Intent:

The Religious and Worldviews Curriculum at Kemsley Primary Academy aims to promote the spiritual, moral and cultural development of its pupils. By exploring major religions and worldviews through varied learning experiences, approaches and disciplines, we are preparing our pupils for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life.

Our Religion & Worldviews curriculum provides all children, regardless of their background, with:

• Coherent and sequenced substantive knowledge of religion and worldviews represented in Britain and the wider world, selected to build pupils’ understanding through three vertical concepts.

These vertical concepts build a thematic narrative and provide context across diverse worldviews, as well as using small steps to help pupils gain a deep understanding of complex, abstract ideas:

Sacrifice

• Giving something up for the benefit of someone else is a recurring concept across religious & non-religious worldviews and takes many different forms. What motivates human action and what are the societal and personal consequences?

Knowledge & Meaning

• One of the unique qualities of human intelligence through time has been our quest for knowledge and meaning. How have religion and belief impacted on humanity’s search for “Truth”? How do beliefs impact human behaviour? What is it reasonable to believe?
   

Human Context

• Human beings exist in, and are influenced by, their place in time and their geographical, political and social context (Person, Time & Place). Everyone is different, so how have our diversities been influenced by our personal context? What influences a personal worldview?
• A Worldviews approach provides opportunities for all pupils to see themselves reflected in the curriculum, but also to be taken beyond their own experiences. The Religion & Worldviews curriculum teaches pupils about diversity within and between beliefs, cultures and worldviews from across the world, and seeks to teach the skills and knowledge to hold respectful and informed conversations about religion and belief; to be religiously literate.
• A conscious inclusion of vocabulary and substantive content that recognises the need to decolonise teaching materials in a meaningful and accessible way.
• A scholarly approach to the core disciplinary knowledge of theology, philosophy and social sciences, developing pupils’ ability to hold the types of conversation and to apply the methods and processes of theologians, philosophers and social scientists.
• A curiosity and openminded approach to the worldviews of others and a reflective consciousness of their own worldview.

Local context is also important as we passionately believe pupils should have knowledge of the religions and beliefs prevalent in their immediate and wider community. Therefore, pupils share and experience the festivals, places of worship and stories of the religions shared by their classmates (Nursery and Reception), then place these in a broader national and international context (Y1-Y6). Throughout, opportunities are explored to experience and interrogate beliefs of others' through visits to and from school. 

Implementation:

As part of the planning process, teachers need to plan the following:    

• A cycle of lessons for each subject, which carefully plans for progression and depth concentrating on the skills suited to the age group  
• Low stakes quizzes which are used regularly to support learners’ ability to retrieve and recall knowledge and increase space in the working memory 
• Challenge questions for pupils to apply their learning in a philosophical/open manner  
• Trips and visiting experts who will enhance the learning experience 

Impact:

The worldviews approach to Religious Education has a number of benefits:

• Everyone can recognise themselves in the curriculum as we all inhabit a worldview whether we identify as religious or not;
• It opens up our understanding of the lived diversity within religious and non-religious worldviews, rather than seeing a group as homogenous whole;
• If we learn to understand what influences a religious worldview, we can apply that understanding in our interpretation of religious text or belief in action, we can seek to see through a believer’s eyes;
• As pupils develop an awareness of what influences their personal worldview, they can begin to accept challenges to their preconceptions and understand both themselves and others better. This is important in developing personal knowledge in the curriculum.

Curriculum Overview

 

 

 

*Parents and Carers have the right to withdraw their child from all or part of the Religious Education curriculum.*