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Religious Education

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 religion 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 whilst recognising their God-given 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)

Audiopi https://www.audiopi.co.uk/#fancy-login 
(ask teacher for log in details) 

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 10, RE teacher)
  • Miss Gemma Hartnell (Head of Year 8, 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, Audiopi 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, there are a number of different organisations that are invited in to highlight different aspects of the specification and students can expect to see presentations from charities and organisations such as Street Pastors and Open Doors as well as hearing from a Marine chaplain and talks from experts in the field of palliative care and environmental issues. There may well be additional enrichment as we continue to develop links with external agencies. Enrichment at GCSE also includes revision sessions on Islam delivered by Neomi Alam, a former parent and with links to Exeter Mosque.

Subject Documents Date  
Year 7 Overview SOW 2019 20 07th May 2020 Download
Year 8 Overview SOW 2019 20 07th May 2020 Download
GCSE Overview 07th May 2020 Download