Curriculum Focus: Religious Education
Sprowston Junior School provides a rich and diverse RE curriculum where children are encouraged to explore their own beliefs and values whilst developing a deeper understanding of the religious beliefs and worldviews of others around them.
In lessons we aim to cultivate curiosity and intrigue within our learners and through immersive experiences and cross-curricular activities, including Art, Drama and DT, we encourage children to truly delve into the traditions and values of the ever changing world around them. We strive to develop empathetic and respectful young people who approach the world with enthusiasm and tolerance. All lessons contain high levels of questioning and discussion to provide our children with opportunities to investigate and evaluate their thinking and develop their ability to communicate their ideas effectively.
At Sprowston Junior we wish to produce religiously literate students who have the ability to hold balanced and well-informed conversations about religious and worldviews. We believe that RE is not merely about knowledge acquisition but is fundamental to beginning to understand the complex world we now live in.
Organisation:
At Sprowston Junior school we follow the Norfolk agreed syllabus which aims to explore religious and world beliefs through three disciplinary lenses: theological, philosophical and human/social scientific. As a school we have decided to use the ‘Discovery RE’ scheme to deliver the curriculum and ensure good progression across the school. We chose the ‘Discovery RE’ scheme as it provides a diverse, engaging and challenging enquiry based approach to religious education, which allows children to explore a variety of religions in a greater level of depth and encourages them to forge links between other religions and their own views and beliefs.
Christianity is taught in every year group, but Christmas and Easter are given a new treatment each year, developing the learning in a progressive way. Each year, alongside Christianity, children will explore one other world religion including Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism by the end of year 6. As a school we have decided to teach one other world religion each year, rather than encountering a different religious each term, not only to provide our student with more time to investigate and explore each religion in order to gain a deeper level of understanding but also to avoid bombarding them the differing views and beliefs which we believe could lead to confusion between the faiths.
As a school we have chosen these religions for specific reasons. According to the 2020 Norfolk census, Islam and Hinduism are the next two widely celebrated religions, under Christianity, in the UK and more specifically Norfolk itself, therefore we felt it was important to equip our students with a deeper level of understanding of these two religious views as these are the most likely they will encounter. We choose to study Judaism in year 6 alongside World War Two, as we did not believe WW2 could be taught without understanding the impact it had upon those of the Jewish faith. As a school we also chosen to study Buddhism as our fourth world view because we felt it was extremely in-keeping with our school’s ethos and focus on growth mind-set and mental well-being. We also ensure that humanist views and perspectives are covered before the end of Key Stage 2 in order to represent one of the most prominent world views in the UK.
