Religious education (R.E.)

RE at Barnes is guided by the Richmond-Upon-Thames SACRE syllabus. Please find the SACRE syllabus here. At Barnes, teachers promote interfaith understanding by giving children an awareness that they live in a diverse and varied society encompassing many different cultures, faiths and worldviews. We also strive to promote pupils’ spiritual, moral, cultural and mental development. 

From Early Years to Year 6, children are taught the worldviews of a range of religions of:

• Christianity
• Buddhism
• Hinduism
• Islam
• Judaism
• Sikhism
• Humanism

At Barnes, we follow guidance that more weight is given to Christianity to reflect the fact that this belief system is the most dominant in the UK and local area, and has historical and national significance. 

Through high-quality teaching, teachers develop the following essential characteristics of RE learners:  

• Knowledge - facts, understanding and awareness of the major religions and beliefs for individuals, families, communities and cultures. This includes places of worship, religious books and family customs for religious and non-religious people.  
• Skills - being reflective and thinking about the significance of religious acts, beginning to recognise common aspects between religions and non-religious beliefs. We will often start with a question, for example, why is light important to humans?    
• Personal Development - personal reflection and spiritual development where we encourage children to respect individuals and communities of different faiths and beliefs to their own.  

The Early Years (Nursery and Reception) explore RE both through whole class teaching and free flow learning. They look at the following areas: 

• Self and others – the similarities and differences between different children and their beliefs .
• Celebrations and commemorations – including looking at (and sometimes participating in) festivals like Christmas, Holi, Diwali, Hanukkah and Easter.   
• Symbols and rituals – religious and non-religious traditions, places of worship and important stories.
• Living things – care for the natural world and religious and non-religious attitudes to living things .

In Key Stage One (Years 1 and 2) children continue to build their religious knowledge and vocabulary by learning about and from worldwide views in class through art, drama, play, dance and music. This includes:

• Looking at key religions, their customs, religious people and key beliefs .
• Talking about people and things that are special to them personally .
• Hearing religious and non-religious stories .
• Learning about religious buildings, religious and non-religious objects and artefacts, symbols, texts, places and important times, days and festivals .
• Trips to our local church and the Japanese Gardens and the Great Pagoda at Kew Gardens.

In Key Stage Two (Years 3-6), children begin to place greater emphasis on more detailed factual knowledge and specialist vocabulary about: 

• Significant people, organisations, times for prayer or meditation, religious dress and dietary laws.
• Buildings of worship (with visits when possible) and the architecture of religious buildings.
• Sacred texts – including the fact that these books give codes and rules for faiths. 
• Important dates and festivals (including a Harvest Festival performance in Year 5, and a Christmas Carol Concert lead by Year 3).
• Trips to a Synagogue, a Mosque, a Mandir and a Gurdwara.

Please find our RE curriculum maps for Early Years to Year 6 here.

Part of the guidance from Richmond-Upon-Thames SACRE is for schools to offer a daily act of ‘collective worship’.  At Barnes, we usually embrace this as a daily opportunity to reflect on something special or separate from ordinary school activities in order to promote the moral and spiritual welfare of the children.  Collective worship is not religious in its nature but instead calls upon pupils to take a moment to reflect on shared moments of collective interest. For example, this might be the wonder of nature or music, the important moral messages within a story or the unique specialness of each and every pupil. 

Ordinarily, ‘collective worship’ takes place within a whole school assembly, a key stage assembly or a class or ‘tutor group’ gathering. Throughout the year, some assemblies will have a religious focus in which a story from different world religions will be read and reflected upon, often coinciding with important religious events around the world.  

Each term, Father Steven (the vicar from St Michael’s Church) leads two assemblies to Key Stage 1 and 2. These have a Christian focus. We also have other visitors from other key organisations and faiths to come and talk about an aspect of their belief, as well as parents and carers to share their own experiences.