RE at Co-op Academy Medlock

'Tolerance is the only thing that will enable persons belonging to different religions to live as good neighbours and friends.'

Mahatma Gandhi

Intent

RE  is an integral part of the broad and balanced curriculum provided at Co-op Academy Medlock and supports the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of all our pupils to enable them to become well-rounded citizens. We believe that all children should be provided with opportunities to recognise their own beliefs, values and attitudes and those of others. 

All children have opportunities to develop their knowledge in RE through a carefully structured and progressive curriculum which enables pupils to understand the way that religion helps to explain the world and its people. We also want our children to have a wider understanding of how religion has shaped the past and the impact this has left upon Britain and the wider world today. Our curriculum has been adapted to our school setting but is fully compliant with the Manchester agreed syllabus and is supported by Manchester SACRE. 

We also believe that it is important we recognise the diversity of our school community and that this diversity is present in our RE curriculum. This enables pupils to learn about people from around the world and who follow and practise their faith in different ways, but also allows our pupils and community to see themselves in what they learn. RE provides opportunities for children to learn about themselves and others, cultivating a community where every individual is appreciated, respected and encouraged. 

Implementation 

RE is taught by class teachers, of which the delivery is supported by the subject lead.

In Early Years, pupils are supported to develop an understanding of people and communities across the whole curriculum. 

This is supported each half-term by an Understanding the World ‘topic’ which helps children to make sense of their physical world and their community. These broad topics have a National Curriculum driver with a particular emphasis on developing subject-specific knowledge and skills in preparation for the National Curriculum.  Teaching  includes guided, adult-led and child-initiated opportunities. In Autumn, each EYFS class explores the topic of ‘Celebrations’. In Reception, children have weekly RE teaching following the schools long-term plan. 

The frequency and range of children’s personal experiences increases their knowledge and sense of the world around them – from visiting parks, libraries and museums to meeting important members of our community now and in the past. In addition, listening to a broad selection of stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems will foster their understanding of our culturally, socially, technologically and ecologically diverse world. As well as building important knowledge, this extends their familiarity with words that support understanding across the curriculum. Enriching and widening children’s vocabulary is seen as particularly crucial in order to prepare them for the key stage 1 curriculum and beyond. 

The environment is structured at each stage (including provocations) to provide children with opportunities to develop, explore and investigate these new skills freely with adults carefully skilled at intervening and moving learning forward. 

In years 1-6, the curriculum builds on our foundational learning in the Early Years. Following progressive and carefully written medium term planning developed by the subject leader. These have been structured  so that pupils revisit and further develop their understanding; constantly building on the learning that has come before. This includes disciplinary knowledge of how the children can interpret and understand a range of contemporary and historical sources (including sacred texts) as well as significant people, events and places.  Further to this, they support and enhance the learning in other curriculum areas, where appropriate, in particular humanities and give pupils opportunities to transfer and apply their knowledge from other curriculum areas. 

Each unit of work is designed to enable the pupils to build on learning that has come before. It is built on questions with an emphasis on three strands; believing, expressing and living. These strands are revisited as the children move through school enabling them to make links within and across the religions they study. Our curriculum is intentionally cyclical to provide our pupils with a deep understanding of the key ideas and concepts of the Abrahamic Faiths, before children encounter a wider range of religious and non-religious world views in upper key stage 2. This is complemented by our religious and cultural workshops which allow children to celebrate the richness of living in a multi-faith and multicultural society. 

Every unit is planned to follow a specific cycle to support the acquisition and development of substantive and disciplinary knowledge which are taken from our progression documents.  Each lesson is planned according to the pedagogy outlined in our ‘Teaching and Learning Principles’. Both of these have been implemented based upon current educational research. 

Critical thinking is a key aspect of the RE curriculum. This is done in a variety of ways, including throughout and at the end of a lesson where the children have to justify their opinions based upon the knowledge they have acquired.  This is done through a greater emphasis on dialogue, where pupils are given the tools to explain and express with increasing confidence their personal reflections and critical responses to questions and teaching about identity and diversity. 

Reading  and vocabulary development is of the utmost importance at Co-op Academy Medlock and, as such, this is reflected in the way that history is taught, with pupils being explicitly taught vocabulary they will need to access the core knowledge at the start of each lesson.  Pupils also have opportunities to read a range of texts in lessons and across other curriculum areas such as Reading, Writing and Art. These texts include quality poems and non-fiction texts to support their understanding across the curriculum. 

Due to our location near the city centre, we are fortunate to have a number of Museums and Galleries on our doorstep. We actively encourage pupils to visit local visits to places of worship and have strong community links with Brunswick Church. 

Impact 

Teachers and the subject lead triangulate information from a variety of sources to make  judgements about what the children have learnt at the end of each topic. In Key stage 1 exit tickets are used to assess the core knowledge at the end of each lesson. In Key stage 2 Summative essays are used by teachers in making judgements about what the children have understood. These are supported by pupil voice. Significant gaps are recorded by the teacher and this is then shared with the subject leader. These gaps are then used to inform future sessions. The subject leader then uses this to inform future actions to ensure that pupils continue to make good progress in RE. 

Pupils positively engage with RE, make good progress, produce work of a high standard and demonstrate empathy and kindness.