Religious Education

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At St Peter’s Church of England Aided School our vision for RE is to develop students so that by the end of Year 11 they are religiously literate and able to appreciate the influence and role of religious and non-religious worldviews in a diverse and sometimes challenging global community. We strive to encourage students to be reflective, thoughtful and considerate in their thinking and disagreements with others. We encourage students to appreciate and understand the impact of Christianity in the school and the global environment, alongside a variety of other worldviews, recognising and celebrating their independence of thought. Whatever their conclusions and thinking on a range of issues and topics we hope that RE lessons have provided opportunities for them to be rigorous and creative thinkers.

Religious Education should facilitate and enhance human flourishing through exploring concepts such as religious and non-religious sources of wisdom, belief, faith, God, reconciliation, forgiveness, service, recognition and acceptance, and stewardship. In short, we aim for well-educated, well-balanced students who will have developed their potential as fully as possible in a caring Christian atmosphere.

Curriculum Aims

The approach taken in lessons follows the school priorities of the CORE ingredients with students being encouraged to become resilient and independent learners through carefully structured learning sequences that seek to engage, inspire, challenge, arouse curiosity and provide opportunities for personal reflection and thought. We believe this will be best achieved through a varied diet of teaching and learning experiences where students are regularly challenged. In addition, we are always seeking ways of enhancing the curriculum through appropriate visits and visitors.

GCSE Overview

AQA A Religious Studies GCSE

Paper 1: 1 hour 45 minutes (50% of final mark)

Christianity Beliefs and Teachings
Christianity Practices
Islam Beliefs and Teachings
Islam Practices

Paper 2: 1 hour 45 minutes (50% of final mark)

Peace and Conflict
Crime and Punishment
Religion and Life
Relationships and Family

Grouping

Classes are grouped in mixed ability sets in both Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4.

Useful Online Resources

Seneca https://senecalearning.com/en-GB/
(students sign up with school email address and choose password, teachers will give them a class code which needs to be used once to join a class)

GCSE Pod https://gcsepod.com
(use your Google account)

Kerboodle https://www.kerboodle.com/users/login?user_return_to=%2Fapp%2Fcourses%2F29628
(Username and password are usual school log in, Institution Code is sta3)

BBC Bitesize https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/examspecs/zjgx47h

Staffing

Mrs Kelly Keatley (Subject Learning Leader for RE)
Mr Martin Thompson (Head of Year, RE teacher)
Miss Gemma Hartnell (RE and History teacher)
Miss Karriad Shawcross (RE teacher)
Miss Maria Kapodistria (RE and VIP teacher)

Homework

Homework in RE is in line with school policy which allows flexibility for teachers to set homework activities that are high quality, purposeful and relevant to curriculum provision. When homework is set it will be to enrich the learning already taking place in the classroom to consolidate previous learning or to prepare students for new information. Homework in Years 9-11 will usually be revision based activities and when specific homework is not set, students will be encouraged to use that time to consolidate their learning and to use resources such as Kerboodle, Seneca, GCSEPod or BBC Bitesize during this time.

Assessment

Students are assessed regularly in accordance with the whole-school assessment policy. In accordance with the best practice with regard to Assessment for Learning assessments are designed to be formative and so enable students to understand where they are and what they need to do in order to make further progress. Assessments in KS3 aim to provide a varied diet of educational experience. In KS4 assessments are structured to facilitate the development of requisite examination skills. Teachers provide timely feedback to allow students to identify gaps in knowledge, misunderstandings and areas for further development.

Extra Curricular

Enrichment is an integral part of the RE Curriculum at St Peter’s and students regularly have opportunities to meet people from a variety of faith backgrounds and to visit different places of worship.

Year 7 and 9 students have a number of visits from different church leaders in the Spring Term as part of the units studied at this time. Year 7 are exploring Big Questions and Year 9 are finishing their first Christianity unit (Beliefs and Teachings) and preparing to move onto their second unit (Practices) as part of their GCSE. The visits provide opportunities for students to find out about diversity within the Christian faith as well as a substantial amount of time to ask their own questions to the visitors.

Year 8 students have the opportunity to visit a number of different churches in Exeter and the Mosque during the Summer Term. This visit prepares students for the start of their GCSE and allows them to see different types of churches and visit the mosque to see the layout and how this relates to worship.

Some Year 9 students are invited to represent the school in Exeter for Holocaust Memorial Day commemorations in January of each year. This is to hear different talks delivered and there are also opportunities to visit Exeter Synagogue, the Quaker Meeting House and to take part in a walk taking in different sites in the city centre that relate to human rights.

For GCSE groups, we aim to expose students to a number of different organisations that highlight different aspects of the specification. For example, students will learn about charities and organisations such as Street Pastors and Open Doors and where possible, may be able to hear presentations from individuals and organisations connected to the GCSE curriculum. This enrichment will change and develop as we are able to make links with more external agencies.