To Know You more Clearly RE Scheme
The outcome of excellent religious education is religiously literate and consciously engaged young people who have the knowledge, understanding, and skills – appropriate to their age and capacity – to reflect spiritually, and think ethically and theologically, and who recognise the demands of religious commitment in everyday life.
Religious education is at the heart of everything we do at St Pius and is delivered within a broad and balanced curriculum, where it informs every aspect of the curriculum. Every other subject in our school is underpinned by religious education through our six school values. Based on the Beatitudes, they have been linked with inspiring role models who embody the values:
Integrity - “The time is always right, to do what is right.” Martin Luther King
Fairness - “Stand for something or you will fall for anything. Today’s mighty oak is yesterday’s nut that held its ground.” Rosa Park
Peace - “I truly believe the only way we can create global peace is through not only educating our minds, but our hearts and our souls.” Malala Yousafzai
Kindness - “Be the living expression of God's kindness: kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile." Mother Teresa
Forgiveness - “Loving God means serving our neighbour without reserve and trying to forgive without limits.” Pope Francis
Service - “The future of humanity and indeed all life on Earth depends on us.” David Attenborough
At St Pius X we follow the model curriculum as set out in the Religious Education Directory, “To know You more clearly”. Religious Education lessons form 10% of the curriculum timetable, distributed throughout the week.
The programme of study has a framework with four structural elements: knowledge lenses, ways of knowing, expected outcomes and curriculum branches.
Knowledge lenses:
These set out the object of study for pupils and indicate what should be known by the end of each age-phase. They divide the content of the programme of study into four systematic subsections for the study of Catholicism and two additional lenses for the study of religious and worldviews, which together comprise the six knowledge lenses of: hear, believe, celebrate and live (the study of the Catholic religion), dialogue and encounter (the study of other religions and worldviews).
Ways of knowing:
These set out the skills that pupils should be developing as they progress through their curriculum journey. Whenever we know something, we always know it in more than one way: we remember it, we critically assimilate, and we put it into practice. The three ways of knowing are: understand, discern, and respond.
Expected Outcomes:
These are a synthesis of the content outlined in the knowledge lenses and the skills described in the ways of knowing. Expected outcomes for each age-range can be found in our progression map here.
Curriculum Branches
The curriculum is organised into six branches that correspond to the six half-terms of a school year which are:
- Creation and Covenant
- Prophecy and Promise
- Galilee to Jerusalem
- Desert to Garden
- To the end of the Earth
- Dialogue and Encounter.
Impact:
As the model curriculum is rooted in the narrative of salvation history, it leads pupils on a journey in each year of schooling that gives a sequence to the learning. As they revisit each branch in each year of school, they come to a deeper understanding of its significance for Catholic belief and practice, which allows them to make links between the four knowledge lenses within the context of the narrative of salvation history. At St Pius, we are passionate about ensuring the children are able to live and celebrate the Catholic beliefs using the scripture they have learnt as their guide. We expect pupils to embody the Catholic Social Teaching Principles, which are closely related to our school values. We have designed each branch in every year group to build up towards answering a “Big Question”, which encourages our pupils to effectively reflect on what they have learnt and demonstrate their understanding.