At Selling CE Primary School, we believe that RE should help children to become effective, resilient and curious learners by delivering a curriculum which encourages children to ask questions about their own and other people’s beliefs.

By following the 'Understanding Christianity' curriculum, we encourage children to question and to develop their own beliefs spiritually, morally, socially and culturally. 

The RE that we teach plays an important part of our broad and balanced curriculum. It is taught through a variety of different techniques including art, drama, discussion, reflection, questioning and Godly Play. 

The principle aims for Religious Education are:

• To know about and understand Christianity as a diverse, global, living faith that influences the lives of people across the globe and recognise its influence on Britain’s culture and heritage.
• To gain knowledge and understanding of a range of religions and worldviews appreciating diversity, continuity and change within them and to enable children to foster respect for others.
• To explore their own religious, spiritual and philosophical ways of living, believing and thinking and to articulate their own opinions whilst respecting the right of others to differ.

Religious Education is a core subject at our school and our curriculum is designed to be fun, engaging, challenging, broad and balanced enabling children to engage in religious texts, make connections with their own views and realise the impact of others’ beliefs in their everyday lives. As a church school, we believe every child should be educated in an environment of ‘generous hospitality’ being true to their own faith yet deeply respectful of others across the curriculum but especially in RE. We use an enquiry approach to learning through the Understanding Christianity resources and the Kent Agreed Syllabus to learn about other world religions. Links with our school’s values and vision, and support for pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural (SMSC) development are intrinsic to our RE curriculum and have a significant impact on learners. We provide a range of opportunities for learners to understand and make links between the beliefs, practices and value systems of a range of faiths and world views studied. We use a variety of teaching techniques such as drama, art, discussion, use of artefacts, stories and reflection to provide children with opportunities to develop balanced and informed views about religions and world views. Children are encouraged to reflect critically and responsibly on their own spiritual, philosophical and ethical convictions using I wonder questions during lessons and consider how they understand the world and their own life experiences. Children discuss learning questions confidently and respect each other’s opinions on a variety of topics.

Where possible we want our pupils to have opportunities to encounter local faith communities through visits to local places of worship and visits from members of local faith communities.

Parents have the right to withdraw their children from Religious Education. However, in view of the Christian ethos and distinctive Christian character of our school, we would hope that all children admitted will participate fully in RE, and that anyone wishing to withdraw their child would discuss this with the headteacher before making a final decision.