At Ordsall Primary School we follow the Nottinghamshire Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education - Religious Education for All which promotes three key areas of learning:

• A – Knowledge and Understanding of a range of religions and world views.
• B – Express ideas and insights about the nature, significance and impact of religions and world views.
• C – Gain and deploy skills needed to engage seriously with religions and world views.

At our school Religious Education is taught across the school from EYFS to Year 6. Units of work are placed in blocks each half term to ensure a more focused, contextualised approach to the delivery of the RE curriculum using a BIG question. This allows the children more of an opportunity to gain the knowledge and understanding of the religion they are studying so that they build on prior learning by using what they have learnt to express their own ideas and thoughts in a respectful way.

At Ordsall Primary School in Religious Education the curriculum is aligned to the schools overall intent of using the locality, application of skills, knowledge and understanding and first hand experiences, whenever possible, to support the children’s learning about the religion they are studying. The pilgrims of the Mayflower originate from the local area of the school, which provides excellent opportunities to use the local area as part of the curriculum to link learning in both History and RE.

From Year 1 to Year 6 we use many of the exciting opportunities and resources that are within our local community such as visits to St Swithun’s Church, All Hallows Church and the National Holocaust Centre and Museum. The teachers and adults in school also use Experience days led by the Religious Studies Resource Centre in Nottingham to provide children with a deeper insight and hands on approach to explore Judaism, Hinduism and Islam. In the Early Years Foundation Stage this is done as the children encounter religions and world views by hearing stories about special people, special times and special places as well as exploring objects through planned and purposeful play, through a mixture of adult-led and child-initiated activities.

Our teaching of Religious Education at Ordsall is part of the way in which we explicitly teach Fundamental British Values. Values education and moral education are part of the school’s mission to contribute to the wellbeing of all people within our local and wider communities and make a key educational contribution to pupils’ explorations of different values and attitudes such as:  

• Mutual Tolerance - RE can challenge children and young people to be increasingly respectful and to celebrate diversity.
• Respectful Attitudes – the RE curriculum focuses on the development of mutual respect between those of different faiths and beliefs, promoting an understanding of what a society gains from diversity.
• Democracy – RE enables pupils to learn the significance of each person’s ideas and experiences through methods of discussion.  They debate the fundamental questions of life and learn to respect a range of perspectives.

At Ordsall Primary School we believe that Religious Education provides opportunities to prepare our children for life in modern day Britain and build their Cultural Capital because we aim to ensure that through our Religious Education curriculum:

• Our children form their own opinions about religious beliefs and customs and that they develop an understanding and tolerance of people who hold a strong faith.
• Our children enjoy learning about religion because it is taught in a stimulating and interesting way that arouses their curiosity and develops positive skills and attitudes. 
• Our children develop a sense of awe and wonder about the world around them.
• Our children understand some of the impact of religion throughout the world, its influences on the lives of individuals and communities and its effect on the cultural diversity of their own and other societies both presently and in the past. 

• Our children are supported in developing their pupils spiritual, moral social and cultural development by encouraging self-awareness and self-respect.
• Our children are helped to develop their social and moral development by encouraging a positive attitude and valuing the beliefs of others, however different from their own. 
• Our children develop knowledge and understanding of Christianity and other major religions in Britain and in the local community.

It is our intention that the Religious Education curriculum at Ordsall Primary School will be both stimulating and motivating in order to capture the children’s curiosity and fuel their motivation to learn. Learning, Playing and Growing Together in Religious Education provides the children at Ordsall Primary School with exciting learning opportunities so that they can enjoy acquiring and developing their skills, understanding and key knowledge so that they can commit it to long-term memory and apply it fluently in a range of contexts in the future.

How do we measure the impact of our work in RE?

At Ordsall Primary School we measure the impact of our work in RE in a variety of ways. The school uses its knowledge and vocabulary progression map for RE to compare the work that the children are doing with key points on the map. This allows the staff to assess where the children are, and check which elements are evident from the progression on the maps. In RE this is done by observing the children completing or starting their work, through pupil discussion (when the children are asked about their work)  the record of children's work and their work on display and a scrutiny of social media posts about RE. The assessment process, used within RE, enables the school to evaluate the progress that the children are making, inform future work, measure the impact of what we teach and monitor specific groups. The process is tied together through the records of achievement at the end of the year that are shared with parents and carers.

If you would like to see some of the work that we do in Religious Education please see our Twitter feed @Ordsallschool or our website, which are both used to share the work that we with the parents, the local community and the wider community of Bassetlaw, Nottinghamshire, the region and the United Kingdom.

If you would like to know more about the Religious Education curriculum at Ordsall Primary School please see the documents below. If you have any questions about the work we do in Religious Education please contact the Religious Education Subject Leader at the school.