At St Mary’s, we believe that RE enables our children to have a greater understanding of themselves and a more empathetic and compassionate awareness of the beliefs and needs of others. RE has an important part to play in promoting the spiritual, moral, social, cultural and intellectual development of our pupils.
Our aim is for our pupils to flourish within their communities and as citizens in a diverse society, to develop pupils’ abilities to connect, critically reflect upon, evaluate and apply their learning to their own growing understanding of religion and belief, of themselves, the world and human experience.
Our RE curriculum is taught through Discovery RE and Understanding Christianity. We focus on the ‘big questions’ which enable our pupils to deepen their learning and make connections between concepts, texts and practises and allows our children to reflect and make their own choices concerning religion and beliefs as well as developing critical thinking and evaluation skills. As a Church of England School, we teach Christian values and concepts. However, the syllabus importantly takes into account the teaching and practices of other principal religions in this country and children are introduced to these at an early age. This ensures that we develop tolerance and understanding for other religions and practices.
Children develop through a holistic approach to the teaching and learning, recognizing the connectedness of mind, body and spirit, spiritually through our carefully planned spirituality days, assemblies, links with the church and pastoral care and support.
Parents have the right to withdraw their child from Religious Education. In such circumstances, a programme would be designed to meet the child’s needs.