Intent

Vision Statement:

At St Gregory's, we are inclusive and recognise that everyone has their own unique God-given talents. Our curriculum is progressive and builds on prior knowledge, understanding and skills so that we develop our whole school community academically, spiritually, emotionally, morally and socially. This enables our children to develop cultural capital and become righteous citizens who give to society. We provide creative and engaging opportunities that inspire and motivate our children to become lifelong learners and have aspirations to be the very best they can be.

In RE, we aim for all of our children to see themselves as children of God, developing an awareness and understanding of their own spirituality and showing a respect for others and their faiths.  We endeavour to inspire a sense of curiosity in our children and develop their enthusiasm for RE, recognising that the skills and knowledge they learn through RE can be used to have a positive impact on God’s world around them.

To be able to see themselves as children of God and have an awareness of their own and other’s spirituality, the children will need to build up the skills, knowledge and understanding of RE. They will need to understand and use the language of RE and apply these RE skills and knowledge across the curriculum, making connections both within RE and across other subjects too.

To be successful in RE children need to:

• Become religiously literate and engaged young people 
• Demonstrate knowledge understanding and skills, (appropriate to their age and capacity) 
• Reflect spiritually
• Think ethically and theologically
• Show awareness of the demands of religious commitment in everyday life.
• Show respect and care towards those of other faiths.

They will do this through opportunities to:

• Understand
• Discern
• Respond

Implementation

The Department of Catholic Education launched a new Religious Education Directory to be used from 2025.
 

RE is taught for 10% of our curriculum time. This is 2 and 1/2 hours in all classes across the school. 
We use the Day by Day scheme of work which follows the programme of study for religious education in Catholic schools as set out in the Religious Education Directory. The framework has four structural elements: knowledge lenses, ways of knowing, expected outcomes, curriculum branches. 

Knowledge lenses set out the object of study for pupils; they indicate what should be known by the end of each age-phase. They are referred to as lenses, since they are the things we are looking at and they divide the content of the programme of study into four systematic subsections for the study of Catholicism and two additional lenses for the study of religions and worldviews, which together comprise the six knowledge lenses of hear, believe, celebrate, and live (the study of the Catholic religion), dialogue, and encounter (the study of other religions and worldviews). 

Ways of knowing set out the skills that pupils should be developing as they progress through their curriculum journey. Whenever we know something, we always know it in more than one way: we remember it, we critically assimilate it, and we put it into practice. All three are ways of coming to know the things that are the object of our study. The ways of knowing are an evolution of the Age-related Standards in Religious Education, which were themselves an evolution of the Levels of Attainment in Religious Education. The three ways of knowing are: understand, discern, and respond. They are represented in the programme of study by icons: head (understand), heart (discern), and hands (respond). 

Expected outcomes are a synthesis of the content outlined in the knowledge lenses and the skills described in the ways of knowing. Each age-phase will have a prescribed set of outcomes that will indicate what pupils are expected to know, remember, and be able to do, using the language of the ways of knowing and applying it to the discrete knowledge within each lens. 

Curriculum branches are the way this programme of study presents its model curriculum. The model curriculum presents the expected outcomes in six curriculum branches that correspond to the six half-terms of a school year. The model curriculum is rooted in the narrative of salvation history and leads pupils on a journey in each year of schooling that gives a sequence to the learning. As they revisit each branch in each year of school they come to a deeper understanding of its significance for Catholic belief and practice, which allows them to make links between the four knowledge lenses within the context of the narrative of salvation history. The six curriculum branches are: creation and covenant, prophecy and promise, Galilee to Jerusalem, desert to garden, to the ends of the Earth, and dialogue and encounter. 

RE Progression of Vocabulary
Vocabulary, at an age appropriate level, is paramount to the children’s understanding and ability to articulate their intent and enable questioning. It is, therefore, a key consideration in RE planning.  Key subject vocabulary is introduced at the appropriate time, building on prior knowledge. The key vocabulary can be located here.

Key vocabulary is also outlined on knowledge organizer sheets.
 

See RE Vision for more information