Religious Education
We believe high-quality RE will support pupils’ religious literacy. In the context of this syllabus, being religiously literate means that pupils will have the ability to hold balanced and well-informed conversations about religion and worldviews. Pupils will be able to make sense of religion and worldviews around them and begin to understand the complex world in which they live. RE is primarily about enabling pupils to become free thinking, critical participants of public discourse, who can make academically informed judgements about important matters of religion and belief which shape the global landscape.
We aim to ensure that all pupils:
- Know about and understand a range of religious and non-religious worldviews by learning to see these through theological, philosophical and human/social science lenses.
- Express ideas and insights about the nature, significance and impact of religious and non-religious worldviews through a multidisciplinary approach.
- Gain and deploy skills rooted in theology, philosophy and the human/social sciences engaging critically with religious and non-religious worldviews.
- are able to hold balanced and well-informed conversations about religion and worldviews.
Within the RE we teach there are three disciplinary fields:
- Theology: We have called this thinking through believing. It is about asking questions that believers would ask. It requires pupils to think like theologians, or to look through a theological lens at concepts.
- Philosophy: We have called this thinking through thinking. It is about asking questions that thinkers would ask. It requires pupils to think like philosophers, or to look through a philosophical lens at concepts.
Human/Social Sciences: We have called this thinking through living. It is about asking questions that people who study lived reality or phenomena would ask. It requires pupils to think like human and social scientists, or to look through a human/social science lens at concepts.