Religious Education at Saint Edmund's Catholic Primary
As a Catholic School, we value Religious Education as the "core of the core curriculum" (Pope St John Paul II.) We follow curriculum guidance from the Catholic Education Service in connection with guidance from Clifton Diocese. We do this through following the ‘God Matters’ scheme and their supplementary guidance. We use Ten:Ten to support the teaching of Relationship, Health and Sex Education and Collective Worship. The Department for Education's guidance for teaching RE in and Academy can be found here.
Our aims of teaching Religious Education
In line with the Religious Education Curriculum Directory (RECD), these are our aims of Religious Education:
- To present engagingly a comprehensive content which is the basis of knowledge and understanding of the Catholic faith;
- To enable pupils continually to deepen their religious and theological understanding and be able to communicate this effectively;
- To present an authentic vision of the Church's moral and social teaching so that pupils can make a critique of the underlying trends in contemporary culture and society;
- To raise pupils' awareness of the faith and traditions of other religious communities in order to respect and understand them;
- To develop the critical faculties of pupils so that they can relate their Catholic faith to daily life;
- To stimulate pupils' imagination and provoke a desire for personal meaning as revealed in the truth of the Catholic faith;
- To enable pupils to relate the knowledge gained through Religious Education to their understanding of other subjects in the curriculum;
- To bring clarity to the relationship between faith and life, and between faith and culture.
How Religious Education is taught at Saint Edmund's
Religious Education at Saint Edmund’s is taught in units that are matched with the liturgical calendar. We teach Creation at the beginning of a new academic year. Prayers, saints and feasts unit is taught in November to align with Saint Edmund’s feast day. Advent is taught throughout December and Lent is taught in the spring. We also teach units about Holy Week, Easter, Pentecost, Sacraments and Revelation. Children learn about Judaism every year and the Islamic faith and Hinduism on alternate years. Relationships, Health and Sex Education is taught throughout the year with our Catholic faith at the centre of our teaching, this is in line with our PHSE curriculum.
Collective Worship is also a fundamental part of our Religious Education. More details can be found under 'Our School' - 'Our Catholic Faith' at the top of this page.
What do we want children to gain from Religious Education?
We hope children leave Saint Edmund’s as ‘religiously literate and engaged young people who have the knowledge, understanding and skills – appropriate to their age and capacity – to reflect spiritually, and think ethically and theologically,' (Religious Education Curriculum Directory p6). We hope children leave us with secure foundations on which to build a lifelong faith and celebrate their God given talents.