Religious Education

The Principal aim of RE is to engage pupils in systematic enquiry into significant human questions which religion and worldviews address, so that they can develop the understanding and skills needed to appreciate and appraise varied responses to these questions, as well as developing responses of their own.

 Actively promoting values, including British values

  • We want RE in our schools to be challenging, inspiring and engaging.
  • We want pupils to develop their levels of religious literacy and conceptual understanding.
  • We want them to be able to articulate, with confidence, their ideas about religion, beliefs and
  • spirituality – and then to change their minds, if they choose to do so.
  • We want learners to understand how religions and belief systems are committed to morality and social justice, to responsible stewardship of the environment and to deepening the experience of being human.
  • Promoting social and ethnic harmony and awareness of British values is a moral imperative for schools and RE has a significant contribution to make to this. Through the exploration of multiple identities and local communities, through visits to places of worship and meeting people from religious and belief communities, and through a deepening understanding of beliefs and practices, our aim is for young people to come to an informed and empathetic understanding of different groups which will help promote cohesion and integration. Pupils will explore British values in relation to religions and beliefs.
  • Religion has a major position in public life so it is crucial that young people are educated to understand and to engage critically with religions and beliefs, and their representation in the media.
  • Breadth and balance are essential in RE, as in the whole curriculum. There are greater possibilities in this syllabus and its accompanying materials for creative cross-curricular development, as well as for high standards within RE when taught as a discrete subject.
  • We want to encourage teachers to bring academic rigour into the study of religion and beliefs. They are complex and controversial, they demand multi-disciplinary study and they require understanding of difficult language and concepts. Such learning is rewarding at all levels. But this is not just a dispassionate approach to study. Both teachers and learners can develop personally through RE, challenging preconceptions, asking for justification of opinions, re-assessing their own stance on issues and recognising the vast, fascinating and challenging nature of religious study.

- Tower Hamlets Agreed RE Syllabus 2017

The threefold aim of the RE elaborates the principal aim

The curriculum for RE aims to ensure that all pupils:

  1. Know and understand a range of religions and worldviews, so that they can:
    • Describe, explain and analyse beliefs and practices, recognising the diversity which exists within and between communities and amongst individuals
    • Identify, investigate and respond to questions posed, and responses offered by some of the sources of wisdom found in religions and worldviews.
    • Appreciate and appraise the nature, significance and impact of different ways of life and ways of expressing meaning.
  2. Express ideas and insights about nature, significance and impact of religions and worldviews, so that they can:
    • Explain reasonably their ideas about how beliefs, practices and forms of expression influence individuals and communities
    • Express with increasing discernment their personal reflections and critical responses to questions and teachings about identity, diversity, meaning and value including ethical issues
    • Appreciate and appraise varied dimensions of religions.
  3. Gain and deploy the skills needed to engage seriously with religions and worldviews, so that they can:
    • Find out about and investigate key concepts and questions of belonging, meaning, purpose and truth, responding creatively.
    • Enquire into what enables different individuals and communities to live together respectfully for the wellbeing of all
    • Articulate beliefs, values and commitments clearly in order to explain what why they may be I important in their own and other people’s views.

Implementation

At SHH Federation, we follow the Tower Hamlets Agreed Syllabus for RE.