Religious Education

Religious Education is recognised as an important part of the curriculum in all schools. In a Catholic school, Religious Education is a core subject, on a par with English and Mathematics, and occupies 10% of overall curriculum time.  When considering the needs of the whole child, it is recognised as an essential dimension to personal growth. Some knowledge of the Bible and the life of Christ and other religions and their significance is not an unrealistic aim for many students; but R.E. is not just a question of knowledge or instruction. It is not just the subject matter (religion) that makes us different. It is the subject. It is the person. It is God's presences that sets religious education apart. It is not the lessons about God. It is not the content area and ideas and information. We teach what was passed down to us through person to person tracing all the way back to Jesus Christ and God the Father. From relationship to relationship, we have received not an introduction to ideas but an introduction to a person. That person is Jesus Christ.

"Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction" (Deus Caritas Est, 1). Pope Benedict XVI

Spiritual awareness is not dependent on intellectual ability or the grasping of abstract concepts. Religious experience, feeling and intuitive understanding are equally important. All young people have a right to receive the help they need to grow in this respect.

The aims of RE at St. Joseph’s are to: -

• invite students to come to know and be in relationship with the person of Jesus Christ
• lead students into an understanding of the religious dimension of life and enable them to make their own responses to it
• help students to grow and develop in their faith through prayer and liturgy and personal and shared experience
• promote an awareness and exploration of Christian truths and values, with particular reference to the Catholic faith
• help students to develop a proper relationship of care and service towards other people and themselves
• provide the experience of and encourage participation in a caring, worshipping and living Catholic community
• contribute to the spiritual, moral, social, cultural and academic development of every student.

We have fully implemented the new Religious Education Directory (RED), developed by the national Catholic Education Service (CES) and approved by the Conference of Bishops of England and Wales. The curriculum is adapted where necessary to meet the particular needs of our students.

The programme sets out to help children to explore the beliefs, values and traditions of the Catholic Church. It is rooted in scripture and students are given many opportunities to encounter Biblical texts. A flexible approach is necessary to take into account the particular needs and abilities of the pupils and students at St. Joseph’s. The programme incorporates much of the Autism Awareness and Learning Disabilities Good Practice Guidance and is delivered in a highly multisensory and interactive, experiential style.

There are opportunities throughout the year and especially in the Dialogue and Encounter branch in the second half of the summer term, for students to learn about world faiths. We believe it is essential for their overall development and growth as a whole person, that students come to appreciate and celebrate difference. Our commitment to the teaching of other faiths forms part of our commitment to the Prevent Duty and British Values.

A whole school approach is used so that assemblies and special celebrations are linked to the Religious Education Programme.

The programme of study for religious education in Catholic schools presented in the RED has a framework with four structural elements: knowledge lenses, ways of knowing, expected outcomes, curriculum branches.

The three ways of knowing are: understand, discern and respond.

Expected outcomes are a synthesis of the content outlined in the knowledge lenses and the skills described in the ways of knowing.

Curriculum branches. This programme of study contains a model curriculum which presents the expected outcomes in six curriculum branches that correspond to the six half-terms of a school year. The six curriculum branches are: creation and covenant, prophecy and promise, galilee to Jerusalem, desert to garden, to the ends of the earth, and dialogue and encounter.

The four lenses are Hear, Believe, Celebrate, Live. The names of these four lenses reflect the language of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) itself which states that the mystery of faith which we hear and receive requires us to ‘believe in it’, to ‘celebrate it’ and to ‘live from it’ (CCC 2558).