RE vision at St John’s including the EYFS curriculum 

As a church school everything we do is rooted in our Christian values.  RE at St John’s supports children’s personal development and develops their understanding of spiritual, moral, social and cultural issues in today’s world.

At St John’s we recognise every child as a unique individual and through our RE lessons and our distinctive Christian character we empower the children to make informed choices about religions and moral issues. We develop positive attitudes of respect towards other people who hold different beliefs to their own and towards living in a diverse and inclusive society.

We follow the Bedfordshire Agreed Syllabus of Religious Education and, as we are a Church of England school, each year group receives teaching from ‘Understanding Christianity’. Using these two documents, we have developed our own progression of skills which recognises and builds upon children’s prior learning so the children are constantly developing and improving their knowledge and experiences.

The aim of RE is to explore what people believe and what difference this makes to how they live, so that pupils can gain the knowledge, understanding and skills needed to handle questions raised by religion and belief, reflecting on their own ideas and ways of living.  

● An outstanding level of religious understanding and knowledge

● A thorough engagement with a range of ultimate questions about the meaning and significance of existence

● The ability to ask significant and highly reflective questions about religion and demonstrate an excellent understanding of issues related to the nature, truth and value of religion

● A strong understanding of how the beliefs, values, practices and ways of life within any religion cohere together

● Exceptional independence; the ability to think for themselves and take the initiative in, for example, asking questions, carrying out investigations, evaluating ideas and working constructively with others

● Significant levels of originality, imagination or creativity, which are shown in their responses to their learning in RE

● The ability to link the study of religion and belief to personal reflections on meaning and purpose

● A wide knowledge and deep understanding across a wide range of religions and beliefs  

Through the RE curriculum the children learn about and from a variety of world religions through investigation, questioning, empathy, reflection, relating and expression. The children are given opportunities to gain first-hand experiences through role play, exploration of artefacts and visits and visitors within and from our school community. Each classroom has a reflection area and children’s work is celebrated on RE displays across the school. Children participate in daily worship and have the opportunity to engage in a variety of prayers each day.  

These are the big ideas that underpin the subject:

Making sense of beliefs  

Identifying and making sense of core religious and non-religious beliefs and concepts; understanding what these beliefs mean within their traditions; recognising how and why sources of authority (such as texts) are used, expressed and interpreted in different ways; and developing skills of interpretation.  

Understanding the Impact

Examining and explaining how and why people put their beliefs into action in diverse ways, within their everyday lives, within their communities and in the wider world, appreciating and appraising different ways of life and and ways of expressing meaning.    

Making connections  

Evaluating, reflecting on and connecting the key concepts and questions studied, so that pupils can challenge the ideas studied and consider how these ideas might challenge their own thinking; discerning where possible connections between the ideas and pupils’ own lives and ways of understanding the world, expressing critical responses and personal reflections.