Our approach to RE
We at Farnham Green Primary believe it is imperative for children to explore and understand different religions and their beliefs. This can be implemented through lessons which are taught up to 40 minutes a week, visits to different places of worship and through working with members of the community.
The children explore big questions that have been allocated for each year group. In addition, the children will learn about different festivals taking place that week. This will allow the children to learn the key concepts and vocabulary as well as exploring different religious customs and traditions. Each unit allows the children the opportunity to link to their own opinions, religious beliefs (if they believe in a religion) and the flexibility to discuss and link with current new and personal experiences.
Scheme of work and skills in RE
The RE curriculum for Redbridge has teamed up with Havering and collaboratively updated the RE syllabus. There are 3 main aims from the new RE Syllabus which are:
1) Know about and understand a range of religions and worldviews.
2) Express ideas and insights about the nature, significance and impact of religions.
3) Gain and deploy the skills needed to engage seriously with religions and worldviews
The syllabus also focuses on skills the children should be aware of using when expressing an opinion or recording an answer. The skills are guidance for teachers to plan practical, fun lessons that adopt skills that children can transfer into other areas of the curriculum. A few examples are:
|Investigate||Asking relevant questions and knowing how to use different types of sources as ways of gathering information.|
|Reflecting||Reflecting on religious beliefs, practices and feelings and linking these to personal experiences.|
|Expressing||Explaining concepts, rituals and practices.|
|Empathising||See with sensitivity how others respond to the actions, words or behaviour from different communities.|
Using RE learning in new situations.
See links and simple connections between aspects of religions.
|Analysing||Joining in with discussions using reasons, facts, opinions, experiences and examples.|
|Evaluating||Drawing conclusions which are balanced and related to evidence, dialogue and experience.|
Places of worship and assemblies
We believe it is important to maintain recognition and celebration of major cultural and religious festivals of religions represented in the community through class led assemblies which share learning about religious festivals. In addition, visits from community members as well as external visits to places of worship.
The school continues providing the children the opportunity to visit different places of worship. This will start from Year 1 up to Year 6. The focus for each year group and place of worship will be as follows:
Year 1 - Church (Baptism)
Year 2 - Church (Features of the Church)
Year 3 - Temple
Year 4 - Synagogue
Year 5 - Mosque
Year 6 - Gurdwara