Religious Education
Religious education (RE) is a significant strength of the school. It is extremely well-led and makes a strong contribution to academic outcomes and spiritual growth - SIAMS report 2019
We hope this page offers you a wealth of information about RE at Headfield. If you require any further information or support with RE please contact our subject leader Miss Sprately in Year 6.
Religious Education (RE) is an important curriculum subject in its own right and also makes a valuable contribution to the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of our pupils.
The teaching of RE allows children to learn about and from religions and other world views, and to reflect on what the religious ideas and concepts mean to them. It allows children to develop an understanding of the influence of beliefs, values and traditions on individuals, communities, societies and cultures and appreciate the value of differences and similarities.
In recognition of high quality religious education, we are extremely proud to have achieved the Religious Education Quality Mark Gold Award.
This has been awarded for embedding excellent, creative and innovative RE practice throughout the school and for recognition as outstanding in the wider community.
Curriculum
RE forms a statutory part of the 2014 National Curriculum and at Headfield we recognise it as a core subject. We follow The Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education in Calderdale, Kirklees and Leeds 2019-2024, entitled 'Believing and Belonging'.
The syllabus is enquiry based, focusing around investigations of key questions and pupils’ personal reflection. Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism are studied in depth alongside non-religious world views. We encourage children to think about their own views and values in relation to the themes and topics studied in the RE curriculum.
As a Voluntary Controlled Church of England school, our RE curriculum reflects the requirement for two-thirds of the teaching to be on Christianity, whilst also including coverage of the variety of world faiths and diversity between them.
RE is taught in regular, timetabled slots, equivalent to an hour a week. We provide a wide range of activities and there are plenty of opportunities for cross-curricular links with subjects such as Art, Music, Drama, PSHE and computing. Lesson content may be adapted to meet the needs of individual classes or individuals.
Here is an overview of the units of work across school.
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Year 3 |
Year 4 |
Year 5 |
Year 6 |
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Autumn 1 |
3.1 How do Jews remember God’s covenant with Abraham and Moses? |
4.1 How are important events remembered? |
5.1 Why are some journeys and places special? |
6.4 How do Jews remember the Kings and Prophets in worship and in life? |
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Autumn 2 |
Christmas Unit: Advent as a time of preparation and hope. |
Christmas Unit: Light - Jesus as the light of the world |
Christmas Unit: Epiphany (Gifts and Gift bringers) |
Christmas Unit: The Gospel Accounts (Messages and messengers) |
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Spring 1 |
3.3 What do Christians believe about a good life? |
4.4 Why are Gurus at the heart of Sikh belief and practice? |
5.2 What values are shown in codes for living? |
6.1 How do Sikhs show commitment? |
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Spring 2 |
Easter Unit: Joy and Sadness |
Easter Unit: Trust and loyalty |
Easter Unit: Victory |
6.2 What do Christians believe about Jesus’ death and resurrection? |
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Summer 1 |
3.4 What do the creation stories tell us? |
4.3 How do the Five Pillars guide Muslims? |
5.3 Should we forgive others? |
How do we express spirituality? |
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Summer 2 |
3.2 What is Spirituality and how do people experience this? |
4.2 What faiths are shared in our community? |
5.4 What do Christians believe about the old and new covenants? |
6.3 How does growing up bring responsibilities? |
Assessment
We assess children’s learning in religious education by making judgements as we observe them during lessons as well as through carefully designed specific assessment tasks. In RE, we use the skills progression in our RE documentation to assess pupils’ standards, monitor progression and to inform planning and assessment. We report on pupils’ progress and attainment in RE to parents annually.
Enrichment Activities
As well as regular timetables sessions, RE teaching is enhanced in a variety of ways.
We foster strong links with our local community to provide rich learning opportunities for our pupils. Direct experience comes from organised visits to local places of worship and visits from representatives of local religious groups. Pupils have also been involved in projects working together with pupils from other schools, local artists and churches.
Collective worship takes place every day. We celebrate Christmas, Easter and Eid with special assemblies, school performances, activities and parties! Here are a selection of special events:
Primary Diversity Conference 'Footsteps in Faith'
Harvest
Every year we celebrate Harvest through collective worship and a charity appeal. In previous years, as part of our Harvest Festival, we have collected items generously donated by our school community for Dewsbury Outreach, Fusion Food Bank and Batley Food Bank, who redistributed it to families in need locally and we have also delivered parcels to our neighbours.
Christmas
Pupils enjoy a wealth of activities and events in the lead up to Christmas. These include: special assemblies learning about advent, the Y3 Nativity performance, singing Christmas songs; designing a decoration for our Christmas tree; enjoying a Christmas dinner and a Christmas party! Headfield choir have also visited local supermarkets and schools to perform Christmas songs.
‘Design a Christmas Card’ Competition
Every year we run a competition to design a Christmas card and we are always impressed with the high standard of the creative entries. We also have tremendous success entering external competitions and here are our latest winners of MP Mark Eastwood's competition. Rishi Sunak even received one!
Easter
At Easter, pupils learn about this special season for Christians through RE lessons and also through assemblies, including an excellent performance from Year 4. Pupils also participate in our popular Easter Egg competitions.
Ramadan and Eid
At Eid, we enjoy a superb performance from Year 5 pupils, where pupils share their beliefs, customs and traditions. Our pupils also celebrate with Eid parties after Ramadan.
Remembrance
Each year Headfield marks Remembrance with special assemblies and creative activities, and observe a two minute silence to pay our respects and remember the fallen.
Each year we support the Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal - this year staff and pupils raised an amazing £643.21!
For Remembrance we have focused on the contribution of African, Black and Caribbean communities to the First and Second World Wars.
Year 4 pupils participated in the online 'Acts of Remembrance' Interfaith Diversity Conference, as part of Kirklees Interfaith Week, learning about how peace is an important part of the Hindu, Islamic and Christian faiths.
We have remembered the sacrifice, service and collaboration of Labour Corps from across the world who assisted in the First World War. The Unremembered included manpower from the UK, China, India, South Africa, Egypt, Canada, the Caribbean and other places across the commonwealth.
Inspired by the 'Remember RAF 100' project, we created a dramatic centrepiece to mark the centenary of the RAF and to commemorate the end of the First World War.
We have also learned about how the role of women in service has changed and each class researched a different famous woman who had contributed to the Armed Forces.
Class Prayers
Each class works together to write a class prayer, which we use in collective worship to draw us closer to God, think about what we are thankful for and to ask God to help guide us in life.
RE Faith Centre Visits
Pupils enjoy educational visits to places of worship to enrich their Religious Education learning. These visits are a great opportunity for pupils to engage in active learning, and discover the similarities and differences of the different faith communities in Kirklees.
Previous visits have included to the United Hebrew Congregation synagogue, Leeds; Holy Innocents Church, Dewsbury; Longcauseway Church, Dewsbury; Holy Trinity Church, Ossett; Dewsbury Minster; the Sri Guru Singh Sabha Gurdwara and the Guru Nanak Gurdwara, Huddersfield; the Vajrapani Buddhist Centre, Huddersfield and the Hindu Mandir, Huddersfield.