Religious Education at Westcliff
At Westcliff Primary Academy, we believe RE (Religious Education) is a meaningful and relevant subject which provides us with the opportunity to teach children about different religions as well as support their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.
We have chosen to use an enquiry based model through which our children’s critical thinking skills can be developed, their motivation to learn increased and their knowledge and understanding of, and empathy with people and their beliefs, religious or otherwise, will be enhanced.
How Religious Education is taught at Westcliff
It is compulsory for all state-funded schools in England to teach religious education (RE). However, it is not part of the national curriculum, and parents have a legal right to withdraw their children for all or part of the lessons. If you wish to withdraw your child from RE then please let the Headteacher know in writing.
The statutory requirement for religious education does not extend to nursery classes in maintained schools and is not, therefore, a legal requirement for much of the Foundation Stage. We believe however that it forms a valuable part of the educational experience of children throughout their early years.
There are five areas of development and parents will note that we always start from your child’s own experiences as this makes learning pertinent and memorable.
From Year 1 upwards we start with the National Curriculum and use a scheme to support us called Discovery RE. Christianity is taught in every year group with Christmas and Easter given new treatment each year developing the learning in a progressive way. Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism are also covered. We selected this scheme of work as it also allows our children to reflect on their own personal beliefs, thoughts and opinions.
Religious Education Curriculum