Being a Church of England school, Religious Education (RE) at St George the Martyr is taught as a core classroom subject. The school governors have adopted the London Diocesan Board for Schools (LDBS) RE syllabus which sets out the teaching sequence of the curriculum from Reception to Year 6 into units of learning that are two weeks, four weeks or six weeks in length.  The children are taught RE for a minimum of 1 hour and 20 minutes each week. Units of learning that look particularly at Christmas and Easter are covered by the whole school at these special times of the year. Two thirds of the RE curriculum focuses on Christianity and one third covers other major world faiths, such Islam, Judaism, Sikhism, Buddhism and Hinduism.

RE is an academic subject, that is theologically based and encourages the development of the children’s religious literacy by being enquiry led which enables the children to learn about religions (what people believe and what they do) and learn from religions (reflecting on, and applying aspects of different themes and ideas).

The school’s Christian Vision, drives the high expectations that we have in learning in RE. In order for the children to flourish and shine, the development of each child’s religious literacy is a fundamental aim of the teaching of RE.  To shine in the world, an enquiry approach to learning in RE is used which supports the development of the children’s religious literacy. This approach, requires the pupils to respond to ‘Big questions’ which are the central enquiry within each unit of learning. Indeed, the RE Learning Wall in each classroom, explicitly states the ‘Big question’ that the children will be answering throughout the unit. Further questions that are posed in each lesson supports the response to a unit’s ‘Big question’. The children add to their knowledge, apply it, explain themes and ideas posed by different religions and justify, analyse, interpret and critically evaluate ideas, and aspects of faith and teachings of Christianity and other major world faiths.

The Christian vision is the driving force that enables all pupils to flourish and shine through the approach to RE teaching and learning.