RE Curriculum

Intent

We are a Catholic school, recognising and valuing every individual as special and unique in the image and likeness of God.  

Religious Education at St Marie’s respects and promotes each child’s innate capacity for wonder, awe, reverence and spirituality. Our Religious Education curriculum leads 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. 

Implementation

St Marie’s School follows the Model Curriculum provided in ‘To know You more clearly: The Religious Education Directory 2023 (RED)’, as required by Catholic Bishops of England and Wales and in line with guidance from the Diocese of Hallam. We uses resources from Magister to support our delivery, with staff adapting these resources as necessary for our pupils. 

Our curriculum follows the six-branch mode of the RED Model Curriculum, which aligns with the  Liturgical Year, and uses the ‘knowledge lenses’:

HEAR – The Word – The Bible and teaching documents of the church

BELIEVE – What do Catholics believe?

CELEBRATE – How do our beliefs shape our prayer, liturgy and sacraments?

LIVE – The impact of faith on life: ethics, philosophy, art and culture.

In addition, we recognise the responsibility of living in a multi-faith and multicultural society and aim to introduce children to other world faiths and practices with an attitude of mutual respect and tolerance through the ‘knowledge lenses’ of DIALOGUE and ENCOUNTER.

This programme is followed from EYFS through to Year 6. 10% of teaching time is dedicated to the teaching of RE. 

Impact

Children at St Marie’s are happy learners within RE.  They experience a wide-ranging number of learning challenges in RE and know appropriate responses to them. Through RE, children deepen their appreciation of their faith and fulfil their God-given talents. 

Visits within RE (e.g. to parishes) have enriched the lives of the children and they are able to discuss how the experience impacted their knowledge and understanding. Children of all abilities and backgrounds achieve well in RE, reflected in good or outstanding progress that reveals a clear learning journey.  Children talk enthusiastically about their learning in RE and are eager to further their learning in the next stages of their education. 

Children are well prepared for the next stage of their education as confident and enthusiastic learners who are witness to Christ in their words and actions. There is a proven track record of success in assessments that reflects the impact of deep learning. Clear outcomes focus and guide all RE development plans and drive improvement. 

Children produce good quality work across religion, which they are proud of. They will grow to know and love God, develop their moral and spiritual nature and deepen their faith. Children will live their faith in an active and positive way, always aware of the presence and love of Christ guiding them and they will develop their relationship with God and become religiously literate. 

Through religious practice, the church’s traditions of prayer and worship will be upheld and children will show compassion, justice, love and forgiveness in their relationships with others. Faith plays a central role in the lives of the children and the decisions they make and children are confident, resilient and actively engaged in the wider society. 

The school environment will reflect and celebrate our Catholic faith with children able to define, describe and discuss areas of RE. They will confidently use skills such as retelling, describing, comparing, giving reasons, explaining the meaning of biblical stories and considering the impact of beliefs. Children will be able to reflect and consider important questions about RE. Through wider reading in RE, children will know about a wide variety of Saints, how we can learn from their example, and historical religious events and figures. They will be able to make links between Jesus’ life and teaching and link it to their own lives, making links between different forms of Christian action, such as in rituals and charitable acts.