Religious Education
Intent
We aim to lead our pupils into the world of religion through their own life experiences. This helps pupils to make sense of the world, making it meaningful and relevant to the world we live in, as well as being able to demonstrate empathy for others.
As pupils work through our RE curriculum, they will explore different religions and evaluate what they have learnt, thinking about personal reflections. During their time at Bowes, pupils will acquire an outstanding level of religious understanding and knowledge, thinking about meaning and significance of existence. Pupils will become reflective learners and develop a strong understanding of how the beliefs, values, practices and ways of life within any religion cohere together.
Implementation
We use 'Primary Knowledge Curriculum(PKC) RE' to support the planning and delivery of an engaging RE curriculum. Units are knowledge-rich, coherently sequenced, and cumulatively structured to ensure that pupils develop a secure and meaningful understanding of religious and non-religious world-views over time.
Weekly lessons focus on subject knowledge, critical/evaluative thinking and personal spiritual development. Lessons build on prior learning with knowledge and skills developed year-on-year.
Weekly opportunities for reflection and discussion help develop pupils’ emotional intelligence, ethical awareness, and ability to form reasoned views. In doing so, the curriculum not only lays a foundation for further academic study, but nurtures pupils to become curious, conscientious, and compassionate individuals capable of engaging respectfully with the beliefs of others.
The PKC RE curriculum follows a structure in which key themes and concepts are revisited across year groups with increasing complexity. This supports children to know and remember more over time. Each academic year in Years 1–6 begins with a multifaith thematic unit (e.g. places of worship, creation stories and symbols), designed to re-engage prior knowledge and explore commonalities across faiths. This is followed by deeper study into Christianity and another world religion each year. In the summer term, pupils often return to multifaith explorations that draw upon prior knowledge and consolidate learning.
In each lesson, there is an opportunity for personal reflection, enabling children to relate what they are learning to their own experiences. In doing so, the RE curriculum nurtures pupils to become curious, conscientious, and compassionate individuals capable of engaging respectfully with the beliefs of others whilst understanding more about their own beliefs. Our carefully chosen content aligns with British Values, promoting tolerance, individual liberty, and mutual respect.
Impact
The curriculum is the progression model. If pupils are able to demonstrate they are able to know and remember more against our curriculum expectations, they are making good progress and attaining expected standards.
By the end of an enquiry, pupils would have had opportunities to develop personal resonance/reflection on the subject content relating to the enquiry, knowledge and understanding of subject content relating to the enquiry and finally being able to evaluate and demonstrate critical thinking in relation to the enquiry.
During and/after lessons, pupils are assessed through informal assessment techniques: questioning, conferencing, reviewing written work against learning objective/success criteria, short retrieval activities.
At the end of units, pupils are assessed using high-quality conversations and class-based tasks.
Beyond the Curriculum
Where possible, trips and experiences are organised to compliment some of the units studied.
In addition, we welcome members of our community to share their own experiences, helping pupils to reach conclusions based upon enquiry questions and to bring learning to life.