Villiers Primary School is made up of staff and pupils who originate from many nationalities, cultures and faith groups. As a school we aim to celebrate this diversity and offer a welcoming and inclusive environment for all our pupils, including new arrivals and non-native English speakers.

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We believe that Religious Education provides an opportunity to celebrate and foster awareness of these differences within our school and the wider world. It is a subject that celebrates diversity and challenges stereotypes. RE is taught in accordance with the aims of the Agreed Syllabus produced by Wolverhampton SACRE.

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The Scheme of Work for Religious Education covers all the requirements of the Wolverhampton Agreed Syllabus. It was created with Lat Blaylock, SACRE and a working party including a number of teachers from Primary and Secondary schools across the authority. RE is taught in termly units across the school in a combination of religion-based and thematic topics.

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Planning for Religious Education is based on the two Attainment Targets in the Agreed Syllabus:

1. Learning about Religions

2. Learning from Religions

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Learning about religion includes enquiry into and investigation of the nature of religion, its key beliefs and teachings, practices, their impacts on the lives of believers and communities, and the varying ways in which these are expressed. It also includes the skills of interpretation, analysis and explanation. Pupils learn to communicate their knowledge and understanding using specialist vocabulary. It also includes identifying and developing an understanding of ultimate questions and ethical issues. 

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Learning from religion is concerned with developing pupils’ reflection on and response to their own experiences and their learning about religion. It develops pupils’ skills of application, interpretation and evaluation of what they learn about religion, particularly to questions of identity and belonging, meaning, purpose and truth and values and commitments, and communicating their responses.

Inclusion and differentiation for children with SEN and EAL are taken into account in our planning and teaching as they are in all areas of the curriculum. Within the teaching of RE we make the most of opportunities to help the children develop their sensitivity to relevant issues such as refugees and religious fasting, and to develop positive attitudes towards themselves and others. We endeavour to draw on the varied experiences and backgrounds of our pupils and staff in order to make RE relevant and interesting to our pupils. Important festivals are celebrated from different religions within the school and wider community. 

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Through RE children have the opportunity to develop many key skills such as thinking, researching, evaluating, reflecting and empathising. Wherever possible, links are made between Religious Education and other curriculum subjects.

Religious Education is a key opportunity for children to develop morally, spiritually, socially and culturally. In RE lessons, as well as our Collective Worship, children are invited to reflect on their personal responses to issues, consider other people’s responses, and appreciate that for some people belief in a spiritual dimension is important. We encourage children to consider the answers offered by faith groups to questions of meaning and purpose and problems within society and their own experience. Religious Education also strongly supports the school’s citizenship programme by introducing pupils to the significance of belonging to a community, the diversity of communities in the wider communities, faith rules and their application to moral and ethical issues and cultural influences on religious practice.