St Amand's Catholic Primary School

Religious Education at St. Amand's

RE Curriculum Overview

Religious education in Catholic schools aims to promote:

• Knowledge and understanding of Catholic faith and life;
• Knowledge and understanding of the response of faith to the ultimate questions about human life, its origin and purpose;
• The skills required to engage in examination of and reflection upon religious belief and practice.

In the Catholic Diocese of Portsmouth, religious education is primarily taught through the God Matters scheme.

For the last two years, instead of Prayers, Saints and Feasts we taught a Catholic Social Teaching unit in Term 2.  

Intent

As a Catholic School our aim at St Amand's is to help all of our children know and love God through the scriptures and the life of Jesus, promote knowledge and understanding of Catholic faith and life and enable children to consider the big questions about the origin and purpose of creation.

Religious Education is more than a curriculum subject. It is something that leads and permeates every area of our school.

We use the ‘God Matters’ scheme of work.  Children study nine topics most of which are linked to the liturgical year: Creation, Prayer, Catholic Social Teaching, Advent, Christmas, Revelation, Lent, Holy Week, Easter, Pentecost and Sacraments.

Parents are kept fully informed of what the children are studying, our close relationship with the church of St Mary's where we follow the liturgical life of the church by attendance and active participation in the Mass and the Sacraments and the children’s involvement with CAFOD, Mary's Meals and local charities establishes the children’s appreciation of the close links between home, parish and the wider world which is crucial to our faith.

We have a rich liturgical life in that the experiences we provide are wide ranging and take place in school, out of school, in Church and the wider community, and engage and involve pupils, parents, staff, governors and the parish.

Implementation and Programme of Study.

As we are a small school with mixed year group classes, we teach RE on a rolling two year cycle.

Reception. We introduce God as our creator and explore ways of talking to God through prayer. Stories of Jesus’ life are introduced in line with the Liturgical calendar.

Year 1. We introduce and help children to recognise stories from the Bible and how events from Jesus’ life affected those around him.  We begin to look at forgiveness and healing.

Year 2. We study Bible stories in more detail and provide children with the opportunity to retell them in a variety of different ways. We examine how people in the past and present have responded to God’s word.

Year 3. Children will be encouraged to see the links between different Bible stories and the impact Jesus had and has on those around him.

Year 4. We will focus on stories from the Bible in greater depth to explore their meanings.  We will consider the impact of prayer and how we prepare for certain feasts and sacraments.

Year 5. Through the study stories Jesus told we examine our understanding of the Kingdom of God, what it means to be People of God, especially through the words of St Paul and the Beatitudes.

Year 6.  Children will analyse and evaluate stories from Scripture, voice their own opinions and express their appreciation of how the lives and beliefs of others’ affects the decisions they make.

Diversity

We teach other world religions within our topics, highlighting the similarities between our beliefs to develop tolerance and respect for other faiths, races and cultures.

SEND

We aim to make our curriculum accessible to all.  We use a wide range of media to introduce and teach the content of lesson including story, film, music and pictures.  We offer a range of ways for the children to demonstrate their learning including art and drama as well as the written words.  Support and extension activities ensure that all children have access to this subject.

Impact

The children will grow to know and love God, develop their moral and spiritual nature and deepen their faith.

They will live their out faith in an active and positive way, always aware of the presence and love of Christ guiding them. They will develop their relationship with God and become religiously literate through religious practice, the church’s traditions of prayer and worship will be upheld.

Children of all abilities and backgrounds will be able to achieve well in RE, reflected in outstanding progress that reveals a clear learning journey. They will confidently use the skills they have learnt to use; such as retelling, describing, comparing, giving reasons, explaining the meaning of biblical stories and considering the impact of beliefs. The children will be able to talk enthusiastically about their learning in RE and will be eager to further their learning in the next stages of their education.

Children will be able to reflect and consider important questions about RE.

They will come to know about a wide variety of Saints and how we can learn from their example. They will be able to make links between Jesus’ life and teaching and link it to their own lives, making links between different forms of Christian action.

The school environment will reflect and celebrate our Catholic faith.

Building the Kingdom Programme

We took part on the programme in 2022-23 and aspcets of the programme are built into our teahing of RE and Catholic Social Teaching. Our focus was Oracy for Advocacy. We are encouraged and enabled children to use the gift of their voice to speak for change and to speak for those who cannot.  In the first session children spoke about their chosen subject to an audience. Next, they chose a peer mentor and prepared to talk about an aspect of Catholic Social Teaching. The mentors did a wonderful job of encouraging, supporting, listening and advising their peers. They gave their time and patience.

On 27 February, the six children each gave two minute speech to a room full of children and unfamiliar adults. We invited 3 other Catholic schools to St Amand's for the morning with Sr Judith. Children were amazing and it was fantastic to hear children speak confidently and passionately about an aspect of Stewardship, Human Dignity and Option for the Poor. The event was a great success. 

Finally, some children visited the Houses of Parliament to present to two local MPs, their views about the kind of leadership they would like to see today.

In RE Rabbits Class looked at the Paschal Candle in Church and then designed their own. Three children's designs were chosen and the talented Mrs Kerner-Bignell painted their design.

Advent

Daily messages were delivered to the classes from young Prophets in Year 2.

A Year 5 child wrote a modern-day, relevant sermon that John the Baptist might give to us today.

Rabbits class visit to church to learn about what it means to proclaim God's Word with Fr Andrew.

Laudato Si'

During the first two weeks of the Autumn term 2022, our whole school RE teaching was inspired by Pope Francis' Encyclical Laudato Si'. Each class learnt more about Pope Francis, how he was inspired by St Francis, St Francis' canticles and the CST principle: Stewardship. After this we continued with the creation unit in RE. This was a whole school four-week cross curricular topic on biodiversity. Each class chose an area to explore further such as: the destruction of the rainforest, pollution of the waters and extinction. Rabbits and Hedgehogs class visited the Living Rainforest in Newbury too, which enhanced their understanding and learning.