The purpose for teaching Religious Education
At Eastfield Primary School, the purpose of Religious Education (RE) is to raise the children’s awareness of a variety of religions; teaching the beliefs, cultures and traditions. Religious Education provides avenues for our pupils to understand important things about the world and themselves as individuals.
At Eastfield, we deliver RE in order to broaden our children’s horizons. We aim to recognise and celebrate the variation of beliefs we have within our school, and encourage all children to enjoy their celebrations.
We believe in delivering religious education to our students, not religious instruction. We teach children how common themes weave throughout different religions, for example the importance of; truth, sharing and honesty to name a few.
It is very important to us that children at our school feel seen and represented within our RE curriculum. Alongside this, we recognise the multi-cultured community and city in which we live, and we endeavour to ensure children understand the beliefs of others.
The teaching and learning of RE
Our children’s learning journey starts in pre-school and reception, with storytelling and the discussion of religious festivals and celebrations. We teach RE through a whole school approach: year groups learn about the six main world religions, in addition to the non-religious world view of Humanism. These include: Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, Sikhism, Islam and Judaism. A new religion is taught every half term, building upon the previous knowledge learnt in previous years, thus expanding and deepening their knowledge of the world around them.
Within each year group, a ‘big question’ is explored with the children, this aims to promote independent thought and encouraging philosophical thinking.
We aim for children to know and understand that religion and non-religions have traditions and celebrations. We immerse the children into RE through hosting celebrations of religions on a 2-yearly rotation basis. In previous years, we have celebrated religious events such as the Harvest Festival by taking donations of food and giving them to our local food bank. In addition to this, we invited children to dress in traditional religious clothing for Diwali and invited our families and community in for a night walk where we presented our handmade Diya lamps. Furthermore, we have celebrated Holi by throwing a colour fun run at school and Eid by enjoying a picnic in the school hall where staff and children shared how their families celebrate Eid. We are continuing to develop this offer by introducing further exciting and innovative opportunities for children; such as a recent whole school visit to our local church – St. Michael and All Angels – where we sang a mixture of traditional Christmas Carols, in addition to modern-day, mainstream classics.
The outcomes of our RE curriculum
By the time children leave Eastfield, they have a broad understanding of the world around them; recognising that people have different faiths and beliefs. The children will have an understanding of the roots of these beliefs and the will be able to discuss knowledge around these religions.
| Term | Religion |
| Autumn 1 | Hinduism |
| Autumn 2 | Humanism / Christianity |
| Spring 1 | Buddhism |
| Spring 2 | Sikhism |
| Summer 1 | Islam |
| Summer 2 | Judaism |
Continued Professional Development
We understand and value the need for continued professional development within our teaching team and so ensure a period of staff meeting time is given to keeping knowledge up-to-date on religious education and ensuring our teachers feel confident in their delivery.