The modern world needs young people who are sufficiently confident in their own beliefs and values that they can respect the religious and cultural differences of others and contribute to a cohesive and compassionate society’ - Michael Gove
At Millbrook, our religious education curriculum provokes challenging questions about the meaning and purpose of life. It develops pupils’ knowledge and understanding which allows our children to experience and embrace the diverse local, national and global communities in which they live. RE enables pupils to build their sense of identity and belonging, which helps them flourish within their communities and as citizens in a diverse society. It teaches pupils to develop respect for others, including people with different faiths and beliefs and helps to challenge prejudice. RE prompts pupils to consider their responsibilities to themselves and to others and to explore how they might contribute to their communities and to the wider society. It encourages empathy, generosity and compassion. At Millbrook Combined School, we provide an inclusive curriculum taking opportunities to visit different places of worship each year. In addition, religious learning also takes place through special assemblies which pupils produce and attend. Through a broad range of cross-curricular opportunities, our children experience world religions and learn about tolerance and inclusion.
Our Curriculum has the following three strands running through it:
Substantive knowledge (conceptual and worldviews related).
Disciplinary knowledge.
Personal knowledge.
These strands are interwoven across all units to create lessons that build children’s conceptual knowledge and understanding of religion and worldviews (substantive knowledge) and use a range of disciplinary lenses (ways of knowing). Children will also be equipped to explore and express their preconceptions, personal worldviews and positionality (personal knowledge) through varied and engaging learning experiences. The Kapow Primary Religion and worldviews scheme follows the spiral curriculum model, where units and lessons are carefully sequenced so that previous conceptual knowledge is returned to and built upon. Children progress by developing and deepening their knowledge and understanding of substantive and disciplinary concepts by experiencing them in a range of contexts.
Each unit includes overarching ‘big questions’ which will be revisited throughout key stage 1, lower key stage 2 and upper key Stage 2, allowing children to apply the breadth and depth of their learning across various concepts. These ‘big questions’ are:
Why are we here?
Why do worldviews change?
What is religion?
How can worldviews be expressed?
How do worldviews affect our daily lives?
How can we live together in harmony if we have different worldviews?
A more specific, focused enquiry question frames the learning across each unit. Both the ‘big questions’ and the focused enquiry question will allow children to explore the content they are studying, make comparisons and links within and across religions and worldviews, and explore their personal views.
The impact of our RE curriculum will be that our pupils will: