Religion and Worldviews

Religion and Worldviews Education at Christopher Pickering

‘The whole purpose of Religion is to facilitate love and compassion, patience, humility and forgiveness’ Dalai Lama 

‘My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness’.  Dalai Lama

At Christopher Pickering Primary School we follow the East Riding and Hull Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education in accordance with the East Riding’s ‘Standing Advisory Council of Religious Education’ (SACRE).

In accordance with the agreed syllabus, Religious Education at Christopher Pickering:

  • Is open and objective. It does not seek to urge religious beliefs on young people, nor compromise the integrity of their own religious position by promoting one tradition over another.
  • Endeavours to promote a positive attitude toward people, respecting their right to hold different beliefs from their own.
  • Promotes the values and attitudes necessary for citizenship in a multi-faith and multi-racial society through developing understanding of, respect for, and dialogue with people of different beliefs, practices, races and cultures.
  • Recognises similarities and differences in commitment, self-understanding and the search for truth. Respecting and valuing these for the common good.
  • Is not the same as collective worship, which has its own place in the educational life of the school, contributing to an informed, reflective, compassionate and caring school community.
  • Recognises and celebrates the range of cultures and diversity of the school through workshops, assemblies and shared experiences of staff, children and people from the local community.

The RE curriculum at Christopher Pickering is organised to support the development of children’s knowledge of religious and non-religious beliefs and worldviews, practices and ways of life and enable children to make links between these. It also develops children’s knowledge and understanding of the different members of our rich and diverse community.

Knowledge and skills are supported by first-hand experiences, including visits to local places of worship and visits from faith communities. Knowledge and skills are mapped to support children’s understanding of religion and faith. The RE curriculum is also designed to support positive attitudes and values, and encourage children to reflect and relate learning to their own experience. Children learn that there are those who do not hold religious beliefs and have their own philosophical perspectives, as part of its commitment to ensure mutual respect and tolerance for those with different faiths.

The syllabus recommends that any themes or ‘Big Questions’ are explored by investigating and reflecting on the responses of more than one religion or belief system. All the units therefore include an exploration of these themes or big questions through different perspectives. Each unit encourages and promotes the contemplation of key concepts or themes within religions and comparing these with responses in other faiths, religions and belief systems.

The syllabus has been created in a cyclical format to enable children to revisit and build on prior knowledge of the different beliefs and practices taught across the school.

The curriculum for RE aims to ensure that all pupils develop religious literacy through: (Sept 2022)

  • Knowing about and understanding a range of religions and worldviews, learning to see these through the disciplines of Theology, Philosophyand Social Sciences
  • Expressing ideas and insights about the nature, significance and impact of religion and worldviews through a multidisciplinary approach whilst engaging critically with them
  • Gaining and deploying skills taken from the disciplines of Theology, Philosophy and Social Sciences to enhance learning about religions and different worldviews

World views

The inclusion of worldviews enables young people to connect with religion(s) in a much more profound and inclusive way. A world views approach enables pupils to explore and gain ownership of their own perspectives, fitting new understanding into their existing mental framework. Pupils then learn about religion and beliefs through connecting and contrasting them with their own way of seeing the world.

At Christopher Pickering, we are committed to providing our children with an exciting and positive learning environment, in which they have the opportunity to develop their knowledge and understanding of religions to support their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.

 

Implementation

At Christopher Pickering, we believe that the primary purpose of RE must be to contribute to a wider educational purpose. There is a multitude of questions to be asked, texts to be studied and knowledge to develop to help our children and young people understand the society in which we live, the culture we inherit and the wider world of which we are a part. There are many different disciplines used to explore the phenomena of religion.

As a school, we will focus on three mutually supportive disciplines – Theology, Philosophy and Social Sciences. These three disciplines help RE to be seen from different perspectives, giving a balanced approach to teaching and learning. Looking at RE through these disciplines helps to structure the learning and differentiates RE from PSHE and Citizenship, giving academic rigour to the study of religion and worldviews.

In EYFS, Religious Education will allow the children to explore the worldviews and respond to children’s natural curiosity about things around them. They will be introduced to a variety of multi-syllabic vocabulary such as religion, community, Christianity. Through listening to stories from religious traditions, children will be able to explore different ideologies and be able to answer questions on what they have heard. Standalone lessons will be given on celebrative festivals such as Harvest, Christmas, Easter, Diwali, Eid and the children will be able to explore the food and clothes linked to the different cultures who celebrate these events. Discussions throughout the year about places of worship will enhance children’s ideas of places of worship and how they are similar and different. Talking about their own experiences of community and what it means to them will enhance their feelings of belonging to their local areas. Our EYFS will be questioned to think deeply about the world around them and encouraged to respond to ‘why’ styled questions to give a more detailed and thorough answer.

In KS1, the children are building on their explorations that they created in EYFS and start to develop an enquiry sequence of learning. Using this model of learning, children are able to build upon their prior knowledge and understanding to ensure progression. The children are given carefully structured opportunities to find out for themselves, making their own connections and drawing their own conclusions with chance to ask questions throughout – deepening their knowledge. Our school engages children in the ‘big question’ from the onset to provide a context for carrying out an investigation to answer their own questions. We use a multidisciplinary approach to deepen learning and extend pupils’ investigations into religion and other worldviews, looking through the three different disciplines – Theology, Social sciences and Philosophy. Across lessons, children are able to reflect on their learning and are encouraged to develop well-founded reasons to justify their conclusions or views. Our children will mainly focus on Christianity, Humanism and Sikhism during KS1 whilst always looking at them through the three disciplines to make sure the children see RE from different perspectives, other faiths and beliefs will also be studied.

In KS2, the children continue with the inquiry approach to their learning ensuring that they build on prior knowledge. Using big questions to hook the children into learning enhances their deeper thinking and enjoyment in the lessons. Throughout KS2, the children will continuing reflecting and learning about Christianity and Humanism,  whilst being introduced to  and Judaism. Each unit will make sure that a discipline is focused on (Theology, Social sciences or Philosophy) so the children can get different perspectives and judgements from a variety of ideals. Our children will be challenges to think and dive deeper into the questions to demonstrate new understanding and aspects of the religions or views.

We develop skills in investigation by learning how to ask questions and understand how to gather information, observe and listen. We learn how to interpret religion through language, poetry and symbolism. We reflect on relationships, experiences and beliefs whilst developing empathy by understanding the world through the eyes of others. We analyse, express and evaluate opinions, facts, values, rituals and arguments. We apply this knowledge of religion, individual, community, national and international life by working collaboratively and gather evidence through photos, videos, art and written work.

The Big Questions-

Year 1 – Who belongs? Why worship? Why is the world so special?

Year 2 – What is right and wrong? What is true? What are the big questions?

Year 3 – Why remember? Who, what and when? What is scared?

Year 4 – Where is religion? What is a saint? Who cares?

Year 5 – How is belief expressed? What are the challenges? Why pilgrimage?

Year 6 – Is it fair? What is identity? What is life about?

 

Rationale for sequencing and coverage in Religious Education and world views

At all key stages, more time should be spent on Christianity than on any other individual religion or worldview ‘to reflect the fact that the religious traditions in Great Britain are in the main Christian’ (Education Act 1988). Therefore, Christianity is taught as one of the principal religions in KS1 and KS2.

The curriculum is then structured by: (Sept 23)

Principal Religion 1 Principal Religion 2 Principal Religion 3 World View
KS1 Christianity Sikhism Humanism
KS2 Christianity Sanatana Dharma

(Hinduism)

 Judaism Humanism

The religions chosen have been selected to give our pupils depth in knowledge in a range of contrasting religions and world views, practices and ways of life and enable children to make links between these. It also develops children’s knowledge and understanding of the different members of our rich and diverse community.

The assembly rota also has been planned to widen pupils knowledge and understanding within religions and world views that are not necessarily covered within curriculum time.

Impact

Our Religious Curriculum is high quality, well thought out and is planned to demonstrate
progression. If children are keeping up with the curriculum, they are deemed to be making good or better progress. The impact and measure of this is to ensure that children at Christopher Pickering are equipped with transferable Religious skills and knowledge that will enable them to be ready for the curriculum at Key Stage 3 and for life as an adult in the wider world. In addition, we measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:

  • A reflection on standards achieved against the planned outcomes
  • A celebration of learning for each term which demonstrates progression across the school;
  • Tracking of knowledge in pre and post learning quizzes
  • Pupil discussions about their learning