‘Religious education in a Church school should enable every child to flourish and to live life in all its fullness. (John 10:10). It will help educate for dignity and respect encouraging all to live well together’.

Religious Education in Church of England Schools A Statement of Entitlement

RE at Renhold aims for children to investigate and reflect on some of the most fundamental questions asked by people. Our Vision and School Values underpin everything that we do. We are an inclusive school, where everyone has a valuable contribution to make to our school community – we recognise that for many of our families faith is important, whilst other may have none.

We endeavour to develop the children’s knowledge and understanding of the major world faiths. This provides the children with the opportunity to explore and understand the different cultures and beliefs that surround us all in our local and global society. We provide opportunities for children to develop a sound knowledge not only of Christianity but also of other world religions.

We follow the agreed syllabus by Luton and Bedfordshire, which follows 6 key ways to approach and learn when studying RE.

1. Seeing religions as they are: Providing pupils need to build their understanding of the phenomena of religion. They gather information, learn about religious activities, consider what symbols mean,
2. Answering life’s big questions: Often the RE focus will be on religions as sources of answers to life’s great questions.
3. Concept development and religious literacy: RE teachers seek to clarify key concepts in religion with pupils. What does it mean to talk about celebration, revelation, sacred space or life after death?
4. Developing interpretation skills: Interpretation is the key skill in one view of the subject: learning to see religion as it is lived and experienced, making sense of aspects of practice and the teachings and lived experiences of faiths in the light of observation.
5. Experiencing the spiritual: Another set of learning tools emphasises the spiritual development possibilities of exploring learners‟ own experiences in RE. Sitting with a candle lit in quietness and reflecting on inner thoughts in the light of a religious story or study of practice gives the pupil a route to their own insights.
6. Worldview analysis and development: Another way of working is centrally concerned with the world views of the pupils, and developing their awareness of how they see the world in comparison to how others see the world: religions then become source of viewpoints from which anyone can learn.