Religious Education Curriculum

Our curriculum at St Philips’ CE Primary School is underpinned by Christian values and aims to inspire all our children in their learning. Religious Education is taught in accordance with the Diocese of Manchester. As a Voluntary Aided School with a Christian foundation, in each year there is a focus on Christianity plus the opportunity for pupils to learn about and evaluate their own views on other world religions. RE enables pupils to appreciate their own and others’ beliefs and cultures, helping them to develop a clear understanding of the significance of religion in their own area as well as in the world today.

Religious education contributes dynamically to children’s and young people’s education in schools by provoking challenging questions about meaning and purpose in life, beliefs about God, ultimate reality, issues of right and wrong and what it means to be human. In RE at St Philips we want pupils to learn about and from religions and worldviews in local, national and global contexts, to discover, explore and consider different answers to these questions. We want our pupils to learn to evaluate wisdom from different sources, to develop and express their insights in response, and to agree or disagree respectfully. Our teaching therefore should equip pupils with systematic knowledge and understanding of a range of religions and worldviews, enabling them to develop their ideas, values and identities. It should develop in pupils an aptitude for dialogue, so that they can participate positively in society, with its diverse religions and worldviews.

We want our pupils to gain and deploy the skills needed to understand, interpret and evaluate texts, sources of wisdom and authority and other evidence. Pupils should be given opportunities to reflect upon their own personal responses to the fundamental human questions to which religious and nonreligious worldviews respond. Our pupils should learn to articulate clearly and coherently their personal beliefs, ideas, values and experiences while respecting the right of others to differ. At St Philip’s our principal aim for RE is to engage pupils in systematic enquiry into significant human questions which religion and worldviews address, so that they can develop the understanding and skills needed to appreciate and appraise varied responses to these questions, as well as develop responses of their own.

Our curriculum for RE aims to ensure that all pupils:

1. Know about and understand a range of religious and non-religious worldviews so that they can:

  • describe, explain and analyse beliefs and practices, recognising the diversity which exists within and between communities and amongst individuals
  • identify, investigate and respond to questions posed, and responses offered, by some of the sources of wisdom found in religious and non-religious worldviews
  • appreciate and appraise the nature, significance and impact of different ways of life and ways of expressing meaning.

2. Express ideas and insights about the nature, significance and impact of religious and nonreligious worldviews, so that they can:

  • explain, using reasoned arguments, their ideas about how beliefs, practices and forms of expression influence individuals and communities
  • express with increasing discernment their personal reflections and critical responses to questions and teachings about identity, diversity, meaning and value, including ethical issues
  • appreciate and appraise varied dimensions of religion.

3. Gain and deploy the skills needed to engage seriously with religious and non-religious worldviews, so that they can:

  • investigate key concepts and questions of belonging, meaning, purpose and truth, responding creatively
  • enquire into what enables different individuals and communities to live together respectfully for the wellbeing of all
  • articulate clearly beliefs, values and commitments in order to explain why they may be important in their own and other people’s lives. e of religion and worldviews, and reflect on their own ideas and ways of living.’