RE

Introduction

At Lewis Street, RE lessons are challenging, inspiring and fun. Through RE lessons pupils develop their levels of religious literacy and conceptual understanding. We want them to be able to articulate, with confidence, their ideas about religion, beliefs and spirituality – and then to change their minds, if they choose to do so. RE has a significant contribution to make to promoting social and ethnical harmony and awareness of British values, and this is a common theme during our learning.

Lewis Street is in the heart of a diverse and multicultural area and therefore we see the teaching of R.E. as an important and integral part of our school life.

We have adopted our local Salford syllabus as the basis for our R.E. teaching for the following reasons:

1. It provides a good balance between the teaching of Christianity and other faiths.

2. It provides a good basis of information allowing staff to teach all areas with sensitivity and knowledge.

3. The scheme ensures the teaching of RE is progressive and allows staff to focus in on aims and objectives.

4. We believe it gives children the skills, knowledge and experience to make informed choices in their own exploration of life and faith.

5. The syllabus helps to promote social and ethnical harmony and strengthens awareness of British Values.

The aims of Religious Education at Lark Hill is to ensure that all pupils:

· understand the impact on society, culture and the wider world, enabling pupils to express ideas and insights.

· contribute to the development of pupils’ own spiritual/philosophical convictions, exploring and enriching their own beliefs and values.

· enable pupils to know and understand about other major world religions and world views

What are we trying to achieve for our children in RE?

· To acquire and develop knowledge and understanding of Christianity and the other principal religions represented in Great Britain.

· To appreciate the way that religious beliefs shape lives and influence our behaviour.

· To develop the ability to make reasoned and informed judgements about religious and moral issues and enhance their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.

· To understand that people have faith or no faith and learn to live together as Global Neighbours.

· To engage in thoughtful dialogue about other faiths and traditions.

· To develop the skills and knowledge to handle religious texts.

· To develop a sense of themselves as significant, unique and precious by developing own beliefs, commitments and values.

As a school we also like to come together for reflection time, this is carefully timetabled into a pupils day. Pupils are encouraged to take part in reflection time on their own, in groups or as a class as well as whole school.

There are many benefits of reflection time. It can strengthen pupils emotional intelligence; this develops their ability to understand their emotions and others. They can identify their strengths and weaknesses and helps them to act with integrity which allows them to make better decisions. Reflection can also help pupils become more confident as well as exploring the concept of being quiet and still. This time also allows pupils to ask questions or discuss topics effecting themselves, each other or the wider world.

Our current reflection timetable is:

Autumn 1	Autumn 2	Spring 1	Spring 2	Summer 1	Summer 2
Care	Respect	Love	Compassion	Forgiveness	Recap of all values

For more information about RE, including your right to withdraw, please see the RE policy.