Religious Education
Subject Rationale
At Stanbury Village School, our Religious Education (RE) curriculum is designed to promote respectful understanding, curiosity, and reflection, enabling our pupils to explore the beliefs, practices, and values that shape our communities locally, nationally, and globally. Through high-quality RE teaching, we aim to foster a sense of identity, belonging, and empathy in an increasingly diverse world.
Our curriculum follows the Believing and Belonging West Yorkshire Agreed Syllabus, which is locally agreed by the Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education (SACRE). This scheme provides a rich and balanced curriculum that explores the six major world religions, as well as non-religious worldviews, in a way that is age-appropriate, inclusive, and rooted in our local context. The syllabus encourages children to learn about religion (knowledge and understanding) and from religion (personal reflection and response), in line with national expectations.
Structured around key questions and thematic enquiry units, our RE curriculum allows pupils to build their understanding progressively across key stages. Pupils revisit key beliefs, concepts, and practices through a spiral curriculum model, enabling them to deepen their understanding and make thoughtful comparisons across religions and worldviews.
Creativity, dialogue, and personal reflection are embedded within our RE curriculum, encouraging pupils to express their own views while developing tolerance and respect for others. Through discussions, storytelling, visits to places of worship, and encounters with members of faith communities, pupils are encouraged to make meaningful connections between their learning and their own experiences.
We recognise that teachers may come from a range of backgrounds and hold varying levels of confidence in teaching RE. The Believing and Belonging scheme provides clear, accessible planning and guidance, including key vocabulary, learning outcomes, and suggested activities to support high-quality RE teaching across all year groups. This ensures that all pupils receive a rich and balanced RE education, regardless of the teacher’s prior subject knowledge.
Our RE curriculum equips pupils to engage thoughtfully with the world around them, fostering mutual respect, open-mindedness, and a deeper understanding of belief, belonging, and identity in modern Britain.
