Religious Education at Warkworth CofE Primary School

Religious Education is a serious academic subject at Warkworth. Religion has shaped history, art, literature, law, culture and the lives of billions of people. Children cannot fully understand the world without understanding religion.

We therefore have the same high expectations in RE as we do in every other subject. Pupils acquire knowledge, learn accurate vocabulary, study important texts and ideas, and build increasingly thoughtful responses. RE is not simply a conversation in which every opinion is treated as equally well-informed. Children need secure knowledge before they can discuss, compare and evaluate ideas meaningfully.

As a Church of England school, Christianity naturally has a central place within our curriculum. This does not mean that we expect pupils to be Christians. It means that every child receives a rich, accurate and intellectually honest education about Christianity, alongside a respectful study of other religious and non-religious worldviews.

What do children learn?

Our curriculum follows the Durham and Newcastle Diocesan Syllabus for Religious Education. Approximately half of the RE curriculum is devoted to Christianity, with the remaining time used to study other religions and worldviews.

Children learn about:

• Christianity as a diverse, global and living faith;
• the Bible and the ways Christians understand and use it;
• core Christian ideas such as Creation, Incarnation, Gospel, Salvation and the Kingdom of God;
• Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and Sikhi beliefs, practices and communities;
• non-religious worldviews;
• important theological, philosophical and ethical questions.

Children do not simply collect disconnected facts about festivals, buildings or religious objects. Knowledge is carefully sequenced so that pupils revisit important ideas and build a deeper understanding over time.

They learn that there is diversity within religious traditions as well as between them. Not every Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jew or Sikh believes or practises in exactly the same way. Pupils explore what religious traditions teach, how those teachings have been interpreted and how faith may influence the lives of individuals and communities.

For the teaching of Christianity, we use Understanding Christianity alongside the diocesan syllabus. This helps pupils explore Christianity through three connected areas. They learn to make sense of biblical texts, understand how these texts and beliefs influence Christian life, and make connections with wider questions and their own developing understanding of the world.

Children are taught to engage seriously with the Bible. They consider what a text says, the kind of writing it is, its place within the wider Christian story and the different ways in which Christians may understand it. This gives pupils a much richer understanding than simply learning a series of Bible stories.

How is RE taught?

RE is taught through The Warkworth Way. Teachers provide clear explanations, introduce precise vocabulary and make careful use of religious texts, images, objects and accounts of lived faith.

Structured discussion is an important part of the subject. Children learn to listen closely and to build upon, clarify or respectfully challenge the ideas of others. They are expected to support their answers with knowledge and evidence rather than simply stating an unsupported opinion.

Pupils learn to ask different kinds of questions:

• Theological questions about God, faith and religious belief;
• Philosophical questions about truth, meaning, knowledge and existence;
• Ethical questions about how people should live and the choices they make.

Children also learn that different questions require different approaches. Some can be explored through texts and historical evidence. Others require interpretation, comparison or carefully reasoned judgement.

Teachers assess what pupils know, how well they remember and connect their learning, and whether they can explain and evaluate ideas accurately. Children are never assessed on their personal faith or on whether they agree with a particular religious belief.

Faith, belief and freedom

Religious Education and Collective Worship are related, but they are not the same.

Collective Worship gives children an opportunity to encounter and respond to the Christian faith within the shared life of our school. In RE lessons, Christianity and other religious and non-religious worldviews are studied as academic content.

Pupils are free to express their own beliefs, questions and doubts. They may agree or disagree with the ideas they encounter, but they must do so thoughtfully, respectfully and from a position of knowledge. Our aim is not to tell children what to think. It is to give them enough knowledge to think deeply and well.

Good RE helps children understand people whose beliefs differ from their own without pretending that all beliefs are identical or that differences do not matter. It teaches pupils to approach serious questions with curiosity, humility and intellectual courage.

Through RE, children gain the knowledge that helps them not to be tossed by every passing claim. They learn to disagree while speaking the truth in love, and they grow in their understanding of faith, humanity and the complex world around them.