Smallwood CE Primary AcademyReligious Education
Religious Education is taught at Smallwood as a discrete subject, Christianity has an important role in the philosophy and ethos of the school as a Church of England School. The practices and beliefs of the faith are taught across all ages in RE lessons but also underpins our community spirit. Collective daily worship plays a key role in strengthening the whole school community. There is a firm basis of Christianity in our RE teaching, but this also includes exploration, comparison and understanding of other religions and cultures. Smallwood provides children with a strong foundation upon which a strong Christian faith can be built with a solid understanding of the world around them
We use the Chester Diocese plans alongside the SACRE agreed syllabus to teach Religious Education in our school.
Our RE work not only covers the teaching and stories of Christianity, but also investigates other World religions. Lessons often start with a "Big Question", encouraging children to share their own thoughts and ideas, no matter what those are, and to listen to the views of others. They are always times of lively, open discussion and debate.
RE enables pupils to appreciate their own and others’ beliefs and cultures, helping them to develop a clear understanding of the significance of religion in their own area as well as in the world today.
RE intends to promote religious understanding and respect, and to challenge prejudice, discrimination and stereotyping.
It is concerned with the promotion of each pupil’s self-worth, enabling them to reflect on their uniqueness as human beings, to share their feelings and emotions with others and to appreciate the importance of forming and maintaining positive relationships.
We see Religious Education as an essential part of the curriculum and should be relevant, worthwhile and accessible to all. We aim to meet the full entitlement of every child in our school. Our curriculum will express that all pupils are loved and valued by God as part of creation.
We strongly believe that the purpose of RE is about religious literacy. This means we aim for children to be able to hold a balanced and well-informed conversation about religion and belief. In order to fulfil this purpose we provide a balance of theology, philosophy and human/social sciences within our RE lessons.
As part of this RE curriculum, as the children progress through school, we learn about different places of worship and have visits from Leaders of different faiths. As well as timetabled RE lessons, there will always be other times in the curriculum where big questions of faith arise, such as when looking at natural disasters, Space or the Second World War. We make time and space to discuss these questions as they occur, not in any prescriptive way, but in a manner so as to allow the children to investigate their own and others opinions and beliefs.