Religious Education

Intent: Our vision for Religious Education

Religious Education is at the heart and center of the whole curriculum at St Teresa’s.

Our RE curriculum seeks to provide pupils with an intellectual foundation so that they may understand and stand on a ‘solid base of faith’ (Col 1:23). Through the curriculum, we aim to enable pupils to continually deepen their religious and theological understanding and be able to communicate this effectively and to enable our children to search, question and examine their own personal lives in the light of what they are learning so that they can relate their Catholic faith to daily life, living in today’s world.

We also aim to raise pupils' awareness of the faith and traditions of other religious communities in order to respect and understand them, so that they may be responsible citizens and faithful stewards in the wider community.

Implementation: How we teach Religious Education

RE is a core subject and we devote 10% of our curriculum time to its delivery.

We have a curriculum framework from which we plan our individual units of work. The framework ensures the delivery of a broad and balanced programme for RE, suited to the age and stage of the children in our school and following the liturgical year of the Church. The curriculum is used creatively to supplement and enhance the Religious Education Directory for Catholic Schools, leading to pupils who are enthusiastic in their learning and knowledgeable about their faith.

In addition to this we have adopted an approach called “Building the Kingdom” which aims to contextualise the National Curriculum within the beliefs and values of the Catholic tradition. Children are encouraged to explore the big questions of purpose and meaning that arise throughout the Liturgical year.

Impact:

Children are happy learners within RE. Through the RE curriculum, children deepen their appreciation of their faith and fulfil their God-given talents. They develop their relationship with God and become religiously literate. Across the school, children of all abilities and backgrounds achieve well in RE, reflected in strong progress that reveals a clear learning journey. They are able to talk enthusiastically about their learning in RE and are eager to further their learning in the next stages of their education. Clear outcomes focus and guide all RE development plans and drive improvement. The Building the Kingdom programme, ensures that fundamental British Values are evident in RE and children understand how RE can celebrate difference. Children at St Teresa’s grow  into confident and resilient individuals who are actively engaged in the wider society. They confidently use skills such as retelling, describing, comparing, giving reasons, explaining the meaning of Biblical stories and considering the impact of beliefs. Children are able to reflect and consider important questions about RE and the world around them. They are 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. The children grow to know and love God, develop their moral and spiritual nature and deepen their own faith. They live their faith in an active and positive way, always aware of the presence and love of Christ guiding them.

Curriculum strengths:

• Provides a Christian environment, where mutual respect, care and love of each other, respect for life and love of God are encouraged and developed.
• Enables children of all abilities to develop their full potential in an environment where they know they are loved and can love others.
• Encourages children to search, question and examine their own personal lives in the light of what they are learning.
• Supports children in recognising and respecting members of other religions and cultures.
• Develops positive self-esteem where each individual can recognise their importance within the school, home and in the wider parish community.

Our community & families:

At St Teresa’s, a strong sense of community underpins the foundations of our school. We build links between school, home and the parish. Our use of prayer bags enables children to share their learning with their families and participate in collective worship at home too. We are lucky to have links with our local parishes- St Theresa’s, St Joseph’s and St Luke’s and welcome the priests in to school regularly. Our children lead and attend mass throughout the school year and parents and carers are invited to attend. Our children participate in themed home learning tasks during Advent and Lent which they complete at home and then bring into school to share.

Diversity:

Our curriculum is designed to reflect and celebrate the diversity of our community. All staff have undertaken recent training in Racial Justice, Equality and Diversity (RJED) and this has been implemented across our curriculum. We work closely with the Diocese of Westminster and their RJED programme to ensure that we have an up-to-date, representative and inclusive curriculum. Our children have taken part in an RJED project exploring and designing a range of representations of the Holy Family from different cultures so that all of our children are able to recognise themselves as part of God’s family. We celebrate One World week every year, where each year group learns about a different religion. As part of this, children explore other places of worship and staff members and parents and carers are invited to share their faith with the children.