Our Intent

In our outstanding church school, we believe that Religious Education (RE) holds a central place and is fundamental to achieving school aims, especially that of developing the ‘whole’ child.

At St. John’s, RE is concerned with the promotion of each pupil’s self-worth, enabling them to reflect on their uniqueness as human beings and to appreciate the importance of forming and maintaining positive relationships.  We support young people to develop their beliefs and values in the knowledge that, in gaining a greater understanding of themselves, children will develop a more sympathetic understanding of the needs of others and of the place of religion and belief in the world.

We strongly believe that RE contributes educationally to the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of all pupils enabling them to be better equipped to cope with the responsibilities and experiences of adult life. Through RE, we promote religious understanding and respect, and challenge prejudice, discrimination and stereotyping.

We promote religious literacy and want children to be able to hold a balanced and well-informed conversation about religion and belief. We encourage this by exploring and asking questions.

Implementation 

High quality learning experiences in RE are designed and provided by careful planning following the Durham and Newcastle Agreed Syllabus and ‘Understanding Christianity’.  These units engage the children in creative, exciting activities with a high level of challenge.

Christianity is the majority study and is studied in every year group. In addition, our children are also taught about a variety of the world religions.  These include Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism and Sikhism.  We have a duty to foster an accurate and increasing understanding of world religions and world views.

The content and nature of RE lends itself to an active and multi-sensory approach and in order to make RE a lively active subject, we employ a variety of teaching methods and stimuli including art, music, discussion, thinking skills, drama and stories. Children are given opportunities to actively engage with the material that is taught, eg handle artefacts, devise and make models, cook and eat foods and take part in role play. We want our pupils to encounter local faith communities through visits to local places of worship or visits from members of local faith communities. Periods of stillness and reflection allow children to consider how experiences impact on their spiritual development.

We aim for full inclusion within RE lessons.

To see RE topics taught in each year group click on the RE Long Term Plan.

Impact 

St. John’s has been judged as an ‘outstanding’ church school since 2013. “RE has core subject status in the school and as such makes an outstanding contribution to the distinctive ethos.” (SIAMS 2018).

RE teaching is thorough, methodical and well evidenced and our pupils enjoy and value the importance of the subject. “Pupils progress well in their learning and achieve high standards by the end of Key Stage 2. The quality of teaching is outstanding.” (SIAMS 2018)

Our RE Subject Leader is a RE specialist and shares her expertise with staff in school and the wider community through the MAT.