Religious Education
Welcome to our Religious Education page. Mrs Carrington is the Religious Education Lead and works closely with all members of the Senior Leadership Team.
Intent
Here, at St Theresa’s Catholic Primary School, the intent of Religious Education is to help children to acquire and develop knowledge and understanding of Christianity to see our mission and vision embedded across the RE curriculum. This sits alongside the Virtues, which are inextricably linked through everything we teach.
It is also our intention that pupils at St Theresa’s will enjoy their RE lessons and they will not be seen as a way of either promoting the Catholic faith exclusively, nor for them to be something in which they are purely ‘taught’. RE lessons should be faith filled, enjoyable lessons where each child feels they belong to our school community and not excluded because they are not Catholic. Religious Education at St. Theresa’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; children are taught about God’s love; they learn about their Christian responsibilities; children 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 and parish community. Using the RE scheme “The Way, The Truth and The Life”, we plan for outstanding knowledge, understanding and progress.
These intentions fall in line with our mission statement; to strive in all we do by, “Walking in Theresa’s Little Way.”
Implementation
We are a Catholic school and proud of that fact. The Catholicity of the school underpins what we do every day. This also directs us, with the help of God and the Leeds Diocese, to implement a RE curriculum whereby the Catholic faith permeates everything we do. We ensure that families are supported in bringing their children up in the Catholic faith and we provide a well-rounded Catholic education.
At St. Theresa’s we follow the ‘WTL’ Religious Education Programme in line with guidance from the Leeds Diocese. This programme is followed throughout school from Nursery through to Year 6.
This programme provides:
- opportunities for celebration, prayer and reflection in implicit and explicit ways.
- children with the language of religious experience - a 'literacy' in religious activities, places, stories, symbols and rituals, people and objects.
- a 'systematic presentation of Christian event, message and way of life' in ways appropriate to the age and stage of development of the child.
- that for its implementation and production it requires the adults involved to understand the underlying theological as well as educational principles.
- appropriate materials about other faiths.
- academic respectability as in other curricular areas – utilising appropriate stages from the National Curriculum.
The programme explores the religious dimensions of questions about life, dignity and purpose within the Catholic tradition. Links are made with the children's own experience and with universal experience. It will raise questions and provide material for reflection by the children on their own experiences. It will enable them to explore the beliefs, values and way of life of the Catholic tradition and where appropriate other faith traditions.
10% of teaching time is dedicated to the teaching of RE.
Pupils receive their entitlement for RSE through following 'Journey in Love', PSHE and the statutory Science Curriculum. RSE is taught throughout the summer term for all year groups.
Assessment
Ongoing informal assessment against the 'I can' statements for each topic are used to inform planning and to identify areas for focus and support. Assessment is moderated internally and externally within cluster meetings.
Impact
The children at St Theresa’s Primary enjoy learning about other religions and why people choose or choose not to follow a religion. Through their R.E. learning, the children are able to make links between their own lives and those of others in their community and in the wider world. Through RE our children are developing an understanding of other people’s cultures and ways of life, which they are then able to communicate to the wider community. Through moderation of planning, lessons and books, we can be sure that progress is made across all year groups and where needed support is provided to ensure all pupils do achieve at their own rate and pace. Evidence of impact in RE is not just collated through books instead all our pupils contribute to Collective Worship and Catholic Life. RE offers our children the means by which to understand how other people choose to live and to understand why they choose to live in that way. As such, RE in invaluable in an ever changing and shrinking world.
