Religious Education
At John Cross Primary school we strive to provide the best possible teaching, learning and experience of Religious Education not just within the RE curriculum, but within all aspects of our teaching and learning thereby enabling all children to flourish and the school’s distinctive Christian character to be evident in all aspects of school life.
I think RE is very important Year 3
Christian Vision
Following in the footsteps of our founder John Cross, we are committed to providing a loving, Christian family school built on mutual love, respect and co-operation. A safe and stimulating learning environment will enable our pupils to believe and achieve now and in the future.
Our strap line is, ‘Believe and Achieve’.
Our Christian Narrative
Our Bible verse is ‘Life in all its fullness’ John 10:10
‘Life in all its fullness’ fully permeates every aspect of life at John Cross. John Cross was the benefactor of our school, whose generosity and compassion for children was rooted in his strong Christian faith which led to him donating the funds to build the first school in order to ‘educate the children of Bilsborrow in the principles of the Christian religion.’ (John Cross’s will 1718). By walking in the footsteps of John Cross, we follow his Biblical values which shape the social, moral, cultural and spiritual aspects of school life. For 300 years since the school was founded, staff have nurtured a symbiotic relationship with the community, ensuring God’s love is evident through thoughts and actions, embedding Christian values which have provided the basis for individuals to shape their personal beliefs and respect for others. Today, we continue to follow the loving example of Jesus Christ in order to enable all our pupils to flourish socially, academically and spiritually.
Our caring and loving school environment is inclusive of children of all faiths and backgrounds and is where each child is loved, celebrated, and welcomed. We hold high aspirations for our pupils, whom we seek to become well-rounded, confident, honest, resilient, compassionate, ambitious, responsible and thoughtful people, who consistently demonstrate sound moral character, fulfil their God-given potential, and have a strong sense of community and their place within it. All of this ensures that each child has solid foundations for their futures.
Our strong community links enable good working partnerships with parents, the local church and wider community, where working together enriches the opportunities and experiences that our children receive. Within the school community, children learn to collaboratively integrate, respect, and believe in the intrinsic and developing value of each other, to value themselves and the contributions they can make in immediate, wider, and global relationship, and learn how God can inspirationally help them to fulfil their potential.
In order to enable our younger members to engage in the theological rooting of our vision, we have chosen to further explain this by including the story of The Feeding of the Five Thousand, which was proposed by a pupil in Year 4. Firstly, the story demonstrates the strength of a community of people of different ages working together to support each other spiritually, physically and emotionally. As in this this story, Jesus sets the example for us to follow by the compassionate way he ensured that others needs were met before his own by accepting a child’s offer of help and as a consequence the community of gathered people were able to receive both physical and spiritual nourishment. As Jesus did, we too believe in empowering our children to be the game changers, to stand out from the crowd, to take the first courageous steps, as the child in the story did, in order to show generosity and compassion by doing or giving what they can so that God can fulfil his plans for our school, community, nation or world and others as well as ourselves can Believe and Achieve and live ‘life in all its fullness.’
We learn a lot of life lessons. Year 6
The Aims of our School are:
- To help everyone realise their full potential
- To promote spiritual, moral and social growth
- To understand the fast changing, diverse world in which we live
- To encourage intellectual and physical development
- To learn about and live out our Christian Faith
- To promote mutual respect and responsibility
- And to wholeheartedly play our part, whether that part is to learn, to lead, to teach or to support others
I enjoy every bit of RE and I like learning about Jesus and God Year 5
Mission Statement for Religious Education
The curriculum that is provided is rich, varied and creative ensuring that all of our children acquire a deep understanding of the Christian faith through which beliefs, practices and values are understood and linked to Biblical texts. The RE Curriculum is linked to the school values through which spiritual, moral and cultural developments are made, these values are also being taught and developed through Collective Worship. Together with the RE curriculum, these values underpin all that we do, shape who we are becoming and enable each and every pupil to flourish.
Underpinning all aspects of RE within the school is the teaching and understanding of God’s Big Story which is displayed in each classroom and frequently referred to. The management of Religious Education is an important responsibility of the role of the headteacher and the governors and is provided by the following of the BDDE’s syllabus for RE and also by the endorsement of the RE Statement of Entitlement 2019. https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2019-
02/RE%20Statement%20of%20Entitlement%20for%20Church%20Schools.pdf
Religious Education teaching makes up at least 5% of teaching time during which time Christianity is taught 80% of the time and other world faiths, 20%.
I think RE is great because we learn about God and Jesus Year 6
At John Cross we aim to ensure that pupils understand Christianity to be a living faith which is as relevant today as it was 2000 years ago, both in the community in Bilsborrow and throughout the world.
Every two years, we invite students from the Bible college at Capernwray to come to into school. During this visit, pupils are able to take a questful approach to find out what it's like being a Christian in another country.
This year, we had Ethan from Canada, Elana from Australia, Yewan from Korea and Turkey and Sarah from Germany visit us for the day. They led the worship first and then spent time in each class where the children were able to ask lots of questions to find out more about the RE topic that they had been studying, Christmas in other countries and about how the students live their faith out.
In February, we were offered the opportunity to have second group of students visit our school. This time, they also hotseated some of the characters from the story of Moses in Class 4:
In Classes 2 & 3, the children asked lots of questions about how Christians live in other countries and especially about how they celebrate Easter.
We expect pupils to gain a growing understanding of how Christianity has shaped British culture over the years. Through the teaching of the curriculum, pupils gain an understanding and respect for the other major world religions and views and are able to compare and contrast their understanding of Christianity with these, thus providing the children with a greater understanding of the world and the society in which they are growing up. This also enables them to see the faith of others in relationship to their own which ultimately builds harmonious relations within communities and promotes tolerance and inclusion.
RE is a really important subject because we're learning about the world. Year 6
Class 3
Building gurdwaras
Our teaching is based on a ‘Questful’ approach which means that the children search for the answers to their questions or questions generated through the curriculum by exploring Biblical texts, peer discussions, visits from external sources and by questioning our skilled and knowledgeable teachers. This approach plays a central role in the development of pupil’s spiritual and philosophical understandings by enabling an exploration of their own beliefs and values through respectful listening and consideration of the opinions of others.
RE teaching in our school is distinctive because it:
• Enables the children to reflect on the truth claims of Christian belief;
• Explains how the truths of Christianity are relevant today
• Develops the children’s skills to handle Biblical text;
• Enables the children to recognise that faith is a particular way of understanding God and the world;
• Gives the children an understanding of how the Christian faith can be absorbed and lived out;
• Encourages the children to respond in terms of beliefs, commitments, ways of living, ethical decisions and choices affecting their own and others’ lives;
• Helps the children to develop a sense of themselves as significant, unique and precious;
• Enables the children to experience the breadth and variety of the Christian community by inviting visitors into school, engaging with church events in the community attending church services.
• Enables the children to engage in respectful and thoughtful dialogue with other faiths and traditions;
• Teaches the children to become active citizens, serving their neighbour;
- Helps the children to begin to develop their own commitments, beliefs and values;
- Encourages the children to reflect theologically and explore the ultimate questions and challenges of life in today’s society;
- Helps the children to understand the challenges faced by Christians in today’s world.
- Enables the children to find a reason for hope in a troubled world
- Shows the children how religious faith can sustain them in difficult circumstances and in the face of opposition.
As a church school there are opportunities for children to grow in the understanding of their own faith.
School maintains good links with the local parish, wider community and global community involving them in the delivery of the subject where appropriate. In addition, all pupils will have a safe place to explore, freely discuss and express their personal opinions about the the deep questions and challenges of life whilst gaining age appropriate knowledge and understanding of Christianity.
Our teaching is creative, engaging and enables the children to ask and answer thoughtful and challenging questions: Here's some examples:
Class 4:
Class 3 :
Creative prayer, acting out Bible stories, making artistic crosses using a computer programme, hunting for the psalms and imagining we actually at the Feeding of the 5000.
Take a look at Class 2's Easter garden:
Class 2's RE lesson: Exploring the concept of the presence of God.
Class 2 initially explored why and how light symbolises God's presence and then drew a picture of where they might experience the presence of God.
EYFS explored why churches are special places.
After some discussions about special places and why churches are special, the children created their own churches out of lego or playdoh and then sketched a picture of a church based on some pictures that they had looked at previously of churches around the world.
Our Religious Education Policy
Enriching the curriculum through visitors and visits
Understanding World Faiths
World Faiths Afternoon March 2023
The whole school spent the whole afternoon looking considering the values that different faiths hold which was part of our broader consideration across the curriculum this term of the answer to the question, ' Does everyone hold the same values?' Between the four classes, we covered each of the faiths that are taught in our curriculum with Class 3 looking at 2 faiths and the others looking at one. Each class recapped or learnt about the beliefs of that religion and in some cases the practises too and then pulled out the values.
Mr Reynolds drew all of our findings together in a whole school assembly and it was very clear that although the beliefs that each religion holds are different, the values are very similar if not the same.
Here are some pictures:
