INTENT

St Anselm’s is a Catholic School and we are committed to the Catholic faith, valuing every individual as special and unique, made in the image and likeness of God. We recognise Religious Education is a core curriculum subject and as such is a taught as a subject in its own right. However, the Gospel Values and teachings of the Catholic Church are a fundamental part of everything that we do and these are taught across all areas of the school curriculum.

Religious Education at St Anselm’s respects and promotes each child’s innate capacity for wonder, awe, reverence and spirituality. Our Religious Education curriculum leads our children to aspire not to have more, but to be more – particularly by learning about the lives and actions of the saints and other inspirational figures. Children are taught about God’s love; they learn about their Christian responsibilities; they are provided with experiences of church, Catholic and Christian traditions, as well as being taught to be respectful and understanding of people and traditions from other faith backgrounds. Through Religious Education, our children learn about their unique place within the home, school, parish and global community.

We also aim, wherever possible, to provide pupils with opportunities to develop the personal attributes of our unique Rainbow Curriculum.

IMPLEMENTATION

Teaching

At St Anselm’s, being a faith school, RE is a core subject. 10% of teaching time is allocated to RE. This is usually two RE lessons, on two separate days. There is then a further ‘feed forward’ session, where the pupils respond to marking; consolidating or extending their understanding.   

Planning

The basis of our planning is taken from the ‘Come and See’ scheme of work. Subject leaders plan each lesson, in detail, to add the distinctive nature of RE learning in our school. We supplement the scheme with:

• A reflective start to the lesson (including prayers, song, scriptural art work or scripture quotes);
• Investigations into inspirational people, both saints and other people who can inspire us to live more like Jesus;
• Investigations into scriptural and religiously inspired art work;
• Responses to learning about our faith that are inclusive and engaging, appropriate to the age and stage of the children;
• A reflective conclusion to the lesson, which relates the learning to us (as believers) and our lives.

The detailed plans are then adapted to meet the specific needs of the children by the class teacher. Each unit of learning begins with an Explore lesson, where pupils relate the concept of the unit to their own lives. This is then followed by a series of Reveal lessons, where children explore and investigate the theme in a religious context. The unit is then concluded with a Respond session, where pupils plan a liturgy in celebration of their learning within the topic.

Across each Key Stage

• Scripture forms the basis of work within the RE curriculum. Pupils explore the Word of God, its meaning within a historical context and its relevance to us today. This can be through reading from the bible, scriptural video clips and cartoons, contemporary and historical scriptural art, the work of religiously inspirational people, listening to guided meditations or singing hymns.
• Children are engaged in learning religious doctrine and the meanings behind it. They explore practices within Catholicism, so that they can understand their own faith more, and explore the doctrines of other faiths at set points within the year.  
• Pupils are guided along their faith journey through prayer development. Children are taught how to write their own prayers, write group prayers or join in with spontaneous prayer. Pupils are also taught common catholic prayers, to enable them to engage more thoroughly in masses and other practices.
• A prime focus of religious education is the investigation of religious art. A range of different art genres are explored, both more traditional, medieval scriptural art, as well as more modern, multicultural scriptural art. This has a high priority, that it is explicitly planned in all schemes of work for RE.
• RE learning is embraced through a range of responses. Written activities are interspersed with discussion, drama, music responses, art, technology based responses, presentations and collaborative tasks. This makes learning in RE distinctive and engaging. Pupils look forward to their RE lessons.

In consultation with, and with the support of our parish priest, pupils’ faith development is addressed. A sense of respect and reverence is fostered. This is evident in RE lessons and in other prayerful activities. It is modelled by adults in school and mirrored by the pupils.

Assessment

Lesson by lesson, pupils’ learning is consolidated or extended using a ‘1, 2, 3 marking’ approach. Where a teacher groups work by the pupils’ next steps. The learning is developed by providing each group with a key question, or further teaching to develop their understanding. Pupils are given time to explore this question.

The attainment and progress of each child is tracked using the key skills for each year group, as outlined by the Catholic Education Service. Over the term, skills (as outlined in our RE skills document) are planned for within the broader areas of ‘Knowledge and Understanding’ (learning about), ‘Engagement and Response’ (learning from) and ‘Providing Opportunities for Spiritual Reflection’.

IMPACT

We ensure that pupils:

• develop a sense of respect and reverence within their own faith and for the beliefs of others;
• build an ability to pray, in a range of different ways, to support pupils on their own faith journey;
• foster an enthusiasm for faith learning, by providing engaging and challenging activities;
• develop a sense of awe and wonder through deeper activities that give pupils an opportunity to explore and question;
• learn key scriptural stories that underpin practices within the Catholic church and the wider Christian faiths.

The high-quality Religious Education curriculum enables pupils to make good and better progress in this subject, as a core subject within the whole school curriculum. It embraces all ‘Rainbow Curriculum’ key skills across each key stage. It enables them to make an essential contribution to the creativity, culture, wealth and well-being of the nation - and indeed the world - both now and in the future.