Our Intent Statement

Religious education contributes dynamically to children and young people’s character education by provoking challenging questions about meaning and purpose in life, beliefs about God, and issues of right and wrong and what it means to be human.

Our RE curriculum is underpinned and driven by our ASPIRE values to ensure that our children develop personal and cultural awareness and respect. They will learn about and from religions and worldviews in local, national and global contexts, to discover, explore and consider different answers to these questions.

We aim to equip children with the systematic knowledge and understanding of a range of religions and worldviews, enabling them to develop their ideas, values and identities. Units are taught in a coherent and logical sequence, that

We develop in children an aptitude for dialogue so that they can participate positively in our society with its diverse religions and worldviews. Children should gain and deploy the skills needed to understand, interpret and evaluate texts, sources of wisdom and authority and other evidence. Our curriculum is underpinned by the use of high quality texts and vocabulary development. This is essential as it will allow children to articulate clearly and coherently their personal beliefs, ideas, values and experiences while respecting the right of others to differ.

Implementation 

Thomas Harding Junior School teaches RE from the Bucks Agreed Syllabus 2022-2027, which was created in conjunction with Bucks SACRE (School Advisory Council for Religious Education).  

The main focus of our RE curriculum is Christianity with Hinduism, Judaism and Islam being studied thematically in Years 3 to 6. In addition, aspects of Humanism are taught in upper key stage two. 

Experiences and enrichment opportunities at Thomas Harding Junior School 

• handling artefacts
• exploring scared texts
• using  drama to express feelings and ideas
• responding to images, games, stories, art, music and dance
• meeting visitors from local religious communities
• making visits to religious places of worship where possible, and where not, making use of videos and the internet
• taking part in whole school events- (multi-faith days, Harvest Festival, school performances)
• participating in moments of quiet reflection
• participating in assemblies
• using research to further explore religion and belief globally
• comparing religions and worldviews through discussion
• debating and communicating religious belief, worldviews and philosophical ideas and answering and asking ultimate questions posed by these

Impact

Following the implementation of our broad, and challenging curriculum, the children of Thomas Harding will be respectful, tolerant, thoughtful and understanding members of society both within our Chesham community and the wider world.

Children will have a better understanding of their own beliefs to help them find their place within the world. They will think about how their actions can affect others and celebrate the diversity both within our community and the world.  Children will think deeply about wisdom from different sources, understanding how this fits with their own belief system and know how to respectfully agree or disagree. They will have a strong understanding of different religions including where, how and why they worship. This will enable them to be considerate, well-informed and tolerant members of society.