Rationale

Religious Education at Onslow Infant School enables pupils to develop an understanding of religion by exploring different religions and increasing their knowledge of different faiths, practices and cultures. RE encourages sensitivity and respect. It promotes acceptance and understanding and enhances a pupil’s own spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.

Intent

At Onslow Infant School the teaching of Religious Education enables children to explore and develop an understanding of what religion is. Children learn about the major world faiths of Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism and Islam with the main focus being on Christianity. Pupils learn what different religions believe about God, prayer, belonging, celebrations and sacred texts. Children respond, giving their own thoughts and opinions, while learning to respect the views and beliefs of others.

Implementation

At Onslow Infant School, RE is taught in each class on a weekly basis. We follow SACRE, the Surrey agreed syllabus. Children learn about religion and learn from religion. Pupils learn through listening, viewing, exploring, acting, handling objects and discussing. Through listening to stories from different faiths or explanations of practices, children can increase their knowledge of key elements of religion. Through viewing videos or photos children can see for themselves different faith practices and artefacts, thereby being introduced to elements of religion that may be new or previously unknown to them. Handling real faith artefacts teaches respect for things that are important to people of faith communities. Acting and role play bring stories to life and discussion enables children to extend their understanding, question different aspects and give their own views and opinions on different topics.

Impact

At Onslow Infant School we use a variety of ways to find out what the children know. Teachers frequently question children throughout lessons to gauge learning and understanding, particularly at the beginning and end of a lesson.

We encourage the children to talk and to shares ideas and experiences and their comments are noted. Children may record their learning and photographic evidence is collected. This can be found in the class RE floor book or the children’s proud books. Monitoring includes scrutiny of work and interviews with pupils. These ensure curriculum coverage and show children’s attitude to learning and the quality of learning.