RE at St James'

Learning as a family in Jesus, through Love, Hope and Forgiveness.
Matthew 19:26 “with God all things are possible.”

As a church school, we believe that RE plays a vital role in developing our learners to become global citizens and deeper thinkers who can formulate opinions and respect the beliefs and views of others.

In our Statutory Inspection of Anglican and Methodist Schools (SIAMS) in June 2022 the inspector said; 'Every pupil and adult flourishes within the family at St James’.' The report, which can be found here, goes on to say that 'pupils flourish in rich and thought-provoking religious education (RE) lessons'. 

Our vision (Intent)

It is the intent of St James’ that Religious Education creates opportunities to engage, inspire, motivate and encourage children through enquiry based learning.  Religious Education teaching will equip children with both the knowledge and skills to explore different beliefs, reflect on their own spiritual values, and celebrate diversity and equality, as well as enable pupils to combat prejudices. Our Christian values: Love, Hope and Forgiveness will be at the heart of what we stand for. It is our aim that our Religious Education teaching explores modern day issues and will prepare students for adult life, employment and life-long learning.

Love

• The pride children feel in their work
• Love of learning
• Teachers expectations and seeing the potential in children
• Learning as a family – peer work, whole school projects, buddies between the older children and the younger children
• Learning to be global citizens
• Learning life skills with a holistic approach for every child (alongside ARK curriculum)
• Focus on Christian teaching to love one another, being the grounding for our school rules – Ready, Respectful and Safe.

Hope

• Aspirations for all – academic, personal and beyond
• Hope for the world, learning about the environment and recognising the role we have to play in caring for God’s creation

Forgiveness

• Learning from mistakes
• Restorative approach to behaviour management
• Acceptance of one another, working collaboratively, turn taking

Our provision (Implementation)

The RE intent will be delivered creatively through two different ways:

Learning about religion includes enquiry into and investigation of the nature of religion, its key beliefs and teachings, practices, their impacts on the lives of believers and communities, and the varying ways in which these are expressed. It also includes the skills of interpretation, analysis and explanation. Pupils learn to communicate their knowledge and understanding using specialist vocabulary. It also includes identifying and developing an understanding of ultimate questions and ethical issues.

Learning from Religion is concerned with developing pupils’ reflection on and response to their own experiences and their learning about religion. It develops pupils’ skills of application, interpretation and evaluation of what they learn about religion, particularly to questions of identity and belonging, meaning, purpose and truth and values and commitments, and communicating their responses.

At St James';

• we use the Understanding Christianity resources.
• we use the Bible to learn about key Christian beliefs, stories and events.
• we focus on stories in the Bible demonstrating Love, Hope and Forgiveness. Learning from The Bible – The Fall (Year 3, Term 2) and Salvation (Year 6, Term 4).
• we use wider cross-curricular activities linked with RE learning and our school vision and values including; The Election Project in Year 6, Black History Month, Year 6 War and Remembrance project, Festivals project in Year 4 to name but a few.
• texts used in both RE and English reflect a range of different religions, cultures and diversity.
• relationships are key in everything – with ourselves, with others, with God (Spirituality).
• we use a range of creative methods to support the teaching of RE including drama, art, poetry and discussion.
• we also invite in local believers and teachers of a variety of faiths to give children real life experiences. 

Impact

The curriculum is designed to give all learners (including those most disadvantaged and with SEND) the knowledge they need to succeed in life. RE makes a significant contribution to the overall knowledge pupils will need to be global citizens and deep thinkers in the wider community. Allowing children to experience Christian love together with a broad range of religious knowledge enables them to build foundations for a lifelong learning journey in RE.