Religious Education at Percy Shurmer follows the Birmingham Agreed Syllabus for RE in Years 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6 and is designed to promote children's spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. The intent of Birmingham’s character-driven approach is to encourage the development of 24 dispositions, or values.

Dispositions

The dispositions encourage pupils to think about, and act upon, a growing understanding of their own faith or viewpoint, whilst acknowledging their neighbour’s perspective. Lessons focus on discussion and guidance to assist the formation of character-based judgements through the acquisition of knowledge.

Coverage

The syllabus includes the nine religious traditions recorded to have significant representation within Birmingham: Bahá’i, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Rastafari and Sikhism, and established non-religious worldviews such as Atheism, Humanism and Secularism.

Teaching Model

RE is taught using a learning model which breaks the dispositions into four tangible, interconnected aspects. They are:

• Learning from Experience

• Learning about religious traditions and non-religious world views.

• Learning from Faith and non-religious world views.

• Learning to Discern

Assessment

To assess learning, the four dimensions of learning are encountered for every disposition. At each phase, the key questions for each dimension of learning form the framework through which pupils’ understanding, knowledge and responses can be assessed:

• Learning From Experience: Assessment, in the case of this syllabus, begins with finding out about what pupils already know by activating prior knowledge/learning perhaps through discussion or mind-mapping knowledge as a starting point.

• Learning About Religious Traditions and Non-Religious Worldviews: Within this dimension a pupil’s knowledge and understanding of religious and non-religious content is assessed. Pupils will encounter a variety of religious and non-religious worldviews through narratives, rituals, events and sources of authority. Their understanding of this material can be assessed in line with the key questions for Learning About Religious Traditions at an appropriate level.

• Learning From Faith and Non-Religious Worldviews: When assessing pupils against the Key Questions there needs to be some consideration to, and assessment of, how pupils think, feel, and respond in the light of what is being taught. Assessment will vary according to pupils’ ages and abilities, but should make use of a range of strategies including, observation, oral and written evidence.

• Learning to Discern: Within this dimension a pupil’s ability to reflect, evaluate and to critically interpret will be explored. This area will be assessed through pupils’ responses to various religious and non-religious material.

Opening Worlds in Year 3

In Year 3, we currently follow the Opening Worlds curriculum for humanities. This approach has a coherent, chronological and rigorous structure that ensures that links are not only made across individual subjects but also across each of the topics covered. This means that knowledge is gradually and successfully built upon and children make explicit links using their previous knowledge. This is consistently revisited and retrieved.