RE Curriculum
Westminster Diocese Inspection Report June 2019
Throughout the school, we have moved away from our previous curriculum of ‘Come and See’ and we are now following the new Religious Education Directory – To know you more clearly. ( See below)
Religious Education policy- July 2025
All classes are following the new Religious Education Directory that will come into effect from September 2026. Each year group follows the 6 branches taught across the year. The teachers deliver the lessons using suggested resources from the diocese or ‘Day by Day’ resources.
The six branches, or strands, of the Religious Education Curriculum Directory are . These branches provide a systematic framework for Catholic education, exploring aspects of scripture, life in Christ, and the Church, and are revisited annually to deepen a child’s understanding of the Christian faith.
Here is a description of each branch:
Autumn Term
- Creation and Covenant: Explores the Christian belief in God’s creation and his relationship with his first people, the Israelites, through accounts in Genesis and the Old Testament narratives concerning Abraham and Moses.
- Prophecy and Promise: Focuses on God’s communication through prophets and the enduring promise of a future Messiah and a continuing relationship with God.
Spring Term
- From Galilee to Jerusalem: Covers Jesus’ life, ministry, and teachings, his disciples, and the events leading up to the Passion, Death, and Resurrection.
- From Desert to Garden: This branch explores the early Church, the coming of the Holy Spirit, the lives of the Apostles, and the spread of the Gospel into the world.
Summer Term
- To the Ends of the Earth: Deals with the missionary work of the Church, the expansion of Christianity across the world, and the importance of sharing the faith with others.
- Dialogue and Encounter: Focuses on the Church’s engagement with other religions and non-believers, promoting understanding, respect, and active listening in a globalized world.
Each term, information relating to the content of each RE topic is posted on the Google Classroom. Children love to complete a home learning task for each topic, which is used to take pupils’ learning forward and encourages them to think more deeply about the theme with their family. Activities may include designing a baptism candle (Year 2), creating an Advent wreath (Year 1) or designing your own Advent calendar (Year 6)
Religious Education Intent
Our Religious Education curriculum aims to be ‘the core of the core curriculum’, Pope John Paul II.
By placing RE at the core of the curriculum, we are able to fulfil our mission to educate the whole person which has been created lovingly by God. Religious Education at St Adrian’s aims to bring pupils’ closer to God through knowledge and understanding as well as facilitating all pupils to be religiously literate. As well as engagingly presenting a comprehensive curriculum which provides the basis of knowledge and understanding of the Catholic faith, the intent of our Religious Education curriculum is to:
- Enable pupils to continually to deepen their religious and theological understanding and be able to communicate this effectively;
- To engage in a systematic study of the mystery of God, of the life and teaching of Jesus Christ, the teachings of the Church, the central beliefs that Catholics hold, the basis for them and the relationship between faith and life;
- To present an authentic vision of the Church’s moral and social teaching so that pupils can make a critique of the underlying trends in contemporary culture and society;
- To give pupils an understanding of the religions and worldviews present in the world today and the skills to engage in respectful and fruitful dialogue with those whose worldviews differ from their own;
- To develop the critical faculties of pupils so that they can relate their Catholic faith to daily life;
- To stimulate pupils’ imagination and provoke a desire for personal meaning as revealed in the truth of the Catholic faith;
- To enable pupils to relate the knowledge gained through Religious Education to their understanding of other subjects in the curriculum;
- To bring clarity to the relationship between faith and life, and between faith and culture
- To encourage children to respect and be fully aware of the needs of others as equal members of God’s creation
- To present an authentic vision of the Church’s moral and social teaching to provide pupils with a sure guide for living and the tools to critically engage with contemporary culture and society;
Further information on how you can support your child’s learning in RE this term can be found by going onto your own child’s class blog.
Each class is named after a saint whose life is an inspiration to them.
Other faiths
As well as learning about our own faith, we also believe it is important for children to learn about other World Faiths. This takes place in branch 6 of the curriculum .
The order that pupils learn about other world religions is based on the model provided by Pope St Paul VI in his encyclical Ecclesiam Suam.
The concentric circles show that we begin by deepening an understanding of Christianity, then encountering Abrahamic faiths, Dharmic faiths then other religious and non-religious worldviews.
This branch is about more than food and festivals, instead it aims to encourage pupils to think about sharing a common humanity and working towards shared goals.
The focus is how we exchange ideas and work with all people to promote the common good. For example, in Year 1, Dialogue begins by understanding that the Cross is the symbol of Christianity and invites them to look for the Cross in their local parish community, then Christian communities in a place outside their local community. It might be in a different geographical location or a nearby Anglican Church. Encounter in Year 1 invites pupils to learn about Judaism; aspects of modern Jewish life in Britain, including specific vocabulary about the Jewish belief in one God and the Torah as a special text.