Intent
At Abbey Hey Primary Academy, we believe that it is vital for all our pupils to learn about and from religion, so that they can understand the world and the community around them. The United Curriculum for Religion & Worldviews 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.
Implementation
The United Religion and Worldviews Curriculum has been very carefully sequenced to ensure coverage and appropriate progression through substantive and disciplinary knowledge. Each unit clearly sets out the knowledge that should be taught and reviewed in the sequence of lessons. Lesson slides and resources for key aspects of the unit are provided in the Lesson Resources documents.
As well as this teachers at Abbey Hey are provided with an additional three planning days per year in addition to their PPA, to plan their curriculum. As part of this planning process, teachers need to plan the following for Religious Education:
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Curriculum overview / flow of learning which will show pupils prior and future learning.
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5 - 6 lessons using the United Learning Religion and Worldviews teacher gudience packs.
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A bookmark or word mat which outlines key vocabulary to help children with that particular enquiry. As well as this the RE lead will ensure resources needed for each enquiry are available.
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Trips and visiting experts who will enhance the learning experience.
Impact
Our Religion and Worldviews Curriculum is high quality, well thought out and is planned to demonstrate progression. Assessing impact is assessing how well pupils have learned the required knowledge from the implemented curriculum. It is not about lots of tests, or meticulously comparing pupils’ outcomes at the start and end of each unit.
If pupils can keep up with a well-sequenced curriculum that has progression built in, they are making progress!
There are two ways in which Religion and Worldviews can be assessed either by;
Formative Assessment in Lessons
There are opportunities for formative assessment in the lesson slides provided, and teachers should continually adapt their lesson delivery to address misconceptions and ensure that pupils are keeping up with the content.
or,
Books and Pupil-Conferencing
Talking to pupils about their books allows you to assess how much of the curriculum content is secure. These conversations are used most effectively to determine whether pupils have a good understanding of the vertical concepts, and if they can link recently taught content to learning from previous units. (They should not be used to assess whether pupils can recall information, as low-stakes quizzes can gather this information more efficiently).