Religious Education

At Danesfield School, our intent is to provide children with critical thinking skills, the ability to personally reflect on the child’s own thoughts and feelings, to grow subject knowledge and nurture spiritual development. The teaching of RE is enriching and engaging, following an enquiry-based approach, where we learn about, and from, the main world faiths in a progressive way from preschool up to Year 6. In the early years, the learning is closely matched to Development Matters to contribute meaningfully to your child’s holistic development. Throughout all the enquiries, the children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural education is carefully considered and RE lessons also contribute to pupils’ personal development and well-being and to community cohesion by promoting mutual respect and tolerance in a diverse society.

Each enquiry lasts for half a term and begins with a “big” question such as, “What is the best way for a Christian/Jew/Muslim etc. to show commitment to God?” The children then start discussing the theme of the enquiry (in this case, commitment) from their own experience. For example, what have they shown commitment to? The children may bring up things such as Brownie,  Cubs, a sporting team or playing an instrument, to name a few.

When the children fully understand the concept they are considering, they then move on to investigating what the people following the studied religion believe about it. They will spend approximately 3 lessons on this, learning in a variety of ways, so they can adapt their responses and come to a measured conclusion. In week 5, they will complete an activity which can assess their learning, by answering their “big” question. The assessment activities are child-friendly and can be answered in a variety of ways, as long as the child can justify their view with the knowledge they have gained throughout the enquiry. This demonstrates the level of critical thinking that the children can apply – a valuable skill for them throughout the school curriculum.

The final week in every enquiry gives the children time to reflect on what they have learnt about the concept and apply to it their own lives, thus allowing them to form their own beliefs and identity. These lessons are often very creative and children have opportunities to make items to express themselves in ways other than just writing, offering opportunities for personal reflection and spiritual development, deepening the understanding of the significance of religion in the lives of others. Christianity is taught as two of these units each year with the others varying slightly from year to year. This builds up a good understanding of all the different religions over the years in a progressive way.

Collective Worship

At Danesfield, collective worship provides the opportunity for pupils to consider spiritual and moral issues and to explore their own beliefs, in both religious and non-religious way. It encourages participation and response where children can either get actively involved or simply listen to and join in the worship offered. It also serves to develop community spirit, promote a common ethos and shared values, and reinforce positive attitudes. Collective worship is achieved through a number of ways at Danesfield. Children take part in a weekly achievement assembly, where children celebrate the effort and achievements of themselves as well as others, instilling a well-developed sense of community and an idea of belonging to something larger than the self, in a supportive, encouraging environment.

Singing assemblies bring the children together, increasing the sense of community in the school, while helping to improve students' physical and mental well-being and their musicality. The songs sang in these assemblies will be a mixture of popular, modern music, as well as hymns which may well be linked to Christian celebrations, for examples, carols around Christmas. Collective worship also takes part in the classrooms, where children are encouraged to reflect upon their own beliefs while taking part and statements around friendship, forgiveness, respect, kindness, peace, love and hope are discussed. Much like with content of singing assemblies, there will be a mixture of religious and non-religious statements from which discussion will begin but these key themes follow a broadly Christian values. In addition to this, by using the resources available from Young Citizens, the children are able to learn about and discuss issues such as the law, values in the classroom, being part of a group or community, all of which can be linked to RE and a sense of collective worship.

R.E. Curriculum Statement