Our Mission Statement
“Jesus be my guide, in all I do and say
In how I care for others, in all my work and play”
How we teach RE at St Bernadette’s
Religious Education is a central part to all our teaching and learning at St Bernadette’s. As a Catholic school, we spend at least 10% of our curriculum time in learning about our faith.
The RE lead is the headteacher and she supports staff in high quality planning and delivery of RE lessons following the ‘Learning & Growing as the People of God’ strategy. The headteacher also teaches one lesson of RE in each class each week so is able to see whole school progression, attainment, achievement and attitudes to RE.
Children are taught in mixed age classes so we follow the strategy on a rolling programme. The Sacraments of Reconciliation and Holy Eucharist are taught in Emerald Class (Y3/4) and Confirmation is taught in Sapphire Class (Y5/6). The Sacraments are also taught every second year.
Each class will study a number of units over the year. The units are developmental, building on previous knowledge and experience and taking into account the children’s age and understanding.
Each term, assessment is completed in two areas for RE. For Diocesan assessment, a traffic light system is used to assess every child in school. Within that, 3 children are selected per class and evidence is collected to show how these children have met standards which match the Diocesan Assessment Schedule. This data is then analysed along with monitoring evidence to plan the next term’s focus on the improvement of RE teaching.
Teaching other faiths/cultures
In addition to our teaching of our Catholic faith to all our children, we know the importance of our children being taught that there are other faiths and religions in our world and to respect those of all and no faith.
In accordance with guidance from the Archdiocese of Birmingham, we teach our children about Sikhism, Hinduism, Judaism and Islam. These faiths are taught in several ways, including whole school assemblies led by the headteacher on special feast days for these faiths, followed by art/geography work to celebrate our friends’ faiths; a “ Learning Of Other Faiths” week (LOOF) where children work in mixed age houses to discover what it is like as a child with a different faith and carry out activities to enhance knowledge, and visits and visitors to help our understanding and respect for those practising a different faith.
Prayer and Liturgy
Prayer and worship (liturgy) are at the heart of everything we do at St Bernadette’s. We pray as a whole school community (including parents and carers) each morning before school, where we share any intentions. We also pray each lunchtime, after lunch and hometime.
The children are taught the formal prayers of the church but also that prayer takes many forms and we encourage our school community to pray in lots of meaningful ways.
In addition to whole school worship every Monday and Friday, each class has liturgy time which is led by both teachers and pupils. The children gather, listen, respond and go forth from each of these liturgies.
Catholic Life and Mission
Our school is first and foremost a Catholic school, with Catholic views and values. It is our responsibility as Catholics to spread the word of God and to show the love of Jesus in all we say and do. This is evident in the mission statement we devised as a whole school community.
We demonstrate our Catholic life and Vocation in how we behave towards each other, in our charitable work and by living out our mission- Jesus must always be the centre of everything we do and everything we say.
