Religious Education

Religious Education at Cale Green Primary School

Religious Education plays a vital role at Cale Green in ensuring the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of the children.

As Cale Green is a truly comprehensive and culturally diverse primary school we strive to ensure that our Religious Education teaching is relevant to the children in the school and that it reflects their experiences. In this way Religious Education also strongly supports the development of modern British values.

At Cale Green Primary School, we follow the Manchester, Salford, Tameside, Stockport and Trafford Agreed Syllabus 2016-2021.

The aim of teaching Religious Education is to ensure that all children:

• develop an understanding of the major world religions and the influence that their different religious beliefs, values, traditions and practices have on individuals, communities, societies and cultures.

 

• appreciate, value and reflect upon their own and other people’s beliefs and practices and express their own person viewpoints in a thoughtful, reasoned and considerate way.

 

• help children to develop as caring individuals as a part of a larger community by fostering modern British values such as honesty, fairness, tolerance and respect for themselves and others. This will allow them to learn and live together in school and the community at large. 

Teaching the Agreed Syllabus

In Reception, children encounter Christianity and other faiths, as part of their growing sense of self, their own community and their place within it.

In Key Stage 1, children learn about the religion and way of life of Christians, Muslims and Jewish people.

In Key Stage 2, children learn about the religion, culture and beliefs of Christians, Muslims, Hindus and Jewish people.

We have adopted a comparative approach to learning about and from religions. Children are taught to look for similarities and differences between different beliefs, cultures and ways of life including non-religious world views and to compare them to their own personal experiences and thoughts.

As we develop more of an enquiry based curriculum, children are encouraged to generate their own questions about their own beliefs and those of others.

We take a cross curricular approach to teaching Religious Education so for example, religious stories may be studied in English or read in Guided Reading, religious imagery may be looked at in Art etcetera. Learning is enhanced by a wealth of authentic artefacts and resources.

As well as following the prescribed Agreed Syllabus, we are devote one week each term as a whole-school RE week. During these weeks, we study themes such as buildings, books, journeys comparing their meaning and significance in different religious and in non-religious life.

We regularly incorporate first hand experiences into the teaching and learning of RE. Children have the opportunity to visit churches, Manchester Cathedral, mosques and the Manchester Jewish museum. Children enjoy taking part in the Easter Trail and participating in the Christmas Tree Festival at St. George’s Church.

Visitors invited into school include the Bible Encounter Trust, Christians in School, Diwali dane workshops and staff from the Ethnic Diversity Service. 

Whole school celebrations include harvest festival, Nativity plays, Diwali, Carol Services, Easter Assembly and Eid celebrations.

Whilst the Agreed Syllabus focuses mainly on Christianity, Judaism and Islam, we also look at other faiths – especially at times of celebration such as Diwali and Chinese New Year. Where possible we relate these to the experiences of the children.

We have daily act of collective worship. On a Monday, Wednesday and Friday there are whole school assemblies and on a Tuesday and Thursday a period of quiet reflection is encouraged, often following PSHE lessons.

We have worked with parents to ensure that our assemblies are as inclusive as possible and meet the needs of all children. Parents hold the right to withdraw children from assemblies and are asked to contact the headteacher if they are concerned about assemblies. 

Most importantly, our RE teaching and learning, as well as assemblies, closely follow our school ethos and values. They encourage everyone to be welcoming by showing kindness, respect and acceptance to all regardless of their differences and to live and learn together. In this way Religious Education reflects and supports our mission of ‘Learning and Living Together’.

 

 

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