Religious Education
Ethos and Aims
The Bewdley School follows the Worcestershire Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education (2020), which asserts the importance and value of religious education (RE) for all pupils, with on-going benefits for an open, articulate and understanding society.
The following purpose statements underpin the syllabus, which is constructed to support pupils and teachers in fulfilling them:
- Religious education contributes dynamically to children 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 pupils learn about religions and beliefs in local, national and global contexts, to discover, explore and consider different answers to these questions.
- Pupils learn to weigh up the value of wisdom from different sources, to develop and express their insights in response and to agree or disagree respectfully.
- Teaching therefore should equip pupils with systematic knowledge and understanding of a range of religions and beliefs, enabling them to develop their ideas, values and identities.
- RE should develop in pupils an aptitude for dialogue so that they can participate positively in our society, with its diverse religions and beliefs.
- Pupils should gain and deploy the skills needed to understand, interpret and evaluate texts, sources of wisdom and authority and other evidence. They should learn to articulate clearly and coherently their personal beliefs, ideas, values and experiences while respecting the right of others to differ.
The purpose of RE is captured in the principal aim, which is intended to be a shorthand version for day-to-day use. It should be considered as a doorway into the wider purpose articulated above.
The principal aim of religious education 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.
Staffing
Mrs L Colbourne – Head of RE Department
Ms V Possu – Teacher of Theology and Psychology
Intention
The Agreed Syllabus for RE in Worcestershire (2020-25) sets out a minimum allocation of 5% of curriculum time, which for secondary (11-18) schools means:
- Key Stage 3: years 7, 8 & 9 – 45 hours per year
- Key Stage 4: years 10 & 11 – 70 hours across 2 years
- Key Stage 5: years 12 & 13 – 10 hours across 2 years
The school offers 50 minute lessons over a 38 week year, each lesson timetabled equating to 31 hours 40 minutes per year. Having oscillated between 1 and 2 lessons of RE at KS3, there is now 1 lesson of RE and 1 of Personal Development, which incorporates 50% RE. Short course RE was offered up to 2013, since which we have been unable to staff this, so offer RE as a GCSE option. In KS5 we have introduced 1 term (10 hours) of study in KS5. The aims of RE
The threefold aim of RE elaborates the principal aim. The curriculum aims to ensure that all pupils:
- 1. Make sense of a range of religious and non-religious beliefs, so that they can:
- identify, describe, explain and analyse beliefs and concepts in the context of living religions, using appropriate vocabulary
- explain how and why these beliefs are understood in different ways, by individuals and within communities
- recognise how and why sources of authority (e.g. texts, teachings, traditions, leaders) are used, expressed and interpreted in different ways, developing skills of interpretation
- 2. Understand the impact and significance of religious and non-religious beliefs, so that they can:
- examine and explain how and why people express their beliefs in diverse ways
- recognise and account for ways in which people put their beliefs into action in diverse ways, in their everyday lives, within their communities and in the wider world
- appreciate and appraise the significance of different ways of life and ways of expressing meaning
- 3. Make connections between religious and non-religious beliefs, concepts, practices and ideas studied, so that they can:
- evaluate, reflect on and enquire into key concepts and questions studied, responding thoughtfully and creatively, giving good reasons for their responses
- challenge the ideas studied, and allow the ideas studied to challenge their own thinking, articulating beliefs, values and commitments clearly in response
- discern possible connections between the ideas studied and their own ways of understanding the world, expressing their critical responses and personal reflections with increasing clarity and understanding
Throughout schooling, teachers should consider how their teaching contributes towards the principal aim of RE in Worcestershire, and how they help pupils to achieve the threefold aims above.
Notes: These aims incorporate the former attainment targets of ‘learning about religion’ and ‘learning from religion’. This agreed syllabus builds on the good practice from the 2004 Non-statutory Framework for RE, produced by the then Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, and also the core ideas in the RE Council’s non-statutory framework from 2013.
The RE teaching and learning approach in Worcestershire
This syllabus is designed to support schools in developing and delivering excellence in RE. It responds to national calls for deepening pupils’ knowledge about religions and for developing their ‘religious literacy’. It does this by studying one religion at a time (‘systematic’ units), and then including ‘thematic’ units, which build on learning by comparing the religions, beliefs and practices studied.
In order to support teachers in exploring the selected beliefs, this syllabus sets out an underlying teaching and learning approach, whereby pupils encounter core concepts in religions and beliefs in a coherent way, developing their understanding and their ability to handle questions of religion and belief.
The teaching and learning approach has three core elements, which are woven together to provide breadth and balance within teaching and learning about religions and beliefs, underpinning the aims of RE outlined above. Teaching and learning in the classroom will encompass all three elements, allowing for overlap between elements as suits the religion, concept and question being explored.
These elements set the context for open exploration of religion and belief. They offer a structure through which pupils can encounter diverse religious traditions alongside nonreligious worldviews – which reflect the backgrounds of many pupils in our schools. The elements present a broad and flexible strategy that allows for different traditions to be treated with integrity. These elements offer a route through each unit while also allowing for a range of questions reflecting different approaches, for example, from religious studies, philosophy, sociology, ethics and theology.
Implementation
The Key Stage 3 Curriculum: Religions and worldviews
During the key stage, pupils should be taught knowledge, skills and understanding through learning about Christians, Muslims, Sikhs and Buddhists. Pupils should also encounter nonreligious worldviews such as Humanism, and may encounter other religions and worldviews in thematic units where appropriate.
The year 7 curriculum is designed to consolidate and reinforce what students have learned in primary school about what it means to be a Christian in Britain today, and how Christian values are formed and their origins.
The year 8 curriculum is values based, exploring the Christian social model and evaluating how this is reflected in the decisions that people make in their daily lives. This includes ethical judgments about what is good and bad, exploring the purpose of life and whether it is only to seek happiness. Students end the year by examining the difference a belief in the afterlife can make to these concepts.
The year 9 curriculum explores what it means to live in a pluralistic British society. The foundations of 3 main world religions are explored, giving perspectives on the unique value systems in those faiths contribute to British Values as an overarching concept.
The SACRE elements of the Personal Development curriculum support and consolidate these themes. Year 7 begins with an exploration of our relationship with the environment through a Christian lens, and what this means in practice.
Towards the end of year 7 and early in year 8, students explore how people respond to life’s challenges, which complements the transition from an examination of the Christian faith, to how faith impacts on ethical and moral decision making.
As students move through year 8 they consider how religion, and in particular Christianity, is expressed in our society through the Arts. The year 9 curriculum supports an examination of a view of Britain as a pluralistic community, by considering the world views of atheists and agnostics in contrast with the experience of those with different faiths.
The curriculum throughout Key Stage 3 is a complex interweaving of the three themes of making sense of beliefs, making connections between different systems of belief and the choices that people make, and understanding the impact of this complex scenario on the structure of our society.
Our intention is to offer a curriculum which takes the Christian foundations built in Key Stages 1 and 2, and consolidates these and builds them into a well understood framework with historical significance. We then explore what they mean and how they are interpreted and manifested in our everyday lives, Finally as students start to make choices about further study, we make a deep examination of our pluralistic society, in the context of those with and without religions.
The Key Stage 4 Curriculum: AQA GCSE Religious Studies Specification A
Component 1: The study of religions: beliefs, teachings and practices
Students should study any two of the following: Buddhism; Christianity; Catholic Christianity;
Hinduism; Islam; Judaism; Sikhism. Christianity and Catholic Christianity is a prohibited combination.
Currently the school elects to study Christianity and Islam
Component 2: Thematic studies
Students should study a total of four themes from Component 2. Students may study either four religious, philosophical and ethical studies themes or two religious, philosophical and ethical studies themes and two textual studies themes. The themes offered are:
Religious, philosophical and ethical studies
- Relationships and families
- Religion and life
- The existence of God and revelation
- Religion, peace and conflict
- Religion, crime and punishment
- Religion, human rights and social justice
Textual studies
- St Mark’s gospel: the life of Jesus
- St Mark’s Gospel as a source of religious, moral and spiritual truths
The AQA curriculum has been selected because it offers a very clear and simple structure, but also great breadth and flexibility in terms of the religions which can be studied and the themes which can be selected. Selecting Christianity and Islam builds well on the Key Stage 3 curriculum, and the four chosen themes offer good cross-curricular links with sociology and psychology, both also offered as GCSE subjects at Bewdley.
Impact
The impact of the Religious Education curriculum on the students is of central importance. It is uniquely positioned to influence the underlying moral and ethical life choices and judgments that young people make as they shape their lives. As travel, media and communications shape our global communities, young people in Bewdley need to feel part of that community. Understanding individuals within that global community gives confidence and knowledge and of course, with knowledge comes power – the power to truly know who we are and what our potential is, without fear of being judged unfairly is the right of every young person.