowledge catcher, which can be used at the end of the unit to provide a summative assessment.
After the implementation of the Kapow Primary Religion and worldviews curriculum, pupils will be equipped with a range of disciplinary skills and knowledge to enable them to succeed in their secondary education. They will be prepared for life in modern Britain, being able to interact with others from different religious and non-religious viewpoints in a respectful, knowledgeable and open-minded way. They will be enquiring learners who ask questions and make connections. They will be confident to explore their personal worldview and have the skills to appreciate, evaluate and respond to religious, philosophical and ethical questions.
The expected impact of following the Kapow Primary Religion and worldviews scheme of work is that children will:
● Know and understand religious concepts relating to beliefs, practices, community and belonging, and wisdom and guidance.
● Develop an understanding of the influence of organised and personal worldviews on individuals, communities, countries and globally.
● Understand some of the ways religions and worldviews are studied (disciplinary knowledge).
● Develop understanding of their relationship with the content studied, being able to talk about their assumptions and preconceptions (personal knowledge).
● Build secure vocabulary which allows them to talk confidently and fluently about their learning.
● Answer questions about worldviews through an enquiry-based approach including investigating, interpreting, evaluating, applying and expressing.
● Talk about the similarities and differences between their own and others beliefs with respect
and open mindedness.
● Understand the lived experiences of religious and non-religious worldviews to be diverse within and between people and communities.
● Develop an understanding of the ways in which personal and organised worldviews may develop and change across time and place.
Parents and carers have the right to withdraw their child from all or part of RE.