Sankey Valley St James CE Primary School

The curriculum we follow can be found here

Our Religious Education curriculum follows the Blackburn Diocesan Board of Education Syllabus for RE as recommended by Liverpool Diocese, which fulfils legal requirements and the RE statement of Entitlement from the Church of England Education Office. The syllabus provides coverage of both the Christian faith and other main religions and provides opportunities for the children to make links between beliefs, practices and values. The curriculum is delivered with an enquiry approach, engaging with biblical text, developing religious literacy and linking with Christian values. Throughout the syllabus children are taught to use general skills of gathering information, asking questions, expressing ideas and evaluating.

Early Years

In Early Years the children explore RE Chatterbox Units. Each unit provides a range of activities which encourage and allow the children and adults to explore together a collection of objects and stories linked to a Religious theme. The children are encouraged to ask questions and develop ideas and experience activities which support their early learning of RE

Key Stage 1 / 2

In Key stage 1 and 2 the children are taught in units which provide the children with a deeper understanding of Christianity. The enquiry based approach of the syllabus enables the children to develop key skills alongside the content they are learning. Key questions are asked which encourage the children to discuss and investigate their ideas and to reflect, evaluate and make decisions. The units enable the children to study Bible stories and to engage in activities which look at the impact of beliefs on people’s lives. Connections to their own lives and experiences can also be made.

Our vision is for our children to develop positive attitudes to their learning of Religious Education and to the beliefs, traditions and values of others. We believe that Religious Education contributes to the Christian ethos of our school and provides opportunities for our children to achieve the following:

• To respect God, themselves, other people and their differences.
• To be encouraged to reflect and explore their own faith.
• To have an appreciation of living in a diverse and multi-cultural society.
• To be taught the principles of right and wrong
• To feel they belong to God’s family, our school family and our community.

At Sankey Valley St. James we believe that Religious Education plays a vital part in enabling children to develop a self-awareness of their own ideas and to recognise their own uniqueness and self-worth. RE allows the children to reflect and develop their own spirituality and have a respect and understanding for the different religious faiths and beliefs of others.