Religious Education

Purpose and Aims

Purpose

For pupils to develop their knowledge and understanding of religions and beliefs which form part of contemporary society provoking questions about the ultimate meaning and purpose of life, beliefs about God, the nature of reality, issues of right and wrong and what it means to be human. They will gain knowledge and understanding of Christianity and of other principal religions, traditions and worldviews that offer answers to questions such as “Why are we here?” and “Why was the world made?” Pupils will have opportunities for personal reflection and spiritual development, deepening their understanding of the significance of religion in the lives of others – individually, communally and cross-culturally. They will appreciate how religious beliefs and moral values can help individuals develop moral awareness and understanding in a diverse and global world.

Aims

• For pupils to develop knowledge and understanding of sources of wisdom and their impact through sacred texts and other sources of wisdom. They will have opportunity to express their own ideas about the nature of beliefs, values and practices and their impact upon the identity of individuals and communities.

For pupils to express their own personal and critical responses with increasing discernment, personal reflections, critical responses and connections to faith and belief enquiring into philosophical, moral and ethical issues. Engage with questions and answers offered by religions and worldviews. Develop skills required to dialogue with others and to cooperate in society with respect and compassion.

Provision

Our curriculum is based on eight key areas of learning:

Depth and breadth will be achieved by incorporating all the eight key elements into planning and teaching them throughout the school year which will increase pupil’s understanding of varying religions and worldviews, recognising their local, national and global contexts. Pupils will be encouraged to demonstrate respect and compassion, recognising a range of viewpoints about identity and belonging.  They will consider and discuss important issues relating to moral choices. They will explore shared human responsibility and values through enquiry and experience and express personal reflections with increasing curiosity.

Progression and Assessment

Our progression has 2 key objectives which are achieved by developing the pupil’s religious and theological literacy through religions and worldviews. Pupils should grow in developing their religious vocabulary and their ability to communicate and understand a range of theological and religious concepts and worldviews.

Assessment and reporting

We will assess the pupil’s depth of understanding each term through pupil voice and books and teacher’s planning.

Monitoring, Evaluation and Improvement

The role of the leader in monitoring pupil’s outcomes is to audit teacher’s judgements. This is done collectively in staff meetings and then collated by the leader. The leader then works collectively with the teachers to examine the strengths of the provision along with the areas for development for the provision. The leaders then create an action plan to improve achievement. The leader keeps track of the improvements they have secured over time to understand how effect the provision is.

Easter Christingle at St Nicholas' Church

Today we had our final event for the Spring Term which was our Easter Christingle service at St Nicholas’ church. Thank you to all the parents who came to the event – it was amazing to see so many of you there.

The children sang beautifully – those of you who were there will not be able to get the ‘Spring Chicken’ song out of your heads for a while to come!

We used the flowers to decorate the cross and when this was revealed to the children, the ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ were quite brilliant – a pure moment of awe and wonder.

It was a lovely way to end a busy term. 

Visit from The Salvation Army

Team Shakespeare enjoyed a visit from The Salvation Army, learning about the important and meaningful community work that they support.

Year 3 Religious Education

Year 3 had a visit from Reverend DaCosta to explore the significance of Good Friday for Christians. This links to our RE topic 'What is good about Good Friday?'. We learned the main events of the Easter Story and talked about the key symbols that appear in it. We also found out why eggs are used at Easter.

Milne Class, Year 4 visited St Albans Cathedral

On Thursday, Year 4 had a wonderful trip to St Albans Cathedral to learn about the life of Christian Monks. We had a lovely day learning about the different parts of the monastery and used compasses and maps to locate where the buildings would have been. 

In the afternoon, we become Benedictine Monks and the children all dressed up and learned about royalty in the monastery and then children took part in activities the Monks would participate in such as Chapter studies and prayers. 

Dahl class have had a great afternoon making Christingles in our RE lesson! 

Thank you to Jump! for organising a Christingle-making workshop for us this afternoon. We had a lot of fun in Dr Seuss class! 

Year 3 Potter learn about Islam

This term in RE we have been looking at Islam and therefore we had a lovely talk from Muriam's Mum and we got to touch even more artefacts. We really appreciated Muriam's mum coming in. 

   

Reception celebrate Diwali

The children were inspired by our learning on Diwali and decided to create their own sarees. The children came up with the idea and asked me to help them execute their plan. The children were able to guide and direct me to enable their desired outcome to be reached.

Reception had a lovely week celebrating Diwali. On Thursday, Sid and her Mum, helped us make our own Diva lamps and we tried Indian sweets . Sid and her mum told us how they celebrate Diwali in their house. It sounds so much fun . Thank you for sharing with us.

part of our learning on Diwali, we have explored some Henna designs and created some of our own. We worked with partners and got to eat our designs at the end! We tried really hard...

Jump Workshop, Year 2 Aslan Class

Year 2 were fascinated by the lovely ladies from “Jump” who came into Aslan class on Thursday to talk about Good Friday, Palm Sunday, The last Supper and The Crucifixion. They enjoyed acting out each segment of the story and some children really excelled themselves by becoming the Donkey that carried Jesus through the streets on his journey!  As the picture shows , they all sat beautifully and listened to the bible stories, showcasing their     abilities to be “Pro Social “ young people. Well done Aslan class. You have made Miss Henshall and Mrs Palmer Cooper very proud. Keep up those beautiful listening skills.

St Alban's Cathedral, KS1 & EYFS School Trip, March 2019

  

  

St Alban's Cathedral, Year 5 School Trip

On Tuesday 11th December, we travelled to the St Albans Cathedral for Dahl classes’ school trip. We were fascinated by all of the intricately designed statues and carvings, not to mention the facts we learnt!   

As soon as we arrived at the cathedral, we were welcomed in and were lucky enough to have our own private tour. First, we were split up into two groups to start looking around. Our group was shown the ‘Font’ where people were baptised/ christened. We were even allowed to see it being done by three class members. One was the font, one was the priest and the other was the person being christened. It was really interesting to be able to see the procedure that Christians go through in front of us. 

Next we learnt about the advent wreath. We were shown one and the guide explained to us the meaning of each candle and what the colour represents. They each were a memoir for one or a group of people and what they did in relation to Christmas and their good deeds. We also went on and learnt that the colour of the cope that bishops wear during advent is purple/violet. 

After that we learnt all about St Albans and the blue and gold crest of his. Did you know that people believe when he was about to be executed, roses sprang up from the ground wherever he stepped? The rose is now symbolic to the St Albans’ abbey. After lunch, we went to a special room where we were given a lump of clay which we were going to make a tile out of. This session was a particular highlight to most of the children. A popular theme for our creations was a rose/flower, an angel or a cross. 

We really enjoyed our trip and would definitely recommend it to other classes, schools, or people as it is super educational. 

Report by Lottie Watson and Lauren Daly 

    

   

Buddhism Symbolism, Year 6

This week in Year 6 we have been learning about the symbolism of mudras (hand gestures) in Buddhism and linking them to hand gestures in other religions to explore similarities and differences between religions. The children then created their own mudras to symbolise an important belief of their own. Wonderful peacefulness and thoughtfulness in this session.

 

Diwali Celebrations, KS1 and EYFS

On Wednesday Ladybird class, Elmer class and Aslan class learnt how people around the world celebrate Diwali. They listened to the story of Rama and Sita and learnt why Diwali is called the Festival of Lights. They had lots of fun making rangoli patterns to decorate the classroom. They also made Diwali cards and Divas. Elmer class had a go at some traditional dancing using dandyia sticks and some children were even brave enough to perform to the rest of the class