Subject Champion

Mr Boulter

My name is Mr Boulter and I am the Religious Education (RE) lead. At Fairmeadows Foundation Primary School, we believe RE is an inspiring and valuable subject as it allows our children to think about the ‘big questions’ in life. 

At Fairmeadows we have built strong relations with our local church St Johns. The church group visit school every fortnight to deliver Collective Worships. Plus, we visit them three times a year to celebrate key events.

At Fairmeadows Foundation Primary school we deliver RE in line with the Derbyshire Locally Agreed Syllabus. We follow the Discovery RE  approach to Religious Education. This is an enquiry based learning approach from Foundation Stage to Year 6.  From this framework we have developed our scheme of work,  which is a comprehensive set of medium-term planning, delivered through enquiry modules to cover Christianity, Sikhism, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam.

Our Vision

We aim to provide an inspirational, safe space for children to grow into the best version of themselves where equity is the goal and barriers are overcome allowing every child the chance to shine.

Our Values

• We strive for equity in place of equality, overcoming barriers and building confidence in all.
• We help develop caring members of society who can benefit our world in thought, word and deed.
• We put safety, kindness and respect at the heart of our school.
• We value wellbeing and the emotional needs of individuals as a priority throughout the school.

 Our Aims

 At Fairmeadows Foundation Primary School we intend that Religious Education will:

• Adopt an enquiry- based approach as recommended by Ofsted, beginning with the children’s own life experience before moving into learning about and from religion.
• Provoke challenging questions about the meaning and purpose of life, beliefs, the self, and issues of right and wrong, commitment and belonging. It develops pupils’ knowledge and understanding of Christianity, other principal religions, and religious traditions that examine these questions, fostering personal reflection and spiritual development.
• Encourage pupils to explore their own beliefs (religious or non-religious), in the light of what they learn, as they examine issues of religious belief and faith and how these impact on personal, institutional and social ethics; and to express their responses.
• Enable pupils to build their sense of identity and belonging, which helps them flourish within their communities and as citizens in a diverse society.
• Teach pupils to develop respect for others, including people with different faiths and beliefs, and helps to challenge prejudice.
• Prompt pupils to consider their responsibilities to themselves and to others, and to explore how they might contribute to their communities and to wider society. It encourages empathy, generosity and compassion. Develop a sense of awe, wonder and mystery.
• Nurture children’s own spiritual development.

How is RE organised at Fairmeadows?

Our curriculum based on the Derbyshire Agreed syllabus brings together learning about and from religion, questioning and spiritual development in a comprehensive scheme of learning. Teaching strategies are varied and are mindful of preferred learning styles and the need for differentiation. Each enquiry starts from the children's own life experiences using these as a bridge into the investigation of the religion being studied. Learning is assessed and children have opportunity to express their own thoughts and beliefs and empathise with believers of that religion or belief position.

RE is linked to other topic work as much as possible. Across the year, children will receive the equivalent of one hour of RE teaching and learning each week.

Assessment

Teachers are eager to ensure children are making progress with their learning throughout their RE. Therefore, each enquiry has built-in assessment. This task is the formal opportunity for teacher assessment of the children's knowledge of that religion, depth of critical thinking, and ability to answer the enquiry question. This stand-alone evidence is used in conjunction with other evidence such as records of discussions and annotations from other lessons within the enquiry to assist the teacher in reaching a best-fit level. Each enquiry has assessment levels and exemplars based on the current nationally agreed levels. Children will have feedback, every lesson, so that they are aware of how they are achieving in the session. This may be achieved through written marking on Seesaw or verbal discussion with teaching staff.

Documents

Please see below a selection of documents that relate to the teaching of RE at Fairmeadows Foundation Primary School. If you have any questions or require any further information then please contact the school office and I will get in touch.