Religious Education

Religious Education is taught throughout the school using the 'Come and See' programme in Years 2 - 6 (from the RE Curriculum Directory) and from the new RED: To Know You More Clearly in EYFS and Year 1.

Come and See:

“Come and See” is an invitation and a promise of life for everyone. The invitation is open to all. In response to the question ‘Where do you live?’, Jesus invited the disciples to ‘Come and See.’ They went with Jesus ‘and spent the rest of that day with him.’

We recognise that all children are at different stages in their journey of faith; for some children RE is catechesis and part of their formation in the faith. Those who receive the invitation to ‘Come and see’ may also offer it to others. In the same invitation we remember that for some of our children RE will be evangelisation, the first opportunity to hear the good news.

Religious Education is a core subject of the curriculum for Catholic Schools and as such teaching and learning in RE makes up 10% of curriculum time. As such it is taught rigorously with all the same expectations as other core subjects whilst maintaining a creative element and encouraging children to question and think at a high level.

What pupils learn

Each term pupils study three topics, each lasting four weeks and following a common theme across the school. As the children move through the school this theme is developed further, appropriate to the pupils age and stage of learning.

Each year group approaches the theme through a different topic eg the Autumn term topic 1 is a 'Domestic Church' theme which is explored through:

Year 2 – Beginnings

Year 3 – Homes

Year 4 – People

Year 5 – Ourselves

Year 6 – Loving

In the Autumn term theme of Belonging (unit 2), Years 2 and 3 further develop their understanding of Baptism, including Signs and Symbols (Yr2) and Promises (Yr3), whilst in their “Community” topic Year 4 move on to learn about Confirmation, Yr5 learn about the commitment of Marriage in their Life Choices topic and Yr6 learn about the vocation to priesthood and religious life in their “Vocation and commitment” topic. Scripture is at the heart of each topic.

The termly themes are as follows:

AUTUMN  

 The three autumn themes are developed in the light of an understanding of Creation.

• Family - Domestic church;
• Belonging - Baptism/Confirmation/Marriage/Vocation;
• Loving - Advent/Christmas.

SPRING   

The three spring themes are developed in the light of an understanding of Incarnation.

• Community - Local church;
• Relating - Eucharist;
• Giving - Lent/Easter.

SUMMER                                             

The three summer themes are developed in the light of an understanding of Redemption and the work of the Holy Spirit.

• Serving - Pentecost;
• Inter-relating - Reconciliation;
• World - Universal Church.

Each four-weekly topic is broken into 3 aspects:

EXPLORE (1 WEEK)

• Introduces the topic;
• The children’s life experience is explored;
• The questions raised are wondered at, shared, investigated and their significance reflected upon;
• Focus on AT2 Reflection on meaning.

REVEAL (2 WEEKS)

• Heart of the programme;
• Knowledge and understanding of the Catholic faith revealed through Scripture, Tradition, doctrine, prayers, rites and Christian living;
• Focus on AT1 Knowledge and Understanding & AT2 Reflection on Meaning.

RESPOND (1 WEEK)

• Learning is remembered, celebrated and responded to in daily life;
• Prayer;
• Prayer and celebration are integral to Come and See;
• Opportunities for reflection are present within Explore, Reveal and Respond;
• Traditional prayers are introduced in the different Key Stages;

• Prayer styles: children are introduced to a range throughout the scheme.

Children all have a RE book where there Come and See learning is both treasured and shows high expectations for learning. In addition, each class will have a moral issue question which they can answer in RE lessons, Collective Worship and cross curricular subjects. This evidence will be put into a class file.

The children’s personal social and emotional understanding is developed through our Religious Education and the Catholic Life of the school.

OTHER FAITHS

Judaism is taught in the Autumn Term and Sikhism, Hinduism and Islam are taught in the Summer Term using the Come and See materials. 

RED: To Know You More Clearly

EYFS and Year 1

The programme of study for Religious Education in Catholic schools presented in this directory 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 things 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 religions and worldviews, which together comprise the six knowledge lenses of:

• hear
• believe
• celebrate and live (the study of the Catholic religion)
• dialogue, and encounter (the study of other religions and worldviews)

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, which were themselves an evolution of the Levels of Attainment in Religious Education. The three ways of knowing are:

• understand
• discern
• respond

They are represented in the programme of study by icons:

• head (understand)
• heart (discern)
• hands (respond)

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
• Galilee to Jerusalem
• Desert to Garden
• To the ends of the Earth
• Dialogue and Encounter

To know You More Clearly:

The Religious Education Directory for Catholic schools, colleges, and academies in England and Wales comes into effect from September 2026 but is currently the curriculum being followed in EYFS and Year 1.

The Religious Education Curriculum Directory (for 3-19) is to provide guidance for the Religious Education classroom curriculum in Catholic schools up to 2025. This helps us to ensure that teaching and learning in our school truly reflects the vision and breadth of the teaching of the Church outlined in the Catechism. We follow this curriculum in Year 2 - 6.

Judaism Workshop 

In school we are learning about Judaism, and as part of our studies         Reception – year 6  participated in a workshop about the Jewish faith. During the morning the children looked at the Torah, learnt how to write their names in Hebrew and drew sketches of various artefacts including a mezuzah’s decorative box.

The children learnt many facts about the Jewish faith including the links between the Islamic, Christian and Jewish faiths;  that Hebrew writing goes from right to left and that the Holy version of the Torah is written on animal skin with a quill and takes a year to complete.

The children had a great time and developed a great understanding of the Jewish faith.

A Song of Miriam

Written by Chloe in 3 Anna

Chorus:

Moses oh Moses you have freed us from the chains,

Moses oh Moses now the Egyptians won’t see us in pain,

Moses oh Moses because of you the Israelites are free,

Moses oh Moses we are all happy can you see,

Moses oh Moses we finally can go and run around,

Moses oh Moses now our frown is upside down.

God has kept his promise now we are so happy,

Now none of us have to weep and weep,

Moses you knew that our slavery was a problem,

Moses we knew you will save us from suffering,

Oh Moses your heart knew the right thing to do.

Brother oh brother you knew the Pharaoh was wrong,

Brother oh brother you’re strong to stand up to the Pharaoh,

Moses oh Moses we all had faith in you,

Yes Moses, yes Moses everything I’m saying is true.

I am so excited to go out and be free,

The reason why: because it is happening finally,

We all know that the voice of God talked to you,

I can’t believe that God told you to sacrifice lamb and use its blood,

But we all know the reason why is to protect us,

Brother did you know I never doubted you?

Moses I was so frightened when the Angel of Death came,

I knew to be strong and trust in God,

I knew it came for the Egyptians not for us,

I was afraid but I knew what to do,

Trust in God, trust in God.

I can’t believe we have escaped from Egypt,

Moses because of you our dream has come true; we have finally escaped,

Brother it is hard to believe and achieve your goals,

But because of you we won’t doubt,

We have climbed mountains and used sticks and now finished our journey.

We have been learning about the history and traditions of the Muslim faith. We had two visitors to school who ran workshops about Islam with our Year 6 children and held interactive assemblies with the rest of the school. The children were engaged and realised that there are lots of similarities and differences between our faith and Islam.

Children listened to a prayer from the Quran (القرآن), which was sung, and then designed some Arabic text of their own.

Jake Year 3

Jake Year 3

Moses

L.I – To be able to write to Moses, asking him questions about his life in the role of the Young Pharaoh. (AT1 i)

Moses

Mount Sinai

Egypt

Dear Moses,

I am writing to you to say stop asking me to let your people go because I won’t! Remember when we were kids? Why did you betray me? We could have stayed happy. I am disappointed in you Moses. This burning bush and God you speak about…how did God’s voice come through the burning bush? Wouldn’t the bush just burn up?!

Now that you found out your Hebrew and not an Egyptian you act different. Your people keep on saying “deliver us to the promise land.” What do they mean? You believe in one God but there are many Gods.

How did you feel when your God talked and told you what to do? How did you get powers? I don’t think we can ever be brothers or friends ever again! I’m the Pharaoh, I can tell you what to do! I don’t want to hear anymore from you.

Pharaoh

During Be Spirited week we analysed ‘The Annunciation of Joseph’ by Sieder Koder. We discussed who was central to the picture and what message is being given. We also paid close attention to the hands as we believed they had a significant importance. As a class, we felt that Mary’s hands were stretched out and open because she was accepting the message of God with a generous heart, as we know she did through the Gospel passage. We then thought about ways in which we hear messages from God and created stained glass windows to represent this.