Intent
At Oaklands Junior School, we recognise the significant role the RE curriculum has to play in developing pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. Discovery RE, as our adopted scheme of work, promotes respect and open-mindedness towards others with different faiths and beliefs (values taught through our Philosophy for Children curriculum) and encourages pupils to develop their sense of identity and belonging through self-awareness and reflection.
The intent of our RE curriculum is to engage pupils in an enquiry-based approach, in line with Oaklands as a Thinking School, where they can develop an understanding and appreciation of principle religions and worldviews in the local, national and wider global community, thus incorporating British Values.
Discovery RE states:
“Our belief is that, using an enquiry-based model well, children’s critical thinking skills can be developed, their motivation to learn increased, and their knowledge and understanding of, and empathy with people and their beliefs, religious or otherwise, will be enhanced. This approach takes very seriously the philosophy that children are free to make their own choices and decisions concerning religion and belief. RE does not try to persuade but rather to inform and develop the skills with which evaluation can take place.”
By the time pupils leave Oaklands the aim is to provide all children with high quality teaching that will help them reach their potential and fulfil all the aspects of the Oakland’s Mindset (ambition, independence, friendship, enjoyment, challenge, communication).
Implementation
R.E. lessons
The R.E. curriculum in each class is taught in half hour lessons, once a week for 6 weeks, and over the year covers three Christianity units and three units from one other religion. Year 3, Sikhism; Year 4, Judaism; Year 5 Hinduism and Year 6 Islam. We aim to incorporate other religions and non-religious world views within these lessons as it comes up in discussions, and by giving pupils time to think about and apply their own thoughts and beliefs as part of Personal Knowledge and Ways of Knowing.
Assemblies
Taken each morning for 15 minutes, with a half hour singing assembly on Friday. Singing assemblies are taken by all teachers in year groups, bringing to them a variety of music from all genres.
Our Christian based assemblies are taken once a month by the RE lead, Mrs Alexander, who tells bible stories with the help of the children acting these out. We are fortunate to have the vicar from St Sebastians church who takes assemblies on a half termly basis. We have also have the pastor from Crowthorne Baptist visit half termly, sometimes bringing with him a group from the church who tell bible stories with actions. There is an emphasis on teaching popular bible stories as we found that they children don’t necessarily know them.
Religious Services
Harvest assembly in the Autumn term, taken by Rev. Rickey Simpson Grey from St Sebastians Church.
Carol service at St John’s Church led by one of the vicars from the church.
RE Special Projects
- 2015 whole school morning project. Based on the musical, The Passion, by Adrian Snell. Each class took a different song which depicts a different part of the Easter story. They spent the morning doing a variety of activities based on the song.
- 2016 Christmas Thinking Families Day. Each classroom was set up to look at a different part of the Christmas story. Children moved round rooms in their thinking family groups and did the activities based round that part of the story. In the afternoon they worked on individual creations of their choice to reflect on their understanding of the Christmas story. As a staff we then moderated these creations, assessing the pupils understanding into 1, 2, and 3.
- 2017 whole school write – ‘In the Upper Room’ Waiting to hear news after Jesus’ death. Based on the song, ‘He’s Alive’ by Don Fransico. The children wrote in the role of Peter. This was used as basis for a staff meeting moderating the children’s work and understanding.
- 2020 The Christmas story frieze. Each class made a painting of a part of the Christmas story. These were strapped to the gates of the school to create a frieze of the story. This was for the parents to see as, due to Covid restrictions, they were not allowed on site.
- 2023 Easter Thinking Families. The Easter Story. Each class had 4 thinking families for the afternoon. Parts of the Easter story were read and the children had a collage to add to as the story went on.
Staff Development
In 2017 the RE lead ran a staff meeting looking at the Christianity units in the school. We realised that many children didn’t know the basic stories of Christmas and Easter. Action points included:
Creating a resource bank of bible stories for lower and upper school, to include cartoon video clips of story.
A presentation of RE in Oaklands was run by the RE lead to the Governors as part of a Governor’s Curriculum meeting in 2018
A staff meeting was held to update staff on 2017 changes to Discovery RE.
In a staff meeting whole school projects on Christmas and Easter were modified and adapted to fit to our school experience.
The telling of the basic Christian story of Christmas and Easter have been added to the RE curriculum units.
The RE lead to take assemblies on popular Christian stories from the bible once a month.
Impact
Oaklands Junior school children:
- will develop an understanding and appreciation of principle religions and worldviews
- will be able to think critically
- have an enhanced knowledge and understanding of, and empathy with people and their beliefs, religious or otherwise
- will have respect and open-mindedness towards others with different faiths and beliefs
- have a sense of identity and belonging through self-awareness and reflection
By the end of Year 6, Oaklands Junior school children can:
Subject Knowldge
- recall facts about religions and explain differences in practice and interpretation within and between religions / belief systems.
Ways of knowing
- weigh up evidence and different arguments / aspects relevant to the enquiry question and express my answer, supported with evidence / rationale.
Personal Knowledge
- explain how the concept / belief resonates in their own lives and can also see this might be different for other people because of their religion/beliefs
- express their own thoughts having reflected on them in relation to other people’s.
Children with educational needs are supported as needed with help from staff or with differentiated work and make good progress. Parents have a right to withdraw children from RE lessons and assemblies and if this should happen those children are given appropriate work which will result in them learning values associated with the topic without the religious aspect.
Monitoring and Evidence
The impact of our implementation of the RE curriculum can be monitored in a number of ways: through learning walks and lesson observations; planning scrutiny; book study; pupil voice and teacher assessments.
The impact of wider events such as church service at Christmas can be shown by the number of children willing to take part in choir, bell plates, bible readings and presenting a musical item; and the Harvest service by the rich quality of the work presented. In both these services and in assemblies in general the children show a love of singing that is unique to Oaklands School.
March 2024: After six years of adjusting the curriculum to include more on the Easter story, Mrs Alexander is pleased that the children now have a good knowledge of the Easter Story. During her Easter assembly, it was evident from the answer to questions, that they children know and understand the facts of this important Christian festival.
The RE lead takes an assembly once a month to tell popular bible stories. This is working really well, and from having these stories told each year, we are finding their knowledge of the Christian belief has grown.
The Christmas story is embedded in children. This was proved recently when the whole school homework was to retell the nativity story in any way they want. We had a wide variety of ways of telling the story that showed the children are now very familiar with it.