Religious Education

Intent (before the teaching)

At Wendell Park, we feel it is incredibly important that all our pupils both learn about religion and from it, in order to connect with, further understand and make sense of the world around us. We support pupils in developing their own coherent patterns of values and principles, in addition to supporting their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. Our students are encouraged to ask questions about our world, and in reflecting and sharing their own beliefs and experiences with each other, common values can also be recognised and celebrated.

Through our religious education curriculum, we aim to develop our appreciation and understanding of the diversity of religious faiths and world views. As we teach RE in weekly blocks, this allows for a deeper exploration and dialogue to be generated, beyond just the ‘facts’, and for our pupils to think philosophically about how they want to live their lives.

Implementation (subject in action)

We use the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham’s Religious Education Agreed Syllabus (AS), ‘Living Difference III’.

For Reception to Year 6, the syllabus is statutory and the recommended teaching hours are:

• Reception and KS1: 36 hours per year
• KS2: 45 hours per year

At Wendell Park, we teach 6/7 hours of RE in a weekly block every half term.

Although it is not statutory in Nursery, our Nursery children enjoy celebrating a wide range of festivals throughout the year from different faiths and non-faiths.

In Reception, the children engage with aspects of Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism and in KS1 and KS2, study extends to Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, Buddhism and Humanism.

Throughout our religious education curriculum, children learn to use the enquiry skills of:

• Communicate: to attend to their own and others’ experience
• Apply: to attend to their own and others’ experience
• Enquire: to engage intellectually
• Contextualise: to engage intellectually
• Evaluate: to discern value for others and themselves in a way dependent on the context of the enquiry.

The Living Difference III approach is a process of enquiry into concepts, where a concept is understood as a name for, or way of referring to, an idea that exists or has the possibility of existing in a particular kind of way under particular conditions: for example, belonging, peace, family or wisdom. There are concepts common to all people, concepts shared by many religions and concepts distinctive to particular religions.

 Our school embraces opportunities to visit various places of worship and speak to members of our community and beyond to deepen our understanding of these concepts.  

Parents have the right to withdraw their child from RE lessons, if you wish to do this please contact the school. 

Impact (after the teaching)

Overarching enquiry questions guide the individual cycles of enquiry in our religious education curriculum and within these, good questioning and bringing children to attend to their own experience of particular concepts, develops a deeper understanding of the related religious as well as non-religious ways of living.

The steps of the cycle of enquiry can be understood as skills which together offer a secure process by which children can be introduced to what a religious way of looking at the world may offer in leading one’s life, individually and collectively.

From Reception through to Year 6, as the children progress their skills in accordance with the age-related expectations in the agreed syllabus and increasingly explore more distinctive concepts, their intellectual abilities will advance. At the ‘Evaluate’ step of each unit, our children engage critically and formulate judgements, not only to reach an understanding of the value held by others but also to discern for themselves what may be desirable or undesirable about living a religious or non-religious life.

Progress and achievement in RE is assessed through class-based discussions, evidence of learning recorded in class floor books and the work in children’s RE books.

RE  Skills and Knowledge Progression 

Our ‘RE subject progression of skills and knowledge  ‘ document gives further information about what the children are taught in this subject by year group.

RE Skills and Knowledge Progression

RE Long term plan

Agreed Syllabus

We use the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham’s Religious Education Agreed Syllabus (AS) this has been modified and adapted for use in Hammersmith & Fulham Schools.

Hammersmith and Fulham is an increasingly diverse Borough.  The Agreed Syllabus was written by experts who brought together representatives of the major world faiths and humanism to adopt a syllabus to be used as a basis for teaching children and young people of all ages and abilities.

For further information about the syllabus please see below:  

Agreed Syllabus - Living Difference III