Intention
Religious Education has a significant role for the development of pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. It promotes respect and open-mindedness towards others with different faiths and beliefs and encourages pupils to develop their sense of identity and belonging through self-awareness and reflection. The principle aim of RE is for pupils to develop an understanding and appreciation for the expression of beliefs, cultural practices and influence of principle religions and worldviews in the local, national and wider global community.
Implementation
At Hungerford we have selected units from the Plan Bee scheme, which fulfils the requirements of the National Curriculum and Local Authority guidance. In R.E. pupils discover, explore, and consider different answers to questions, in local, national and global contexts. They do this through learning about and learning from religions and other world views. They learn to articulate clearly their personal beliefs, ideas, values and experiences, whilst respecting the rights of others to differ. Christianity is taught each year and Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism are reflected upon and build on children’s learning in a progressive way. While teaching Religious Education, adults in school work hard to ensure they are not fostering stereotypes or generalising and are aware of the importance of including positive representation. Adults also ensure they are discretely teaching key facts about religions with correct pronunciation and revisiting these throughout units of work and before beginning new ones.
Collective Worship
At Hungerford, our daily act of collective worship is an important part of school life. It is a time where we come together to share our love of God and celebrate our achievements together. The worship of the school is based on promoting the Christian values which permeate the ethos of the school. As such, the contributions of staff, pupils, parents, local church clergy and other visitors are valued highly.
The weekly pattern of collective worship looks like this:
Monday – Principal/Vice Principal’s worship focussing on our school values.
Tuesday – Question of the Week using resources from ‘Picture News’. Children in Years 1-6 carry out a weekly Question of the Week which promotes enquiry at a deeper level through the exploration of ideas. We believe this gives children the confidence to share their opinions on a range of topical issues which enables them to grow in understanding of personal and ethical issues of the world around them.
Wednesday – Hymn practice including a songs with sign language (Upper Phase) / Class assembly where we observe the cycle of the Church’s Year – Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, Saints’ Days and use the Bible as a source of knowledge and inspiration for themes and stories (Lower Phase).
Thursday – Class assembly where we observe the cycle of the Church’s Year – Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, Saints’ Days and use the Bible as a source of knowledge and inspiration for themes and stories (Upper Phase) / Hymn practice including a songs with sign language (Lower Phase)
Friday – Commendation Assembly led by the Principal or Vice Principal to share the achievements of the children.
In the UK, parents have the right to withdraw their child from all or part of Religious Education (RE). To do so, parents should contact Mrs Wheaver (Principal) to arrange a discussion. The school will respect this decision and provide alternative supervision or activities during RE lessons, within another class.