Religious Education

“Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.” - Aristotle

Religious Education Lead – Miss Hayley Martyn

The Religious Education at Berrycoombe School enables pupils to make sense of religious and non‑religious worldviews, understand their impact on people’s lives, and make thoughtful connections to their own experiences and values.

The Religious Education curriculum at Berrycoombe School:

• Is inclusive, academic and non‑confessional
• Reflects the religion and worldviews approach
• Ensures clear progression in knowledge, understanding and ways of thinking
• Provides pupils with collectively enough knowledge to understand religion and belief in modern Britain

This curriculum is designed to be fully compliant with:

• The National Content Standard for Religious Education in England (REC, 2023)
• The Cornwall Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education 2025–2030

Religious Education is taught through a carefully sequenced long‑term plan that ensures pupils build knowledge, understanding and skills progressively from Reception to Year 6.

How RE is taught

• RE is taught in clearly timetabled lessons, separate from collective worship.
• Lessons follow the agreed long‑term plan and unit sequence based on RE Today materials and the Cornwall Agreed Syllabus.
• Each unit includes:
• clear learning outcomes
• carefully chosen stories, texts, artefacts and examples
• opportunities for discussion, reflection and questioning

Teaching approach

Teachers use a consistent approach across the school so that pupils know how learning in RE works. Lessons focus on:

• learning about beliefs and practices
• understanding how beliefs affect people’s lives
• making thoughtful connections, including reflection on pupils’ own views

Pupils experience both:

• systematic units (studying one religion or worldview in depth), and
• thematic units (bringing together ideas from different religious and non‑religious worldviews).

Classroom practice

• Teaching uses stories, images, artefacts, visits, visitors and discussion to help pupils understand lived religion.
• Lessons encourage respectful talk and active learning.
• Teachers explicitly revisit prior learning so pupils remember and connect ideas over time.

Assessment

• Assessment is ongoing and built into lessons.
• Teachers check understanding through discussion, written work, creative responses and tasks.
• Assessment focuses on what pupils know, understand and can explain, not on personal belief.

Inclusion

• All pupils can access RE learning.
• Teaching is adapted where necessary to support SEND learners, while maintaining high expectations.