RE
RE Curriculum Intent
Vision
Our curriculum at Lockerley Primary School encompasses the following aims to meet the needs of our children and the History curriculum is a vehicle to bring these aims to life:
ACTIVE - Concrete resources such as those taken from Living Difference III, as well as immersive experience days, are used to embed conceptual understanding in the RE curriculum to allow pupils to make links between each area of learning.
EXPERIENCES - Visitors from different religious groups come to talk to the children to provide them with experiences that develop their understanding of religious context and provide broad opportunities that compliment and build on those from within the school setting.
DIVERSITY - Teaching across both key stages provides opportunities for children to build on their cultural awareness through consideration of different religions and developing a breadth and depth to their understanding of different faiths.
PURPOSE - Making meaningful learning is central to our teaching. Learning journeys are made clear to the children with an outcome we are working towards and the steps along the way. We have developed ‘real life’ opportunities for children to share their work.
RE Curriculum Implementation
EYFS
RE lessons are developed to offer a broad range of study for children studying RE. Children begin by learning about the concept of celebration linking this concept to their experiences of Harvest and the birth of Jesus at Christmas, as well as celebrating new life at Easter. Children begin to look at other religions, focusing on celebrations and rituals. Towards the summer term children in EYFS learn about special clothes in Judaism and Christianity as well as the Jewish celebration Shabbat. Each concept taught in EYFS is explored by discussing similarities and differences between communities, faiths and the local community.
Y1-6
RE is taught in a weekly block each half term in KS1 and is taught weekly in KS2. Teachers plan from the National Curriculum objectives alongside the Hampshire RE curriculum provided by Living Difference III. Each year group has a concept to learn each half term. Christianity and spirituality is at the heart of each concept. This is then tied in with learning about different religions including Judaism, Hinduism and Islam.
Each learning concept is central to the teaching and this is made clear to the children. This is shared through the lessons and displays hat include our cycle of learning which features on the RE learning wall in each classroom. This will incorporate all the skills they will be learning within the unit, therefore children are able to understand how one lesson builds on another within the journey.
By presenting our learning in this way, and allowing children the opportunity to deepen their understanding by linking each concept and developing the skills they have learned from each concept children have opportunities to investigate and interpret Christianity which is at the heart of our school as well as other faiths and religions, developing an understanding and acceptance of differences and similarities between families and communities.
Within RE lessons the teacher will often use split inputs and peel away groups. Planning is flexible to the learners needs and can run over a course of a few days. There will be a key task which has variations of this task to support and scaffold and to deepen learning. Appropriate language is scaffolded in each class with key vocabulary displayed on the working wall. Teachers model the use of this language in their teaching. Stem sentences are used to support the use this key vocabulary. We also strongly believe that within our curriculum skills should be developed alongside knowledge. Therefore we have a set of core skills at the centre of our curriculum which underpin everything we do. These build progressively as the children move through the school.
To seek out and enjoy challenges
To ask questions to extend thinking
To collaborate with others
To overcome barriers by trying out alternative and adapting or developing ideas
To assess themselves and others
To show commitment and perseverance
To connect ideas and experiences in different ways
To generate ideas and explore possibilities.
RE Curriculum Impact
Assessments are made by the teachers continuously and used to plan subsequent lessons. Tapestry is used within EYFS to record observations and assessments. This shares learning with parents and we encourage parents to share learning from home through this platform. Live marking within lessons drives immediate feedback and adaptations to learning. If feedback is given after the lesson, children are expected to respond to the marking during the following session. Teachers track individual progress on assessment sheets which identify children not achieving Age Related Expectations and those exceeding them. This provides information for the pitch of teaching when learning about the next concept.