Religious Education & Collective Worship
Religious Education is an important part of the Curriculum. It is not a National Curriculum subject, but it does have to be taught in accordance with the Manchester agreed Religious Education Syllabus. Religious Education is taught as both a discrete subject and also through cross curricular working.
At Peel Hall we follow the Discovery RE scheme. This approach ensures all aims and strands of the Manchester agreed syllabus are being delivered in terms of content.
This is an enquiry based approach to Religious Education, which meets the requirements of the Locally Agreed Syllabus and our approach to delivering a knowledge engaged curriculum based on a question led approach.
Children are taught across the school from the Foundation stage to Year 6, using the scheme of work. The scheme takes into account the religious backgrounds of children in our school. Children learn about some of the major world religions including Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Hinduism. The Scheme encourages children to appreciate diversity and variety in religion and cultures, whilst at the same time examining common threads and expectations between religions. The scheme supports our work in relation to delivering British Values as well as allowing and encouraging discussions between pupils, which celebrate common themes, which are explored.
Religious Education is assessed using formative assessments at the end of each lesson and the recording of how well children have understood, is recorded using the Discovery approach assessment criteria on classroom monitor. These link with each theme that is being taught half termly. Within foundation stage, assessments are made during the first 3 half terms using the Discovery RE approach. Then from Spring 2 data is transferred over to the Early Years Profile under the ‘Knowledge and Understanding of the World’ and the ‘Knowledge and Understanding of People and Communities’ headings when children are ready for being assessed against Early Learning Goals.
In addition to the teaching of Religious Education in the classroom, the children also take part in celebrating different festivals and cultures as part of assemblies and at a whole school level.
RE can be taught weekly, in blocks or as days so as to ensure that we are delivering RE as part of a broad and balanced curriculum.
Collective Worship
Collective Worship within school is carried out on a daily basis. On Monday Key Stage assemblies are delivered by senior staff. On Tuesday, collective acts of worship are class based. On a Wednesday, we have Key Stage singing assemblies, which incorporates collective worship. On a Thursday class teachers carry out collective worship within their classrooms and on a Friday we have whole-school assemblies which may be class assemblies or celebratory assemblies, which incorporate an act of worship and parents are invited to.
Collective Worship at Peel Hall may involve a prayer, a reflection or a song, which allows children to share a few moments thinking about a common theme, so as to help the children feel a sense of unity and belonging, in line with promoting British Values.
As subject leader my role is to promote Religious Education and Collective Worship throughout the school and to monitor the impact of teaching upon pupils.
Subject leader – Mrs L Leigh
