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    Religious Education

    Georgina Barnes & Kirstie O'Malley

    RE Coordinators

    At Floreat Montague Park, Religious Education is a very important part of our curriculum and plays a vital part in our children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. We are a multi-faith school and offer a rich and varied curriculum to reflect this. We aim to develop children’s knowledge and understanding of major world faiths including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Sikhism, Buddhism and Hinduism. When learning, children are taught to respect and ask questions about different religions, traditions and cultures around the world whilst learning about daily life, rituals, traditions, stories and celebrations. Our RE curriculum is based on the Discovery RE Programme (an enquiry based programme) and the Berkshire Agreed Syllabus.

    We aim to make learning fun and relevant through: linking ideas with topic work and assemblies; studying and celebrating different events in religious calendars; practical lessons including dance, drama, art, writing, cooking and tasting; handling real artifacts; inviting visitors into the school and making offsite trips. This allows our pupils to be immersed, engaged and inspired by the subject. We hope that ‘real experiences’ capture imaginations and encourage curiosity.

    A big part of our lessons is to promote enquiring minds: inviting children to ask questions as well as challenging and developing pupils through asking them thought-provoking questions; encouraging children to give reasoning for their thinking whilst accepting and valuing the ideas of others; gaining a deeper understanding of their own and others’ values and beliefs whilst developing critical thinking, self-belief and self-confidence. Children are taught about their own school and community as well as the wider world; thinking about personal values and to understand, appreciate and respect how people of different backgrounds or beliefs may share similar or different values to our own.

     

    Through our teaching of RE, we hope to:

    • Provoke challenging questions about the ultimate meaning and purpose of life, beliefs about God, the self and the nature of reality, issues of right and wrong and what it means to be human.
    • Develop pupils’ knowledge and understanding of Christianity, other principal religions and world views that offer answers to questions such as these.
    • Enhance pupils’ awareness and understanding of religions and beliefs, teachings, practices and forms of expression, as well as of the influence of religion and beliefs on individuals, families, communities and cultures.
    • Offer opportunities for personal reflection and spiritual development.
    • Encourage pupils to learn from different religions, beliefs, values and traditions while exploring their own beliefs and questions of meaning.
    • Challenge pupils to reflect on, consider, analyse, interpret and evaluate issues of truth, belief, faith and ethics and to communicate their responses.
    • Encourage pupils to develop their sense of identity and belonging.
    • Enable pupils to flourish individually within their communities and as citizens in a pluralistic society and global community.
    • Enable pupils to develop respect for and sensitivity to others, in particular those whose faiths and beliefs are different from their own.
    • Promote discernment and enables pupils to combat prejudice.

    Links

    Berkshire Agreed RE Syllabus