Religious Education Intent
The intent of our Religious Education curriculum is to create a Christian ethos of love, allowing each member of our school community to grow in their personal relationship with God and with each other. We aim to deliver a secure, caring and inclusive community in which the Gospel Spirit of love, care and mutual respect permeates every aspect of school life. Through the teaching of Religious Education lessons and Collective Worship, we aim to contribute to the Spiritual development of pupils and teach the children about the belief, values and way of life of Catholic Christianity and other faiths and encourage children to distinguish right from wrong and develop a personal sense of morality. We are fully supported by the Parish in preparing children for Eucharist and Reconciliation, and in the development of Social, Moral, Spiritual and Cultural education of all children.
In our teaching of Religious Education, we are always striving for excellence, reflecting the school’s distinctive Catholic character and the Catholic Social Teaching principles. Through our Religious Education teaching and Collective Worship, we also prepare children for citizenship in today’s diverse society and enable them to develop sensitivity to, and respect for others, equip the children with the knowledge, skills and understanding relating to fundamental Gospel and British Values, allowing each child to make a positive contribution to society in the 21st century.
At St. Peter’s we aim to nurture strong relationships built on respect and consideration between school, parents, Parish and the wider community. We promote and encourage faith to be a significant part in every person’s life by continually working together in partnership, including home, school and Parish, following the values of the Gospel as a guide to living life to the full, and providing opportunities for pupils to make links with the local and wider community, e.g. distribution of harvest gifts, fundraising for Nugent Care, CAFOD, St. Rocco’s Hospice, thus working for the ‘common good’.
Religious Education Overview
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:
- Knowledge Lenses
- Ways of Knowing
- Expected Outcomes
- 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 à head – see – what will I see and hear to help me understand?
- Discern à heart – judge – how will I discover more?
- Respond à 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:
- Creation and Covenant
- Prophecy and Promise
- From Galilee to Jerusalem
- From Desert to Garden
- To the Ends of the Earth
- Dialogue and Encounter
Religious Education Policies
EYFS
In EYFS, the children produce a large class floor book to present their work, rather than having individual books. Their work is also uploaded to Tapestry. EYFS also have a topic page at the beginning of each new section of their floor book. Please see below for an example.
Collective Worship Intent
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.