RE at Randwick

Religious Education is at the heart of our school. Through our RE, we promote all pupils' spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and prepare them for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of adult life. Through our Religious Education teaching, our pupils will develop a sense of personal and cultural identity which is receptive and respectful towards others, preparing them for life as global citizens. They will consider life's fundamental questions and reflect their own beliefs and values in the light of what they study in R.E. Pupils will be engaged in a process of exploration and encouraged to develop and express personal responses to what they discover.

We aim to provide a curriculum that instils respect for different views and interpretations; and, in which real dialogue and theological enquiry takes place.  We offer the opportunity for pupils to deepen their understanding of the Christian religion and world views as lived by believers.

Gloucestershire Agreed Syllabus

At Randwick we follow a two year rolling program using the Gloucestershire ‘Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education’ which provides content and guidance. The Gloucestershire syllabus 2025 asserts the importance and value of religious education for all pupils, with on-going benefits for an open, articulate and understanding society.

The principal aim for religious education in Gloucestershire is for pupils to understand how worldviews influence people’s lives, including their own, through the study of religious and non-religious worldviews, so that they better understand themselves and the world around them, and become better equipped to contribute to and flourish in society.

This principal aim incorporates a religion and worldviews (RW) approach. RE following this approach will help pupils to understand:
• a variety of responses to and understandings of the world as presented by religious and non-religious worldviews
• relationships between beliefs, teachings, forms of expression within organised worldviews, and the lived experience of adherents
• questions of meaning, purpose and truth, including about ultimate reality, and how these questions may be posed, addressed, understood, evaluated and responded to differently within worldviews and across disciplines
• the concepts, language and ways of knowing that help organise and make sense of religion and worldviews
• how to deploy a range of different tools and methods used to investigate religious and non-religious worldviews
• how their own personal worldview shapes their encounters with and responses to the world, and how their context, experiences and study can shape their personal worldview.

The aims of RE 
The threefold aim of RE elaborates the principal aim. The curriculum for RE aims to ensure that all pupils:

1. 
   Understand how religious and non-religious worldviews influence people’s lives, so that they can:
   • identify and make sense of religious and non-religious beliefs, concepts, teachings and traditions that shape organised, communal and individual worldviews
   • explain how and why worldviews both form and express people’s ways of being, behaving and belonging
   • explain a range of ways in which worldviews offer responses to fundamental questions, provide guidance and influence people in how to live
2. 
   Engage with religious and non-religious worldviews in thoughtful and scholarly ways, so that they can:
   • select and use an appropriate range of research methods, weighing up their findings
   • recognise how the lived experience of individuals and communities relates to the teachings and traditions of organised religious and non-religious worldviews
   • understand the role of dialogue and interpretation in the dynamic development of organised worldviews, and developing their own skills of dialogue and interpretation
3. 
   Understand themselves, and others, and their personal worldviews better, so that they can:
   • use scholarly methods to come to informed judgements about the answers reached through their study, responding thoughtfully and creatively, giving good reasons for their responses
   • draw attention to their own position, and others’, in their learning, both in terms of impact on their encounters and also the effect of the encounters of their own worldviews, articulating beliefs, values and commitments clearly in response
   • challenge ideas studied, and allow the ideas studied to challenge their own thinking, being and ways of understanding the world, expressing their critical and personal reflections with increasing clarity and understanding, including potential choices and responses to the world.

We feel that it is important that we continue to develop the strong church community in which we live and regularly welcome visitors to celebrate worship with us in different ways;  Rev. Simon uses his fantastic story telling skills to help us understand Bible stories and make connections to our own lives.  Collective worship is a time to celebrate differences and success and embed our overall ethos including valuing differences in opinion, beliefs and ideas.

Other aspects of Religious Education include:

• Our collective worship each day focuses on our Christian value for the term and this can often be linked with the RE teaching in the class.
• Our aim in collective worship is: to learn, to reflect and to live out our Christian understanding, knowledge and values.
• Christian values are celebrated and referred to in our classrooms, with displays and reflective areas to encourage our children to think deeply and reflect on spiritual matters.
• We are developing our reflective journals for each class: large books which record our reflections and thoughts during spritiuality worships or special events and encourage the children to express their emotions, thoughts and ideas as a whole-class.
• Faith leaders are invited to the school and visits to places of worship are arranged throughout our children's time at Randwick.

https://gloucester.anglican.org/2024/live-updates-from-the-big-mission-weekend-2/