We follow the Haringey agreed syllabus for Religious Education at Seven Sisters Primary School. In Key Stage 2 we are also using the new HEP Humanities curriculum resources for RE which are being published throughout 2021 and 2022.
In EYFS
The children look at Understanding the world through its people and communities. They will learn that many people share various beliefs whereas others can have different beliefs. They will be encouraged to celebrate diversity and respect the beliefs of others. They will learn that people of various faiths do certain things to celebrate their religion. They will hear from various members of our community about their faiths and they will visit places of religious worship to learn more about that faith.
In Key stage 1
Children have two attainment targets in Key Stages 1 and 2: To learn about religion and to learn from religion. Our pupils are taught to:
explore a range of religious stories and sacred writings, and talk about their meanings;
name and explore a range of celebrations, worship and rituals in religion, noting both similarities and differences;
identify the importance, for some people, of belonging to a religion and recognise the difference this makes to their lives;
explore how religious beliefs and ideas can be expressed through the creative and expressive arts and communicate their responses;
identify and interpret religious symbols and begin to use a range of religious words;
reflect upon and consider religious and spiritual feelings, experiences and concepts, for example worship, wonder, praise, thanks, concern, joy and sadness;
ask and respond to puzzling questions, communicating their ideas;
identify what matters to them and others, including those with religious commitments, and communicate their responses;
recognise how religious teachings and ideas about values, particularly those concerned with right and wrong, justice and injustice, make a difference to individuals, families and communities, and communicate their responses.
In Key stage 2
Pupils are taught to:
describe the key aspects of religions, especially the people, stories and traditions that influence the beliefs and values of others;
describe the variety of practices and ways of life in religions and understand how these stem from, and are closely connected to, beliefs and teachings;
identify and begin to describe the similarities and differences between religions;
investigate the significance of religion in the local, national and global communities;
make links between different forms of religious expression and understand why they are important in religion, explaining how religious beliefs and teachings can be expressed in a variety of forms;
describe and begin to understand religious and other responses to ultimate and ethical questions;
use religious language in communicating their knowledge and understanding;
use and interpret information about religions from a range of sources.
Thanks to our partners at HEP, we are able to provide a Key Stage 2 RE curriculum that is ambitiously broad in scope, meticulous in rigour, highly coherent and very carefully sequenced. The substantive content is taught with ‘high-leverage’ activities, so that pupils think hard about the substance itself, so that they assimilate and retain material efficiently and so that they gain confidence from their fluency in foundational concepts, terms and reference points. In this way vocabulary will become extremely secure, with the range of vocabulary that pupils recognise growing all the time and creating resonance as pupils’ encounter it again and again, both consolidating that vocabulary and freeing up memory space for pupils to make sense of new material.
In studying religions through multiple disciplines, pupils will learn about and learn from the different kinds of question human beings can ask about religious origins, beliefs and practices, namely questions that derive from philosophy, theology, social sciences and history.
Each unit of work builds on from the last. The vocabulary is the core and children acquire powerful knowledge which enables them to become more knowledgeable more quickly.
To read more about our exciting HEP primary curriculum and the rationale behind it, please click here: https://www.haringeyeducationpartnership.co.uk/