RE Curriculum Statement of Intent
The Curriculum. Be clear about your Intent
How has your curriculum been structured?
Each year group revisits and progresses in their learning in Christianity each year, while also covering an increasing proportion of lesson time in one additional faith, as follows:
- Year 1: Christianity (two-thirds); Judaism (one-third)
- Year 2: Christianity (half); Judaism (two-sixths); Islam (one-sixth)
- Year 3: Christianity (half); Sikhism (half)
- Year 4: Christianity (half); Judaism (half)
- Year 5: Christianity (half); Hinduism (half)
- Year 6: Christianity (half); Islam (half)
Why has it been done this way?
This enables children to encounter all 6 principal religions by the end of Key Stage 2.
How does it reflect the school context?
At Raglan, we teach Religious Education according to the Bromley Locally Agreed Syllabus and the Discovery RE scheme. This enables us to provide a broad and balanced approach, ensuring that Christianity is an on-going topic for all year groups, while the other main faiths are cumulatively introduced and taught alongside Christianity. The broad nature of the scheme, which provides universal questions relevant to all faiths, also enables us to cater for our increasingly diverse cohort; it emphasises the cultural importance of all faiths and underlines the importance and relevance of a multi-faith community.
What big ideas/ concepts run through your curriculum?
Discovery RE is an enquiry-based approach to Religious Education, a different enquiry for every half term. The aim is to deepen children’s critical thinking skills through greater subject knowledge and also to allow their own spiritual development. Each enquiry has a big enquiry question and this is explored with a 4-step process: Engagement, Investigation, Evaluation and Expression. These steps allow for an enquiry-based learning experience that starts in the child’s own world, takes them on a journey into the world of religion and challenges them to think evaluatively about big questions, before reflecting on and expressing their own thoughts. We are embracing the need to challenge and extend children individually whilst encouraging skills of reflection and empathy.
How do you ensure children know more, remember more and are able to do more over time?
Christianity is taught in every year group, with Christmas and Easter given new treatment each year, developing the learning in a progressive way. At the start of every lesson there is a recap of the previous lesson and at the start of every unit (enquiry question) there is a recap of the previous religion and enquiry question.