Religious Education at Bromstone Primary School

A concept based approach

•Bromstone Follows the Kent Agreed Syllabus.

•We have developed our teaching methodology from Hampshire’s Living Difference.

We have three RE weeks a year – one each term with a focus on a different aspect of the Kent Agreed Syllabus.

During our RE weeks we plan a cross-curricular topic. If other subjects fit in naturally we include them – if they don’t we do not force inappropriate links.

Teachers plan stimulating visits, speakers and learning opportunities.

All of our topics start with a ‘stimulus’.Our children LOVE our RE weeks.

Concept Based Planning

We take the content for our RE weeks from the concepts in the Kent Agreed Syllabus:

Community symbol worshipLight Brahman beliefBelonging psalm PilgrimageRevelation responsibility authority Commandment submission Torah

Our RE weeks are active, involving visits, speakers and discussion.

Children in year 3 had a visit from Maggie from Fegans and visited the Baptist Church. They were exploring the theme of ‘belonging’.

The week long project gave the children time to explore the theme of commitment with particular reference to belonging to the Baptist Church.

• Children developed a deeper sense of the concept of commitment by looking at the lives of famous Christians: Desmond Tutu and Sister Frances Dominica.

• They watched and discussed a video on the work of the Tear Fund and the ending of Apartheit.

• They then applied their new knowledge and understanding to showing their own commitment to our school.

‘In reception children listen to specialist words and use their senses in exploring religious beliefs, practices and forms of expression’.Kent Agreed Syllabus

Reception children studied ‘Harvest’

The children discussed where their food comes from. They made bread and soup and went on to taste it. They discussed why many religions celebrate Harvest through ceremonies to thank God.

Year 2 Visited Canterbury Cathedral for their RE stimulus.

This was the first time any of the children had visited the Cathedral! They told me they ‘loved’ the visit and were ‘amazed – it was so massive’.

This was a multisensory activity which appealed to different learning styles.

The visit and ensuing work was so successful that the teachers have decided to continue the theme into our next SIX weekly block of work on the theme of light. They are going to use the ‘awe and wonder’ the children experienced in the Cathedral to inspire them to study light in the context of Divali, Hannuka and Christmas. The theme goes across several disciplines including literacy, science, history and art.

Year 6 studied Judaism and particularly ‘Tashlick’.

Tashlick is a tradition connected with the Day of Atonement where stones are cast into the sea.

Children studied the concept of ‘symbols and religious expression’. They then made their own stones which symbolically represented aspects of their own lives or personalities that they wished to change.

One of our new arrivals from Romania has written ‘Speke to my father in Romania’.

‘I will change my behaviour and not

distract others.’

‘Lights will Shine’

In their own ceremony the children then cast their stones into the sea.

At Bromstone we do not see RE as an ‘add on’ which we need to ‘find space for’ in the curriculum. We embrace RE as an awe inspiring stimulus and starting point for developing literacy, art, music, history, geography and most aspects of the curriculum.