Our RE Subject Leader is Miss Abigail Gomm.

Intent

At Crawley Ridge Junior School, we believe that Religious Education is important for the development of our pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. It encourages them to have an open-mind towards people of different faiths or beliefs from their own as they develop their self-awareness and sense of identity in our multicultural society. The main aim is for our children to learn from, respect and appreciate the role that principle religions and beliefs have in our local, national and wider global community. The knowledge and understanding they gain should help guide them in their own personal development.

Implementation

We use the Surrey Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education as the basis for our curriculum. The children are encouraged to make connections between differing aspects of religion and consider different forms of religious expression –beliefs, teachings, sacred texts, places of worship, practices and ways of life central to religion. Pupils may also begin to consider moral, ethical, global and philosophical issues, and where appropriate they may also encounter non-religious belief systems such as Humanism. RE is most frequently taught as discreet lessons of 40-50 minutes per week. Where it is possible, units will be chosen that link to the termly topic.

In each year group, Christianity is studied as it is the state religion of Great Britain and one other prominent religion is also explored. In addition, there are also supplementary units which focus on overarching themes in world belief systems.

Year 3 – Sikhism

Year 4 – Judaism

Year 5 – Islam

Year 6 – Hinduism and Buddhism

There are no presumptions made as to the religious backgrounds and beliefs and values of the children and the staff.  We value the religious background of all members of the school community and hope that this will encourage individuals to share their own experiences with others freely.  All religions and their communities are treated with respect and sensitivity and we value the links, which are, and can be made between home, school, and a faith community.  We are extremely lucky that members of the local church, St Paul’s, visit our school often to carry out assemblies.

Impact

The children at Crawley Ridge Junior School enjoy exploring a range of religions and learning about their key beliefs which helps them to understand some of the complexities of world cultures and begin to pose thought provoking questions about how our local and global societies work together.  In turn, this helps them to understand their own place in our world and develop a robust identity for themselves.

The impact of our RE curriculum is observed directly in our pupils’ positive and respectful attitudes to different religions and belief systems, through pupil voice discussions as well as through formative teacher assessment of discussion and written work throughout each unit.