Intent

Learning about other religions and cultures is an integral part of our children's education at Booker Avenue Junior School. We belong to a school community that welcomes children and families from many different and diverse cultures and backgrounds. Therefore, learning about each other's faiths and traditions is the foundation of our RE curriculum. We hope that through their learning the children will be able to stand up for their own beliefs and challenge injustice around them. Through cross-curricular activities, assemblies and themed topics such as Black History Week, Remembrance celebrations and Religious festivals, we aim to provide knowledge, understanding, critical thinking around key issues that affect the world.

From September 2021 we are following the Opening Worlds Curriculum which is a Humanities approach. The RE curriculum being taught; alongside History and Geography; and its associated teaching approaches methods will secure the highest possible quality of education for our pupils. Scope, rigour, coherence and sequencing will ensure that the subject properly reflects the academic practices, outside of school, to which the subject refers and they make certain that this is organised in the best way that allows pupils to make progress, thrive and enjoy RE.

In studying religions through multiple disciplines, pupils will: learn about and learn from the different kinds of questions human beings can ask about religious origins, beliefs and practices. These questions come from philosophy, theology, social sciences and history. Questions such as: how does this story from the Quran help Muslims to understand this precept from the hadith? What does this New Testament story mean to Christians? What are the big ideas that this Hindu story reflects? Children will learn how ideas are expressed in other stories and in diverse religious practices across time and space? They will study how religious communities perceive matters of justice and how religious tradition tackled the challenge of injustice and how it teaches it in its texts, art, traditions and practices.

Implementation

It is law that we, as a school, provide Religious Education, something that we at Booker Avenue Juniors enthusiastically agree with. RE is taught for 1 hour per week usually by the class teacher but in some cases by the PPA teacher. From September 2021 Year 3 and Year 4  learnt the new Year 3 syllabus. Now from September 2022 Year 4 and Year 5 will be learning the new Year 4 syllabus This will ensure that Year 5 are continuing to have access to the content, vocabulary and skills needed for them to progress and thrive in RE.

Impact

The most pupils consistently achieve their learning objective within lessons and are assessed as being at expected standard for R.E. with some pupils working at greater depth standard. Pupils seem to really enjoy R.E. The comments below are taken from a pupil voice survey completed in May 2022.

“I like the topics and the exciting bits in the stories.” Year 3 pupil.

“I really like learning about the Hindu stories and love RE, don’t change anything about it.” Year 3 pupil.

Religious Education at Booker

The documents below are the long term plans for R.E. and the Key Themes covered.