At Bentfield Primary School we use the Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education (EXPLORE) developed by Essex as the basis for our curriculum. While we focus on the major world religions and those predominantly represented in Great Britain: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Sikhism and Buddhism, in line with the Agreed Syllabus, we also take into account that religious traditions in Great Britain are in the main Christian and so ensure that as a whole and at each key stage the relative content devoted to Christianity predominates. RE also plays a central role in promoting British Values and is used as a tool to introduce and teach the concepts of citizenship, respect and tolerance as well as supporting pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.

Purpose of study

High-quality RE will support pupils’ religious literacy. In the context of this syllabus, being religiously literate means that pupils will have the ability to hold balanced and well-informed conversations about religion and worldviews. Pupils will be able to make sense of religion and worldviews around them and begin to understand the complex world in which they live. RE is primarily about enabling pupils to become free thinking, critical participants of public discourse, who can make academically informed judgements about important matters of religion and belief which shape the global landscape.

Aims

The RE curriculum aims to ensure that all pupils:

• Know about and understand a range of religious and non-religious worldviews by learning to see these through theological, philosophical and human/social science lenses.
• Express ideas and insights about the nature, significance and impact of religious and non-religious worldviews through a multidisciplinary approach.
• Gain and deploy skills rooted in theology, philosophy and the human/social sciences engaging critically with religious and non-religious worldviews.

For further information, please see the following documents: