Curriculum Vision

At Brackley C of E Junior School we have designed our curriculum with pupils learning and development at the heart. We are committed to providing a curriculum that is broad, balanced and offers opportunities to grow. It is the school’s curriculum vision that teachers strive for academic excellence and encourage every child to reach the highest levels of achievement and personal development. We recognise that every child is unique - therefore we are dedicated to providing a curriculum that is inclusive and meets the needs of every pupil by supporting them in becoming the best they can be, regardless of their background, special needs, ethnicity or disability. We strive to create a friendly, caring atmosphere which is designed to help every child flourish and realise their full potential. The school staff value the different ways in which pupils learn and plan lessons to account for these differences. Through our curriculum we aim for all pupils to be prepared to live life in all its fullness. We want them to be aspirational for their future and recognise that through valuing and participating fully in their education, everyone has a place and can contribute to the wider community.

Subject Intent

Religious Education is a rigorous, academic, core subject at Brackley C of E Junior School. It is a mechanism for helping our school community to understand one another and enables our children to flourish as citizens in a pluralistic and global community. As a VC school RE is taught according to the Northamptonshire Agreed Syllabus supported by the Diocese of Peterborough Syllabus where Understanding Christianity resources form the bedrock of our teaching on Christianity. We follow a long-term plan for Re which provides children with the opportunity to encounter religions and worldviews; Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism and secular worldviews including humanism. Our spiral curriculum and use of enquiry-based questions support the children’s religious literacy helping them to know more and remember more.

All children receive one hour of RE each week in year group lessons which are delivered by the class teacher or PPA cover. To ensure quality and consistency the subject lead has developed progress milestones, medium term plans, knowledge organisers, lesson power points and assessment for all RE lessons. These are stored on the shared area and differentiated and adapted for each class by the person delivering the unit. The long-term plan includes 2 dedicated RE days each year which support substantive and sufficient RE coverage and opportunity for spiritual development.

The long-term plan for RE is reviewed annually and has responded to children’s knowledge gaps due to missed learning. A long-term programme of continued professional development for RE has been devised to support improving subject knowledge for all staff.

In line with the Northamptonshire Agreed Syllabus and the Diocese of Peterborough Syllabus, it is our intention to equip our children with the knowledge and understanding of a range of religions and world views so that children can hold balanced and informed conversations about religion and belief. We appreciate that a rich discourse of religious and non-religious traditions has shaped Britain and that RE allows children to take their place within a diverse, multi-religious and multi-secular society. We aim for RE at Brackley C of E Junior School to be intellectually challenging and personally enriching, helping children to understand their own world view and how that effects their view of the world. RE at Brackley C of E Junior School helps children to work out how to live a good life.

Subject Implementation

Careful consideration has been given to the development of curriculum progression in RE at Brackley C of E Junior School. The long-term map focuses on knowing more and remembering more through a spiral curriculum with well sequenced thinking about prior knowledge. Progress milestones are clearly identified for each unit in each year. As a Junior School we have worked closely with WIS to ensure curriculum progression. Our long-term plan is ambitious as it builds up subject specific vocabulary, accurate knowledge and has clear learning intentions. Each lesson has a lesson objective, success criteria and key questions. The breadth of coverage includes Abrahamic and Dharmic religions as well as non- religious worldviews so that children can gain deep and broad knowledge. RE lessons are crafted to include a diverse range of activities which allow children space for their own religious or non-religious worldview. They encourage the children’s personal development, applying their learning to living and offer the opportunity to respectfully debate. The long term, spiral plan allows for concepts and knowledge to be built up over time and returned to. Accurate subject knowledge is essential to delivering an effective ambitious RE curriculum and this is supported at Brackley C of E Junior School through membership of NATRE, Gold Diocesan Service Level membership, RE network meeting attendance and a passion for CPD by the subject lead. Staff training occurs termly and RE inspired artwork is dominantly featured in the classroom and throughout the school. Quality resources, artefacts and books have been purchased since 2015 to form a comprehensive bank of resources. Planned visits and visitors support living experiences of religions and this includes a close working partnership with the St. Peter’s Church, Brackley ministry team.