Inquisitive, Resilient, Independent    

At Anglesey, we are a vibrant and nurturing school community, where children are given the skills to become, inquisitive, resilient, independent learners.    

Our curriculum provides a range of creative, challenging and inspiring experiences for all.  This equips our children with the life skills to be happy, flourish and be successful…Today, tomorrow and in the future    

RE INTENT   

We promote the respect and tolerance for religious beliefs, traditions, practices and cultures that are followed in our multi-cultural society. Children learn from and about religion. RE at Anglesey has a role to play in the development of our pupils’ spiritual, social, moral and cultural development. We aim to engage pupils in an enquiry approach where they can develop an understanding and appreciation for the expression of beliefs, cultural practices and influence of principle religions and world views in the local, national and wider global community. We value the religious background of all members of the school community and have no presumptions as to the beliefs and values of staff and pupils. However, as the majority of our pupils follow Islam, each year group studies an aspect of this as well as Christianity. All religions are treated with sensitivity and respect and we value the links made with the community.

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT AND VALUES     

INQUISITIVE    

An inquisitive learner has a thirst for learning and wants to discover as much as they can about the world by asking questions.    

RESILIENT    

A resilient learner can bounce back from challenges and problems, but also has the capacity to adapt in the face of challenging circumstances, whilst maintaining a stable mental wellbeing.    

INDEPENDENT    

An independent learner takes responsibility for their own learning. They are self-motivated and accept that frustration in the present is worthwhile to achieve future success. They take initiative and are good problem solvers.    

Pupils develop Inquisitiveness In RE by:   

• Finding out about religions, beliefs, traditions and cultures of people in school, the community and the wider world, such as making divas for Diwali
• Asking children and staff questions about their religious beliefs
• Finding out what similarities there are between Religions and religious stories
• Finding out about religions, beliefs
• Sharing in the experiences of others.
• Questioning faith
• Recognising morality as separate to faith
• Setting our own questions about god and religion
• Opportunities to talk to faith leaders.
• Participating in local visits to churches, mosques and temples.
• Questioning and discussing where we, as humans, came from and how this differs amongst religions.
• Comparing religions to discuss similarities and differences, e.g. Reception compare the similarities between Lent and Ramadan.

Pupils develop Resilience in RE by:   

• Reading stories about struggle and hardship
• Understanding we must show tolerance towards others of different beliefs.
• Understanding the similarities between people of different faiths
• Sharing experience with others in assembly.
• Visiting different religious establishments and realising we are all similar.
• Accepting that people don’t have to believe in gods
• Appreciating the religious makeup of the country.
• Knowing the role of religion in state and the freedoms we have as art of British values
• Simply listening to the viewpoints of other religions.
• Knowing that a person is free to choose their religion, we don’t have to take on the same job as our parents, so we don’t have to have their religion.
• Realising that in faith, not all questions have answers
• Ask further questions or carry out additional research to develop understanding of why people perform specific rituals
• Discovering and applying skills, philosophies and methods that different religions teach about dealing with difficulties, values and morals.
• Respectfully accepting differences and challenges to their own beliefs whilst still valuing themselves.

Pupils develop Independence in RE  by:   

• questioning in order to develop intellectual curiosity
• investigating authentic texts from holy books
• expressing personal responses, beliefs and values
• examining artefacts and other religious sources to explore symbolism and meaning and thus independently arriving at a sense of what religion means to people
• Bringing in their experience from family and friends
• Independent online research about different faiths.
• Allow children to set their own questions about faith
• Encourage children to question what they read sometimes.
• Recognise that there isn’t always a right and wrong, and we all have our own truths.
• Experiencing other religions which may be challenging and through visits to other faith buildings and conversations with other faith leaders we begin to recognise we are not so different.
• taking ownership of learning about their own and others' religions and become independent thinkers
• Researching in small groups or on their own, images and religious objects of various religions. What does it tell me? What Doesn't it tell me?What do I want to find out?
• Children are encouraged to voice their own opinions and discuss them as a class.
• Children are given opportunities to research into other religions to answer their own questions.
• Having the confidence to discover and value their own beliefs and what is important to them regardless of outside influences.
• Recognising the way that we form beliefs and the importance and value of forming our own with as little prejudice as is possible.
• Understanding the prejudices that can exist in society and how we can overcome these individually and collectively.

CREATIVE, CHALLENGING AND INSPIRING EXPERIENCES     

We have varied assemblies, including performances from children to tell stories or to celebrate festivals. Across the school, we celebrate festivals and celebrations in a number of ways, e.g. dressing in ‘special’ clothes during Eid or Christmas and celebrate with a party and our youngest children making divas for Diwali. Each year group recognises and celebrates one of the festivals in more detail over the year. For example, our Reception children perform a version of The Nativity and Year 2 will present an assembly about Easter.  Children visit various places of worship, depending on their focus and this obviously brings things to life. RE is linked to many subjects across the curriculum, including learning songs in Music and performing to traditional music in Dance.

Opportunities in art and DT to make religious art and objects. Children will recognise the effect art has had over the centuries on our understanding of different religion and the way it shapes future beliefs.

RE challenges thinking and encourages children to study other religions apart from their own.

We can do this by visiting different religious buildings, experiencing how other religions pray, recognising similarities.

We can share in different foods, these can link to different festivals through the year (harvest, Eid, Passover etc)

We do challenge religion to and allow children to understand that large percentages of the country do not have religions.

Using team building skills and critical thinking linked to the Diwali story e.g. children in Reception were tasked with a challenge in small groups to construct a bridge for Rama to cross the sea and rescue Sita from the evil Ravana, this certainly helped to bring the story of Rama & Sita to life for them and some continued to act it out / revisit the bridge building afterwards

RE IMPLEMENTATION  

At Anglesey, we follow the Birmingham Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education. All year groups study an aspect of Christianity and Islam, plus one of the following: Sikhism, Rastafarianism, Buddhism, Judaism or Hinduism. Each year group always has a particular group of dispositions that are threaded throughout the RE curriculum across the year, e.g. Developing Creativity in Year 1 and Developing Contemplation on Year 6. Stories and parables are allocated to each year group. We have regular assemblies across the school and RE is also cross curricular e.g Year 6 find out about the Holocaust in History

RE IMPACT  

Each year group keeps a folder of work which clearly shows progression across the year. An additional folder is kept to show evidence of progression across the whole school from Nursery to Year 6. Year managers regularly involve groups of pupils in discussions about their own learning, including reflecting on standards achieved against the planned outcomes. 

Our RE curriculum helps children to make links between their own lives and those of others in their community and the wider world. Children are able to talk about different religions and celebrate the diversity in our school, the community and the wider world.