Intent

At John Shelton, we believe Religious Education has a significant role to play in the development of pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. Through teaching a variety of religions, non-religions and beliefs, fairly and accurately, our pupils will become inquisitive, resilient and respectful individuals. Pupils will be able to recognise the similarities and differences within their own daily lives and will have the skills to express their own ideas, ask questions and respond to ideas about the diverse world, within a respectful environment. All pupils will visit enriched places of worship and communities in Coventry and Warwickshire to foster a deeper understanding of religion and worldviews.

Through teaching the Religious Education syllabus, pupils will explore matters of faith, spirituality, peace, reconciliation, community and morality. Pupils will be able to appreciate the way that religious and non-religious beliefs can shape our lives and our behaviour, and that of their peers and the wider world community. Pupils will be encouraged to develop their own sense of identity and belonging through self-awareness and self-reflection inspiring them to become the very best individual that they can be. 

Implementation

We will teach RE through the Coventry and Warwickshire Religion and Worldview syllabus 2024 to 2029. The syllabus combines three essential aspects to create a comprehensive learning journey for our pupils:

• Explore (substantive knowledge content drawn from religion and worldviews, explored as case studies in response to each enquiry question)- What?
• Route (disciplinary lenses and their associated methods and tools, dialogue and debate around worldviews and lived experience and embodiment of worldviews)- How?
• Perspective (personal knowledge: the positionality, reflexivity, reflectivity and metacognition of the pupil as learner and worldview explorer in RE) – Who?

Learning will be through the foundation of seven core concepts and the use of enquiry questions Pupils will engage in case studies drawn from worldviews and non-religious perspectives. Pupils will become ‘explorers’ in the learning process, encountering worldviews other than their own through the series of enquiry units that make up learning at each phase of education. Pupils will develop as ‘wise interpreters’ of knowledge about the world and how others choose to live in it.

Learning in Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is through stories and the exploration of familiar examples of embodied religion and worldviews. The EYFS will focus on three of the seven concepts, where the learning is explored in depth through good early years practice.

In KS1, three more concepts are added, exploring these through worldviews case studies that illustrate familiar themes, such as festivals and celebrations, sources of wisdom and the types of thinking that leads to choices about how people choose to act and live. At the end of the key stage, pupils will explore Christianity through the specific lens of the destruction of Coventry Cathedral during WW2, using disciplinary methods and tools to explore this significant local event and story as theologians and historians.

In lower Key Stage Two (KS2), pupils will engage with increasingly sophisticated enquiry questions drawing upon a range of disciplines and a diverse range of case studies drawn from religious and non-religious worldviews. Pupils will begin to see the similarities in the worldviews people inhabit, as well as the key differences that lead to such diversity and nuance.

In upper KS2, pupils are challenged to think deeply as they encounter some of the problematic and challenging aspects of religion and worldviews, beginning to understand how organised worldviews are also dynamic and change over time in the same way that personal and communal worldviews do.

Impact

In RE, progress is measured through pupils being able to reflect on the development of their own personal knowledge. Pupils will know more, apply, and understand the matters, skills and processes through units of work that provide powerful insights into understanding religion and worldviews and through lived experiences.

The disciplinary knowledge and skills are clearly set out in each unit of work to ensure there is progression. Progress will be tracked throughout all Key Stages to ensure there is development and assessment of pupils’ substantive knowledge. Through the worldview check points, pupils’ knowledge will be regularly assessed through formative assessment and retrieval and recall activities.