At Beckstone Primary, we believe that a high-quality religious education will help pupils’ gain a coherent knowledge and understanding, where they can articulate clearly and confidently their personal beliefs, ideas, values and experiences. RE is taught using the ‘Today RE’ scheme. It adapts an enquiry-based approach to teaching and learning. Religious Education is a key player in engendering knowledge and understanding however, does not teach children to passively accept, but rather encourages evaluation and critical thinking, equipping them to consider beliefs and positions they encounter.
Progression is evident through building upon the pupil’s prior knowledge, allowing them to follow the steps of engaging and investigating the different religions, leading to the process of evaluating and expressing to ensure understanding and progress is made. This should inspire and build each child’s ‘religious literacy’, helping them to understand the nature and diversity of religion and belief in the world in which they live and the relationships between different groups of society.’ RE offers distinctive opportunities to promote pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development allowing time for reflection, discussion, dialogue and debate.
Please click on any of the attached documents to view the Intent, Implementation and Impact of our RE Curriculum.
Legal Requirements
RE is for all pupils and every pupil is legally entitled to Religious Education as part of a ‘broad and balanced’ curriculum. RE must be provided for all registered pupils in statefunded schools in England unless they are withdrawn by their parents. Nursery pupils are not required to have compulsory RE teaching, although often there is good practice in this area seen in nursery classes.
Withdrawal from RE
Parental right of withdrawal from RE was first granted in 1944 when curricular RE was called ‘Religious Instruction’ and, as such, had connotations of induction into the Christian faith. RE is very different now. It takes account of world faiths and non-religious world views so that children can learn about and from religious traditions without being inducted into those traditions. In the UK, 70+ years later, parents still have the right to withdraw their children from RE on the grounds that they wish to provide their own RE. This RE provision will be the parents’ responsibility. This right of withdrawal exists for all pupils in all types of school, including schools that do and do not have a religious designation.
