Religious Education
RE Curriculum Intent
The 2002 Education Act (Section 78) states that all pupils should follow a balanced and broadly based curriculum which ‘promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, social, mental and physical development of pupils and of society, and prepares pupils for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life’.
Our aim at Muscliff is to encourage and enable our children’s spiritual, moral, cultural, social, mental and physical development and we use Discovery RE, which was developed for schools in the BCP area.
We have the freedom to select the religions and learning areas for each year group and it means our children have the opportunity to revisit religions and areas of learning more than once during their primary education at Muscliff. Learning about a variety of religions such as Christianity, Buddhism and Judaism provides children with access to how other people understand the world we live in as well as explore their own spirituality and morality.
“The UK has a rich heritage of culture and diversity. This is continuing today in an era of globalisation and an increasingly interdependent world. Religion and belief for many people forms a crucial part of their culture and identity.” (Religious education in English schools: Non‑statutory guidance 2010)
We want our children to be prepared for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences they may have in the future and therefore we provide them with learning experiences which encourage their knowledge of culture, diversity and the society in which we live.
Discovery RE enables us to do this, providing teachers with resources and detailed planning. The planning is structured so there are four parts to each area of learning:
1. Engagement
2. Investigation
3. Evaluation
4. Expression
Each part may be covered over multiple lessons, often to enable additional time for discussions to explore ideas further. Over the course of each half term, the children explore RE through these four parts and across the year they will explore six different questions across different religions. These four areas enable enquiry- based learning, as well as critical thinking and these are skills which are transferrable to all learning across school as well as in everyday life.