Religious Education

St. Robert’s Catholic First School wholly believes that Religious Education is the foundation of all our teaching and the entire educational process. The Christian Catholic beliefs and values inspire and unify every aspect of our school life. The Gospel values underpin everything we do here and effectively, are the basis and spiritual influence on our school curriculum.

Our Religious Education curriculum, whilst aligned to the Religious Education Curriculum Directory, is organised so that units of learning are delivered through specific liturgical themes. The school follows the New diocesan programme called The Way to know you more clearly. 

In each year, children will encounter a series of six branches. Each branch will be uncovered during six weeks with planning and resources provided. The overview of each branch shows the progression of learning across 18 learning times (6 weeks of 3 each) and accompanying continuous provision.

The spiralling nature of the curriculum encourages the retrieval of knowledge from branch to branch to build a coherent and progressively sequenced understanding of religion, set in the context of Catholic Christian beliefs and traditions, to provide a model for exploration.

The hinge week allows children to consolidate their learning, recalling what they have previously understood, before embarking on a new learning sequence.

BRANCH 1: Creation and Covenant

BRANCH 2: Propecy and Promise

BRANCH 3: Galilee to Jerusalem

BRANCH 4: Desert to Garden

BRANCH 5: To the Ends of the Earth

BRANCH 6: Dialogue and Encounter 

Therefore, pupils are offered the opportunity to deepen their understanding and enrich their experiences of what practising the other world faiths looks like for believers through the Dialogue and Encounter branch.  Key themes which underpin our Religious Education curriculum are understanding, respect and tolerance and love, which are essential values in developing well-rounded, spiritual and respectful individuals.

As in other core areas of the curriculum, our Religious Education curriculum presents pupils with the same academic demands, challenges and opportunities to develop a clear sense of the teachings of the Catholic Faith. 

The Religious Education curriculum requires 10% of the length of the taught week for each key stage of education. (This translates to 2 1⁄4 hours per week in Foundation and Key Stage 1 and 2 1⁄2 hours per week at Key Stage 2). This time does not include time for weekly liturgical prayer services, Pastoral Care sessions, hymn practice and mass attendance. The teaching of Religious Education is clearly outlined on each class timetable.

At St. Robert’s, our overall aim is to place Christ at the centre of our curriculum and in essence, enabling our pupils to understand the teachings of Christ, underpins everything we do. The immediate aim of Religious Education is to promote knowledge and understanding of the Catholic faith, its relevance to the ultimate questions of life and the skills required to engage in religious thinking.

Pupil progress is regularly monitored throughout the year with the purposes of assisting our children's learning and to enable them to strive for a feeling of confidence and success in their understanding of the Catholic Faith. Teachers use the programme to ensure that clear progression of skills is employed and to monitor progress across each phase. Additionally, progress is monitored through discussion, questioning, posing problems and giving opportunities to present their knowledge to others in a variety of ways, e.g., end of class Liturgical Prayer, Pastoral Care sessions and regular opportunity for prayer throughout the school day. Religious Education is assessed on a termly basis and to support teacher judgement, in house moderation conducted in the summer term.