Vision

Our hope is that, as a result of a well-constructed, well-sequenced, deeply meaningful and relevant RE curriculum, our New Haw children will understand that, regardless of any sub-groups (religious or otherwise) with which we might identify or belong, we are all part of the all-encompassing human family and, as such, are equally worthy of respect, fair treatment and compassion.

By learning about the key beliefs, traditions and values of the Abrahamic and Dharmic religions (and, in particular, focusing on the many commonalities between them, together with the similar values of those who hold no particular religious beliefs), our vision is that New Haw children will be tolerant and understanding of others, and, crucially, will be able to enlighten and positively influence others who may be less so.

We hope that, through the multiple opportunities for self-reflection built into the New Haw RE curriculum, our children will gain greater insight into their own faiths, beliefs, values and behaviours, empowering them to make well-informed and confident choices now and in the years to come.

Curriculum Design

Curriculum Map

Rationale

The RE curriculum at New Haw focusses on three different types of knowledge - substantive knowledge, ways of knowing and personal knowledge - which form the ‘pillars of progression’ within our RE curriculum.

Substantive knowledge

The substantive knowledge of RE includes the ‘substance’ of religious and non-religious traditions.

In Year 3, the children are introduced to the language of beginnings, ancestors, descendants and groups, through looking at their own family’s ancestry.  They become familiar with different religious and non-religious (cultural) accounts of the ‘beginning’ of the Earth.  They then study the origins of the three Abrahamic religions - Christianity, Judaism and Islam - focusing on their shared ancestry.  At the end of Year 3, and in Year 4, the children move on to study the dharmic traditions of Hinduism, Sikhism and Buddhism.  They begin to look at the impact of religion and belief locally, nationally and globally.  In Years 5 and 6, the children return to the Abrahamic religions.  They look in detail at the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, and at the religious traditions of Islam and Judaism.  They look more critically at how a person’s beliefs and values (religious or otherwise) are formed and influenced, and how these impact on their lives and on their interactions with others.  In the summer of Year 6, the children look at ethical and moral issues, such as race, gender, environment and extremism, through the lens of both religious and non-religious belief.

Ways of knowing

Pupils learn ‘how to know’ about religion and non-religion at New Haw.  They learn not only the selected content, but also the tools to explore that content.  For example, pupils will learn: how knowledge came about, the status of claims, the difference between conceptions and misconceptions and the type of method that may have been used to derive that knowledge.  

The curriculum has been designed to include ‘ways of knowing’ as a form of knowledge.  This helps pupils learn about the construction of substantive knowledge, its accuracy, and its reliability and how provisional (and, sometimes, subjective) that knowledge is.  Pupils are therefore prepared to think in critical and scholarly ways about the representations of religion and non-religion in the wider world.

Personal knowledge

When pupils study RE, they do so ‘from a position’. This position is their viewpoint or perspective on the world, which is influenced by, for example, their values, prior experiences and own sense of identity.  At New Haw, pupils build ‘personal knowledge’, which includes an awareness of the assumptions that they bring to discussions concerning religious and non-religious traditions.

The RE curriculum at New Haw is designed to develop pupil’s knowledge and understanding of a range of different world religions by allowing them to first explore their own identity and sense of belonging, in order to understand commonalities between religious (and non-religious) groups.  The children become increasingly aware of the groups to which they (through choice, biology or culture) belong.  They are encouraged to repeatedly reflect on the fact that, regardless of their sub-group identities, they all belong to the larger, all-encompassing group of humankind.