Religious Education

Our Vision for Religious Education

Our aim is for the children of Holy Trinity Church School to be excited and enthused by R.E. as we strive to broaden and deepen their ideas and understanding within an atmosphere of tolerance and respect.

We follow the guidance of the Church of England Statement of Entitlement and the Church of England Vision for Education - Deeply Christian, Serving the Common Good.

Implementation

As a Church of England School, R.E. and the purpose and significance of Worship are embedded across our Curriculum. Together with Holy Trinity Church, we have selected seven Christian principles to underpin our work. These are Love, Kindness, Co-operation, Trust, Responsibility, Respect and Honesty.

As an Academy, we have created our own R.E. syllabus. We have drawn together elements from Understanding Christianity, Discovery RE and Awareness, Mystery and Values to provide the RE curriculum for our children.

Two-thirds of the RE curriculum is focused on Christianity and uses the Understanding Christianity resource, with themes such as; creation, incarnation, salvation and God, please see the RE Curriculum Overview for more detail.

EYFS learning about Creation.

EYFS learning about Harvest.

Year 2 children each made a Christingle during their Incarnation topic.

One-third of the RE curriculum uses the Discovery RE resource. Each year group learns about a different religion, with some year groups in Key Stage 2 revisiting a religion first learnt during Key Stage 1. Please see the RE Curriculum Overview for more detail.

RE lessons include a range of activities across the unit such as discussion, role-play and hot-seating, alongside many creative tasks such as art and music. For example, children may be asked to write an additional verse for a Christian worship song, or design a new symbol for a particular religion. Where possible, we invite visitors in to talk to the children or take the children to visit a local church.

Year 4 enjoying some hot-seating to start off their new topic in Judaism.

Year 6 finding out more from local Elim Pastor, Howard Davenport, about how Christians put their beliefs into practice as part of the Kingdom of God unit.

Year 2 children visiting Vicarage Street Methodist Church at Christmas to hear the Christmas story and take part in some Christmas activites and crafts.

Each term we hold a Spirituality Day with a different theme or focus. The day starts with an Agape service planned and led by one year group. The whole school comes together and as part of the Agape, we take part in the sharing of food. The rest of the day involves exploring the theme in different ways, often creatively.

The theme of recent Spiritulity Days have included ‘Let Your Light Shine!’, 'Christianity Around the World' and 'Advent'. We were pleased to hold our Advent Agape in the church and delighted that the parents of year 5 were able to join us and be involved in our special service.

These photos from our 'Let Your Light Shine' day show that we all have different talents which is a gift from God and that we can use them to be the best we can be. Year 2 created a piece of artwork which shows off their God-given gifts as well as their New Years Resolutions.

Another recent Spirituality Day focused on Burundi. After establishing links with the charity Great Lakes Outreach, we were keen to raise money to support the people of Burundi as well as finding out more about the country which is the poorest in the world. Each class planned their own fundraising activity from sponsored events to cake sales and even a pyjama day! As a school we raised an incredible £1640. Thank you to everyone who contributed in one way or another.

"Right of Withdrawal

Any parent can request permission for their child to be excused from attending religious worship by arranging to see Mr. Beauford to discuss alternative arrangements".