Religious Education

What is RE?

RE explores big questions about life, to find out what people believe and what difference this makes to how they live. RE helps pupils to make sense of religion and belief, reflecting on their own ideas and ways of living.

How does RE link to our school vision?

As a school we want staff and pupils to spur each other on with love to be the best that they can be within every area of the curriculum.  Within Religious Education this means encouraging each other to ask big questions, aspiring to grow in knowledge about what people believe and how this makes a difference to how they live their lives.

Intent Statement for Religious Education

At Bickleigh Down C of E (Aided) Primary School, we believe that RE should take a multidisciplinary approach. By the end of their time at school, all of our children will have the opportunity to study RE through different ‘lenses’ such as psychology, philosophy, sociology and theology to find out about people’s differing worldviews. This will enable our children to find out about what different people believe and how this makes a difference to how they live.

Throughout their time at Bickleigh Down C of E (Aided) Primary School, our children will be given the opportunity to study a range of world religions and non-religious worldviews. As a school, we are committed to ensuring that our RE curriculum is based upon recent research. For this reason, our children will learn through the worldviews approach to RE. This will ensure that they will learn about diversity within the worldviews that they study. All of our children will be given a range of opportunities to ask big questions about religion and belief, reflecting on their own ideas and ways of living.

At Bickleigh Down C of E (Aided) Primary School, we believe that our RE curriculum should be challenging, exciting, thought provoking and interesting. We want to ensure that our children go out into the world understanding the differing views of the people that they will come into contact with.

Pupil Intent Statement

RE explores big questions about life, to find out what people believe and what difference this makes to how they live. RE helps pupils to make sense of religion and belief, reflecting on their own ideas and ways of living.

What does our RE Curriculum look like?

At Bickleigh Down C of E (Aided) Primary School we follow the Devon locally agreed syllabus that includes the Understanding Christianity materials. 

Our curriculum is mapped out in the following way:

RE Events

The children in our school take part in a range of events and learning opportunities that link to their work in Religious Education.  Here you will find updates, examples of work and photos of these events.

Finding out about Islam

In Year Two, the children have been finding out about key beliefs in Islam.  This week, Jonathan Marshall visited them (via video link) to talk about his work with the Islamic community in Plymouth.  Jonathan talked about the different Mosques in the city and shared stories of how his friends lived out the five pillars of Islam.  Year Two loved hearing from Jonathan and had lots of questions to ask him.

Holocaust Memorial Day 2022

As part of our reflections on Holocaust Memorial Day and their ongoing study of Judaism, Year Six had a virtual visit from Jonathan Marshall M.B.E. Jonathan talked to the children about Holocaust Memorial Day and why it is important.  He also told the story of his good friend Solly Irving.  Solly was a Holocaust survivor who used to visit schools to tell his story.  Sadly, Solly died in 2017 but Jonathan continues to tell his story.  Solly's father helped him to escape a ghetto and as they parted ways said "Solly, you have to survive so that someone can tell our story".  Year Six were extremely moved by Solly's story and asked Jonathan lots of thoughtful questions about what had happed to Solly.  Later in the morning, the children wrote postcards to Jonathan thanking him for sharing Solly's story and reflecting upon what it meant to them.  Many of the children were moved by the words that Solly used to finish his story with "When you go out into the world try to be friends with people, especially those who appear to be different; talk to them and respect them, even though their beliefs may be different. After all, we are all part of the same human family, aren’t we? Try to create a better world than the one I had to endure.”

Year 3 make the front page of REToday Magazine

Last academic year, Year 3 spent some time learning about the life of Moses.  The children found out about the Passover celebration and thought about what life might have been like for the Hebrew people as they left Egypt.  Later in the term the children were given the chance to interview Luke Brady who plays Moses in the West End stage production of the Prince of Egypt.  The children thought of some challenging questions for Luke and had their work published in REToday magazine.  Year 3 were really excited to find out that their article became the cover story!

Year 6 feature in REToday magazine

In the Autumn Term, the children in Year 6 found out about the concept of 'Gospel'.  As part of this unit they found out about Jesus' Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes.  The children learnt about what Jesus called his followers to do and how he wanted them to act.  Later in the unit Year 6 found out about the life of Mother Teresa.  They Discussed how she put Jesus' teachings into action and rewrote the Beatitudes from her point of view.  Year 6 were lucky enough to have their work published in REToday magazine.  This national publication goes out to hundreds of different schools and thousands of members of NATRE.  Well done Year 6, we are really proud of you!  

RE Learning at Home

Well done to all the children from across the school who are working so hard on their RE home learning.  Here are some examples of what children from different year groups have been doing in their RE lessons at home.  If you would like to see some of our video RE lessons, you will find them in the 'Video Resource' section of our school website.  

(January 2021)

Links with Goldsmiths University

In January last year, Year 5 were visited by Adam Dinham and Martha Shaw from Goldsmiths University.  Adam and Martha were doing some research into teaching RE with an approach that linked to the Commission on RE's final report.  Click on the link below to see the video of the children's lesson and the final case study about the way that RE is taught at Bickleigh Down. 

 Innovative RE: Case studies | Goldsmiths, University of London

Finding out about Advent

Year 1 have been finding out about Advent in their RE lessons this week.  The children spent time researching what happens in church during Advent.  They found out that the church is often decorated in purple and some vicars wear purple vestments. Later in the lesson they found out about Advent Wreaths.  These wreaths are often used in churches at Christmas to remember different parts of the Christmas story.  The children made their own class wreaths and wrote notes to remind everyone of what the different candles represent.

Home Learning

All our children at Bickleigh Down have been continuing their RE learning while at home.  Here are some examples of what children from across our school have been doing.

Foundation Stage Home Learning

During their time at home, Foundation have been learning about stories from the Bible.  The children found out about 'Daniel and the Lion's Den' and 'Joseph and his Dreamcoat'.  They read Daniel's story, made lion masks and acted out the story with their families.  The children also learnt about Joseph's story and designed him a new coat of many colours. 

RE Home Learning Opportunities

Thy Kingdom Come

During May, churches across the country will be taking part in a prayer event which is linked to the Lord's Prayer called 'Thy Kingdom Come'.  Exeter Diocese has produced a range of RE home learning opportunities, for children to find out more about how and why Christians pray.  The resources can be found below.  We would love to see any learning outcomes the children produce which are linked to these resources.

Spirited Arts

During their time away from school, Key Stage One pupils have been creating artwork and poems based on the Spirited Arts theme 'Where is God?',  Spirited Arts is a national competition run by The National Association for Teachers of RE (NATRE).  The competition aims to get children thinking deeply about religious and non-religious worldviews.  Watch this space for photographs of the children's work.  You can find out more about the competition by using this link:

 https://www.natre.org.uk/about-natre/projects/spirited-arts/spirited-arts-2020/ 

Lambeth Palace

Our school was invited by RE Today to share our RE work at Lambeth Palace.  Many important people looked at our work and Miss Freeman was invited to talk about what RE looks like in our classrooms.  

Bible Timeline

Bickleigh Down C of E Primary School were really lucky to have Gary from 'Flash Signs' visit.  Gary created a Bible timeline on one of the walls in our school which features the key concepts in Christianity that the children study as part of their RE curriculum.  The children often visit the timeline in their RE lessons to find out about where the concept that they are studying fits in to the big story of the Bible.

Holocaust Memorial Flames Exhibition 

Our school was invited to take part in the Holocaust Memorial flames Exhibition at Plymouth Guildhall in January 2020.  Year 6 worked in class to find out about the Holocaust and Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD).  They used their knowledge of this to design and create a memorial flame to represent 75 years since the liberation of the concentration camps.  The children's flame featured 75 smaller flames to represent each of the 75 years.  Some representatives from Year 6 took the flame to Plymouth's Guildhall and shared their learning with the Lord Mayor, Richard Ball.

A Visit From Goldsmiths University

Adam Dinham and Martha Shaw came to visit our school to find out about our RE lessons.  They watched a lesson in Year 5 where the children were finding out about religion and science.  The children shared their knowledge of different theological ideas linked to the Christian view of the creation story.  They then asked their questions to a panel which was made up of Jonathan Marshall (a Buddhist), Karl Freeman (a vicar) and Katie (from Christians in science).  All our visitors were really impressed with the children's knowledge and our pupils found the discussions fascinating.

Remembering Solly Irving 

As a follow up to their work finding out about the Holocaust, Year 6 had a visit from Jonathan Marshall.  Jonathan who works for Plymouth Centre for Faiths and Cultural Diversity told the children about his friend Solly Irving who was a Holocaust survivor.  Jonathan told Solly's story to Year 6 and talked to them about how Solly felt he was destined to survive.  At the end of the session he answered the children's questions and talked to them about the importance of Holocaust Memorial Day.