At St Joseph’s we are committed to the Catholic faith, valuing every individual as special and unique, made in the image and likeness of God. We recognise Religious Education is a core curriculum subject and as such, is taught as a subject in its own right.  The Gospel Values and teachings of the Catholic Church permeates through everything that we do, across all areas of the school curriculum.  

Religious Education at St Joseph’s respects and promotes each child’s innate capacity for wonder, awe, reverence and spirituality. Through effective use of the ‘Come and See’ Programme, our Religious Education curriculum enables our children to develop their faith journey, in a progressive manner, enabling them to grow in their religious literacy and understanding.

They are taught about God’s love and learn about their Christian responsibilities; they are provided with experiences of church, Catholic and Christian traditions.  Children are taught about other faith religions and are provided with the opportunity to visit different places of worship, to support their understanding.

The teaching of British Values is paramount in the development of our children and so tolerance and respect are pivotal in their leaning. 

Through Religious Education, our children learn about their unique place within the home, school, parish and global community.

Teaching

At St Joseph’s, RE is a core subject. 10% of teaching time is allocated to RE. This is usually two RE lessons, on two separate days.

Planning

The basis of our planning is taken from the ‘Come and See’ scheme of work. Class teachers plan lessons accordingly, to ensure suitable curriculum coverage, sufficient challenge and creativity is implemented to motivate and inspire.

Teachers plan and adapt where necessary, to meet the specific needs of the children. Each unit of learning begins with an Explore lesson, where pupils relate the concept of the unit to their own lives.

This is then followed by a series of Reveal lessons, where children explore and investigate the theme in a religious context. The unit is then concluded with a Respond session, where pupils plan a liturgy in celebration of their learning within the topic.

We ensure that pupils:

• develop a sense of respect and reverence within their own faith and for the beliefs of others;
• build an ability to pray, in a range of different ways, to support pupils on their own faith journey;
• foster an enthusiasm for faith learning, by providing engaging and challenging activities;
• develop a sense of awe and wonder through deeper activities that give pupils an opportunity to explore and question;
• learn key scriptural stories that underpin practices within the Catholic church and the wider Christian faiths.

The high-quality Religious Education curriculum enables pupils to make good and better progress in this subject, as a core subject within the whole school curriculum. It enables pupils to flourish, grow and work in the love of Christ as we live out our mission statement. 

‘Treat others as we would like to be treated.’

Matthew 7-12

Across each Key Stage

• Scripture forms the basis of work within the RE curriculum. Pupils explore the Word of God, its meaning within a historical context and its relevance to us today. This can be through reading from the Bible, scriptural video clips and cartoons, contemporary and historical scriptural art, the work of religiously inspirational people, listening to guided meditations or singing hymns.
• Children are engaged in learning religious doctrine and the meanings behind it. They explore practices within Catholicism, so that they can understand their own faith more, and explore the doctrines of other faiths at set points within the year.  
• Pupils are guided along their faith journey through prayer development. Children are taught how to write their own prayers, write group prayers or join in with spontaneous prayer. Pupils are also taught common catholic prayers, to enable them to engage more thoroughly in masses and other practices.
• RE learning is embraced through a range of responses. Written activities are interspersed with discussion, drama, music responses, art, technology based responses, presentations and collaborative tasks. This makes learning in RE distinctive and engaging. 
• With the support of our parish priest, Canon Nicholas James, who plays an active part in pupils’ faith development, a sense of respect and reverence is fostered and dispersed throughout the school. This is also evident in RE lessons and in other prayerful activities. It is modelled by adults in school and mirrored by the pupils.

Assessment

At the start of each topic pupils complete a cold task to establish their current knowledge and understanding, before embarking upon the new given topic. 

This informs the class teacher of their current understanding and possible gaps in knowledge and so the class teacher is able to start the topic from an appropriate learning point. 

Lesson by lesson, pupils’ learning is assessed, in order to provide effective feedback. This ensures the pupil has a clear understanding of what they have achieved and what their next steps are.  Mis conceptions are also addressed as part of effective class teacher feedback.  

At the end of the topic pupils complete a hot task and this provides the teacher with the opportunity to assess ow much knowledge and understanding has been achieved throughout the topic.  This task is known as ‘The Big Question’. 

The attainment and progress of each child is tracked using the key skills for each year group, as outlined by the Catholic Education Service. Over the term, skills (as outlined in our RE skills document) are planned for within the broader areas of ‘Knowledge and Understanding’ (learning about), ‘Engagement and Response’ (learning from) and ‘Providing Opportunities for Spiritual Reflection’.