Youlgrave, All Saints CE Primary School’s aim is to create a positive, challenging and stimulating environment, in which they feel supported as individuals and their skills are celebrated.

Our core purpose is:

To develop resilient and inspired learners who are aiming to reach their full potential. We do this by providing a welcoming, safe and inclusive environment which is underpinned by our WE CARE values. To ensure that the curriculum meets the needs of our children, our school values and our community, as well as statutory requirements, we have threaded our WE CARE values throughout our curriculum to ensure that it is unique for our learners and we offer our children the memorable experiences that they need to inspire them to believe in themselves. Our curriculum is inspiring, ambitious, motivational and progressive to ensure our children develop a love of learning and have the bravery to tackle new learning.

Why we teach RE – purpose of study.

“RE, taught well, provides a safe space to discuss, experience and respond well to difference - a space where students can engage with controversial issues and learn to disagree respectfully with each other. This can play a key role in fostering good relationships between different groups within the school and in later life."

Derby and Derbyshire Agreed Syllabus 2020-2025

Intent

At Youlgrave, All Saints CE Primary School, we believe that it is important for all of our pupils to learn about religion, so that they can understand and respect the world around them. Our aim, as a Church of England primary school, is to nurture the children to develop a knowledge and understanding of Christianity and the other principal religions represented in Great Britain; to appreciate the way that religious beliefs shape life and behaviour; develop the ability to make reasoned and informed judgements about religious and moral issues and enhance the children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.
Our RE teaching reflects the Christian values that our school upholds and is taught via a series of big questions from the Derbyshire Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education which ignite a curiosity within the child and encourage them to explore.  We encourage our children to ask and investigate questions about the world and to reflect on their own beliefs, values and experiences. We include and promote British values, ensuring that the children are aware of their rights and responsibilities as UK citizens.

Implementation

We use the Derbyshire Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education. The R.E. syllabus sets a key question for each unit of learning and children will work through the Understanding Christianity scheme, alongside the Derby City Agreed Syllabus, which allows children to explore bigger questions such as, ‘Was Jesus the Messiah?’ and ‘Why does Christmas matter to Christians?’

As the children progress through school they discover these aspects of learning, then explore them before connecting them together towards the end of their primary education.

Our RE curriculum is delivered via a two year cycle which builds upon children’s knowledge in each area of Religious Education over time to ensure that the children gain a depth of knowledge by Year 6.

Our curriculum is delivered through a variety of learning experiences including ​handling artefacts, exploring scared texts, using imaginative play or drama to express feelings and ideas, responding to images, games, stories, art, music and dance, meeting visitors from local religious communities, making visits to religious places of worship where possible, and where not, making use of videos and the internet, taking part in whole school events- (multi-faith days, Harvest Festival, school performances), participating in moments of quiet reflection, participating in Open the Book assemblies, using ICT to further explore religion and belief globally, comparing religions and worldviews through discussion, debating and communicating religious belief, worldviews and philosophical ideas and answering and asking ultimate questions posed by these.

Impact

Our Religious Education Curriculum impacts pupils in the following ways:

• Extends their knowledge and understanding of religions and beliefs
• Develops a religious vocabulary and interpret religious symbolism in a variety of forms
• Reflects on questions of meaning, offering their own thoughtful and informed insights into religious and secular world-views
• Explores ultimate questions of beliefs and values in relation to a range of contemporary issues in an ever-changing society

By the end of each key stage, pupils are expected to know, understand and apply skills related to attainment targets and learning themes embedded within the Derbyshire Agreed Syllabus for RE.  Termly summative assessments are used to determine the children’s’ understanding and inform teacher’s planning and further differentiated support for pupils.