As there is no National Curriculum for Religious Education, faith leaders and educational professionals from across Leicester City came together to write an Agreed Syllabus for RE - SACRE. They also produced non-statutory guidance - 'Harmony and Diversity' - to support the teaching of RE in Leicester City.
Intent - what do we hope to achieve for and with our children?
At King Richard III Infant and Nursery School, we follow the Leicester City agreed syllabus for RE, which reflects our diverse school and the surrounding community.
We are not a faith school, and we do not seek to promote any one particular faith or belief system. We see that our role is to make the children aware of a range of beliefs and practices that are part of our richly diverse community.
Similarly, whilst we explore festivals and celebrations from a range of faiths, we do not ask the children to participate in acts of worship.
All of our children are taught that people within our community hold different beliefs and faiths (including the choice not to hold a faith). This supports the key value of respect for and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs.
The core purpose of RE is to engage pupils in systematic enquiry into challenging questions raised by religion and worldviews, so that they can develop the understanding and skills needed to appreciate and appraise varied responses to these questions, as well as develop responses of their own.
(Taken from Harmony and Diversity)
Agreed Syllabus for religious education for Leicester City
Implementation: How do we plan for our children's learning in this subject?
At King Richards, we believe that RE should be active, creative and fun.
RE provides an opportunity for children to explore and test out different ideas about the world that we are living in. We believe that these opportunities should grow from understanding about different religions. This understanding strengthens the children’s confidence to question ideas and make links to their own experiences and opinions.
We believe that these opportunities and experiences provide the children in our school with the understanding of why RE is relevant to all of their different lives now, and how it will continue to be relevant in the future.
By building on from Early Years' work about understanding the world, we aim to support children to develop their knowledge of different religions and their understanding of different worldviews. We support them to develop the skills they need to question, debate, compare and critically assess different answers to ‘big’ human questions.
We believe that the skills we equip children with at this age will enable them to go into the world as curious, independent thinkers who are able to understand and consider any views they may encounter. As a school with a highly mobile population, we recognise the importance of introducing these key skills from the very beginning and throughout the children’s time with us, however long or short that time may be.