Religious Education is like an iceberg.  As you unpack ideas, you come to understand deeper meaning.

At Laneshaw Bridge, we want our children to have an understanding of different religions and cultures and their beliefs. The curriculum is designed to ensure that the children develop their critical thinking skills alongside religious knowledge and is integrally linked to the school's promotion of British values and our ethos.

The teaching of Religious Education is vital to developing life-long learners who seek to maximise their understanding of the world they live in and that of their own beliefs. These will be achieved through using key questions and concepts, which seek to provide answers to the understanding of a variety of beliefs and values linked to each religion. As a result, children will have a deep understanding of the world’s main religions and be ready to tackle the expectations of KS3 and beyond.

Our teaching will provide children with knowledge and understanding of religious values, beliefs, practices, and lifestyles whilst offering the opportunity for reflection. Religious Education will draw on its vast range of vocabulary to identify and name religious figures, places, artefacts, and symbols.

To ensure all pupils can fully engage with this rich curriculum, our RE provision is designed to be inclusive and accessible, including scaffolded support for SEND learners and those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Lessons are scaffolded, vocabulary is explicitly taught, and visual and practical resources are used to ensure all children can engage fully and achieve success. Equitable access to enrichment opportunities, including visitors, visits to places of worship, and experiential activities, supports all pupils in deepening their learning.

The curriculum reflects the diversity of human beliefs and experiences, enabling pupils to encounter a wide range of perspectives. Through exploring different religions and world views, children develop empathy, respect, and cultural capital, appreciating both the diversity within modern Britain and the wider global context. This understanding also encourages pupils to make connections between beliefs and contemporary global issues, developing as informed and reflective global citizens.

Religious Education at Laneshaw Bridge reflects our school values of Ambition, Collaboration, and Trust. Pupils demonstrate ambition by exploring and questioning the beliefs and practices of different religions, collaboration through discussion and shared enquiry, and trust by developing respect for differing viewpoints and supporting one another in their learning.

Pupil voice is central to our RE curriculum. Enquiry questions are shaped by pupils’ interests, experiences, and current events to ensure learning is meaningful, relevant, and engaging. Children are encouraged to explore their own beliefs and lived experiences in conversation with those of others, helping them to understand their identity and the wider world.

The National Curriculum states the legal requirement that every state-funded school must offer a curriculum which is balanced and broadly based and which:

• Promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental, and physical development of pupils, and
• Prepares pupils at the school for the opportunities, responsibilities, and experiences of later life.

The RE curriculum at Laneshaw Bridge has been designed with our children at the centre. We have devised this curriculum with the consideration of SACRE and the Lancashire Agreed Syllabus 2021.

Our aim is to start our children’s Religious Education journey right from the very start of their Reception year when focusing on the Early Learning Goal - Understanding the World.

In their time in Early Years, children will be given opportunities to meet visitors from different religions and to visit different places of worship and to appreciate and celebrate the diversity of modern Britain. Children are also encouraged to talk about their own religions and beliefs.

In Year 1, children build on the EYFS Understanding of the World, finding out about the five main religions and their beliefs. Throughout the curriculum, there is a strong thread of British Values and breadth of knowledge to equip children for the society they live in locally, nationally, and globally. It is important that children appreciate the difference between the external aspects of religions and the lived experiences of individuals. Through their RE education, children will also explore, discuss, and reflect on key questions of meaning.

Each year group learns about five different religions: Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Sikhism.

Within each of those units there are key questions and concepts which underpin the key knowledge and skills. The curriculum progresses through skills, knowledge, vocabulary, and understanding.

Children organise their knowledge, skills, and understanding around the following learning:

• Understand beliefs and teachings
• Understand practices and lifestyles
• Understand how beliefs are conveyed
• Reflection
• Understand values

These key concepts underpin learning in each year group. This enables children to reinforce and build upon prior learning, make connections, and develop subject-specific language. Knowledge organisers are used within each lesson to build upon prior knowledge and aid children’s understanding within each unit. In addition to this, we have carefully sequenced educational visits to provide experiential learning to enhance our children’s understanding of different religions.

 

Evidence

At Laneshaw Bridge, children have the opportunity to record their learning in a variety of ways, which is recorded within their Religious Education books. Evidence of the learning is dependent on the lesson outcome, year group, and the knowledge and skills being developed. This can be in the form of writing, photographs of activities, and speech bubble comments relating to the learning.

 

Assessment

Teachers assess children’s learning throughout each lesson to ensure understanding of skills and knowledge before building onto future learning. Teachers use a range of questioning and retrieval practice to assess children against the aims of the lesson. In addition, children will also complete end-of-unit assessments to assess their substantive and disciplinary knowledge. This ensures all pupils, including those with SEND or disadvantaged backgrounds, make meaningful progress.

 

Subject Leaders

Subject leaders will conduct deep dives, which include lesson drop-ins, pupil interviews, and book looks to measure the impact of our teaching, based on how much children can remember. Leaders collaborate across the Trust to moderate outcomes, share good practice, and ensure that standards exceed expectations while reflecting the school’s values of Ambition, Collaboration, and Trust.