St. Peter's Catholic Primary School

At St Peter’s, from September 2024, to fulfil our aims and objectives, we will use the ‘To Know You More Clearly’ programme from the new Religious Education Directory prescribed by the Archdiocese of Liverpool.

The programme of study for Religious Education in Catholic schools presented in ‘To Know You More Clearly’ has a framework with four structural elements:

1. Knowledge Lenses
2. Ways of Knowing
3. Expected Outcomes
4. Curriculum Branches

Knowledge lenses set out the object of study for pupils; they indicate what should be known by the end of each age-phase. They are referred to as lenses, since they are the areas that we are looking at and they divide the content of the programme of study into four systematic subsections for the study of Catholicism and two additional lenses for the study of religious and worldviews.

The study of Catholic religion lenses are:

• Hear
• Believe
• Celebrate
• Live

The study of other religious and worldviews lenses are:

• Dialogue
• Encounter

Ways of knowing set out the skills that pupils should be developing as they progress through their curriculum journey. Whenever we know something, we always know it in more than one way: we remember it, we critically assimilate it and we put it into practice. All three are ways of coming to know the things that are the object of our study. The Ways of Knowing are an evolution of the age-related standards in Religious Education. The three Ways of Knowing are:

• Understand - head – see – what will I see and hear to help me understand?
• Discern - heart – judge – how will I discover more?
• Respond - hands – act – what can I do now?

​Expected Outcomes are a synthesis of the content outlined in the Knowledge Lenses and the skills described in the Ways of Knowing. Each age-phase will have a prescribed set of outcomes that will indicate what pupils are expected to know, remember and be able to do, using the language of the Ways of Knowing and applying it to the discrete knowledge within each lens.

Curriculum Branches are the way this programme of study presents its model curriculum. The model curriculum presents the expected outcomes in six curriculum branches that correspond to the six half-terms of a school year. The model curriculum is rooted in the narrative of salvation history and leads pupils on a journey in each year of schooling that gives a sequence to the learning. As they revisit each branch in each year of school they come to a deeper understanding of its significance for Catholic belief and practice, which allows them to make links between the four Knowledge Lenses within the context of the narrative of salvation history. The six curriculum branches are:

1. Creation and Covenant
2. Prophecy and Promise
3. From Galilee to Jerusalem
4. From Desert to Garden
5. To the Ends of the Earth
6. Dialogue and Encounter

Learning about the religion and cultures of those who do not share the Catholic faith is one of the ways in which we embody the call ‘to love one’s neighbour’. Some of the children in our school are practicing members of other faiths and our school is a place of love and respect for all our children. It is an act of respect and courtesy that our curriculum helps them to reflect on the nature of their own religious identity.

It prepares the pupils in our Catholic school for life in a modern Britain, giving them an understanding of the beliefs of others. This in turn will improve social cohesion and contribute to the common good by increasing mutual respect between those of different religions.

Before implementing the new 'To Know You More Clearly' programme, we followed Come and See. Through the delivery of this programme, the children explicitly learnt about other faiths such as Judaism and Islam. Moving forward, this will be taught throughout Branch 6 of the new curriculum. But we will also explore and make comparisons between faiths through the delivery of our other branches. 

How else will we do this?

• Catholic Social Teaching 
• Gospel Values
• British Values
• Protected Characteristics
• Curriculum and enrichment activities

At St. Peter’s the intent of the daily act of Collective Worship is viewed as an integral and important part of school life. Through this and in the general ethos of the school we seek to promote our mission statement and motto ‘Let your light shine’. It is a time where we come together to share our love of God based on promoting the Catholic Christian values which permeate the ethos of the school. We aim to provide opportunities for all members of the school community to stop activity to:

• pause and to reflect on important issues,
• foster a sense of awe and wonder at the beauty, mystery and power of the natural world,
• build up the sense of group identity, fostering concern for the needs of each other,
•  give pupils the experience of being still or silent,
• provide an opportunity for celebrating times of success or joy,
• provide an opportunity for meeting at times of sadness or sorrow,
• provide an opportunity for highlighting and reflecting upon core school values – such as striving to be honest and truthful, trying hard in all things, respecting oneself as well as other people, striving to be fair and just;
• offer the opportunity to mark significant points in the year, such as festivals and school events.

As such, the contributions of staff, pupils, church clergy and other visitors are highly valued in our school.