Religious Education at St Patrick’s Church of England Primary Academy
Within our RE teaching, we recognise the variety of religious and non-religious families from which our pupils come. We welcome and celebrate this diversity, are sensitive to the home background of each child, and work to ensure that all pupils feel and are included in our Religious Education. We recognise the importance of pupils’ all-round personal development, and the leading role that RE and our Christian Values play in contributing to the spiritual, moral, social and cultural elements, and how we live our Christian Vision.
The aims of Religious Education are to enable children to develop knowledge and understanding of Christianity, particularly as expressed in the Anglican church, and of other major religious traditions represented in this country, our local community and around the world. We aim to enable children to develop their understanding of, and respect for, different beliefs and traditions. We want our children to mature in their own beliefs, and to develop a sense of themselves as significant, unique and precious.
As well as RE teaching in classes, we have a variety of other practices in school which help develop the children’s spiritual, moral and cultural development, including whole school collective worship in church and in our school, class-based collective worship and individual reflection. We encourage all children to be active participants and a lead themselves, particularly with leading our prayers. There are also opportunities for reflection in each classroom and outdoors to enable children to have the space and opportunity to explore their spirituality, along with a prayer table for children to write a prayer should they wish.
God’s spirit is working amongst us and our Christian and Magnificent Seven values are at the core of all that we do here at St Patrick’s.
