Religious Education
Curriculum intent
To provide a Religious Education for all students that is majority Christian in nature, reflecting the diversity of faith within Birmingham, the United Kingdom and the world, and infused with respect and dignity for all. Our RE engages, motivates and inspires students whilst challenging them academically, ethically and philosophically enabling all student to flourish.
Curriculum implementation
In Religious Education we will use scripture, tradition, wisdom, testimony, scepticism and disagreement as sources in our study of religious belief and practice as we understand how different religions approach the puzzle of what it means to be human. We study how religions organise themselves into communities, where truths come from, how communication with divine and enlightened figures emerges and what this then means for modern issues of the day. We cannot possibly hope to give children an encyclopaedic knowledge of all faith and traditional across human history and the globe, but we can extend children’s knowledge of religious ideas, institutions and issues and enhance their awareness of the contested nature of some of the central concepts within religious debate (Hafez, 2021; inspired by Beck, 1996).
We recognise that religions can make competing truth claims and rather than reduce claims to a relativist whitewashing, we aim to understand religious traditions has having their own internal logic, language, iconography, rituals and practice. Our curriculum also acknowledges that religions are internally diverse, they evolve and change over time and religious influencers are embedded in cultures which enriches our study of belief and practice. Where we observe difference we see it not as a battleground with territory to be fought over but as a fertile ground for growth. Our knowledge rich approach respects Religious Education as its own academic discipline which sits at the interface between the sacred and the worldly.
Learning journey at KS3
You can download a copy of this curriculum overview using the link below:
CCSA Religious Education Learning Journey Key Stage 3
Note that requests for students to be wholly or partly excused from participating in any religious education / worship at the school should be made in writing to the headteacher.
