RE mission statement
In the Kingfisher partnership, we want our children to have knowledge of the world around them, to understand the beliefs of different faiths and to understand what they themselves believe in. We want our children to show respect to all faiths and to understand the similarities and differences between the faiths. We want the children to be reflective and to be able to hold balanced and informed conversations with others with regards to religion and belief.
Implementation
Curriculum
We use Understanding Christianity https://www.understandingchristianity.org.uk as a basis for our planning, which is a progressive curriculum. We use ‘Big Questions’ to support our enquiry based learning and the children explore these questions in a range of ways and by the end of the unit the children can express their answer to the Big Question.
In Key Stage 1 the children focus on Christianity and Judaism. In Key Stage 2 the children learn about Christianity, Muslims and Hindus primarily.
The Diocese of Norwich have helped us to design a curriculum that progresses and has clear expectations of what children should be able to do at the end of each year.
Curriculum planning — Diocese of Norwich
We have a two year rolling programme of Big Questions to support our mixed age classes and there is a three year rolling programme for Key Stage 1.
We also cover a unit on Philosophy to enable children to think about a variety of issues and develop their skills of discussion and debate.
In EYFS, children are given opportunities to share their views and opinions and know that these will be treated with respect.
Additional Activities
We hold a Collective Worship every day where we explore Christian Values and discuss how these relate to the things we do and say every day.
We go to Church for Harvest, Christmas and Easter services
The church come into school once a week to lead Collective Worship
We have special services in school for Ash Wednesday and Pentecost where parents are invited.
We have a ‘Shining Group’ which consists of children from Key Stage 2 that help in Collective Worship, sometimes they lead this and they take part in our Church Services.