RE

As a community school we believe that our children should have some experience and understanding of the major world faiths. We seek to make sure that our children learn to respect and value the contribution made by followers of different religions to our world and gain some understanding of the different beliefs people follow. We hope that through our curriculum children will appreciate the variety of different religions in our community as well as learning how religious beliefs can affect the way we behave and the things we do. We welcome visitors to help us learn and visits to local places of worship. Regular visitors and supporters of our RE curriculum are Lynda Forde-Horne who has taught us so much about the Jewish history and faith and Rev Claire McClelland who has visited for assemblies and to help us teach about Christianity. We have also enjoyed time spent with members of our local Islam community learning about their faith.

We enjoy looking at festivals and Celebrations of different faiths and also the important places and artefacts treasured in each religion. We want children to develop important skills and attitudes during their RE lessons, such as skills of engagement, investigation, evaluation and expression.

We hope that children will be open-minded and be able to express their ideas and beliefs confidently while learning to respect and understand that others may have a different view to them.

We hope they will develop attitudes of curiosity and wonder at the world and people around them while valuing themselves and others as unique and special individuals.

We hope they will be able to ask questions and be willing to explore ideas for answers, developing the ability to argue respectfully and reasonably.

We follow the Local Dorset Agreed Syllabus and use a scheme of work called ‘Discovery’. We teach our RE in blocks of time, as a school we set aside an RE morning every half term for all classes to be learning about religion at the same time and sharing together what they are finding out. We are also undertaking to incorporate the new national scheme of work called “Understanding Christianity” alongside other DASP schools.

This is the overview of the subjects for the year.