The aim of Religious education at Airy Hill is to help children explore big questions about life, to find out what people believe and what difference this makes to how they live, so that pupils can make sense of religion, reflecting on their own ideas and ways of living.
We will encourage children to explore their own beliefs and other people’s beliefs, values and traditions in meaningful and engaging ways. We will encourage pupils to share their diverse range of experiences and grow individually and together with sensitivity and respect towards people of all faiths or none.
Airy Hill School follow the North Yorkshire Agreed Syllabus (2019). The syllabus is based around a key question approach. Key questions are structured around the strands of believing, expressing and living.
All pupils learn from Christianity in each key stage and will study the following Religious traditions in depth
Reception Children will encounter Christianity and other faiths, as part of their growing sense of self, their own community and their place within it.
Key Stage One Christians and Muslims
Key Stage Two Christians, Hindus and Jewish people
Christianity is the predominant religion in the school’s pupil population and in the community surrounding the school but there are no presumptions made as to the religious backgrounds and beliefs and values of the children or staff. We value the religious background of all members of the school community and hope that this will encourage individuals to share their own experiences with others freely. All religions and their communities are treated with respect and sensitivity and we value the links, which are, and can be made between home, school, and a faith community. We acknowledge that each religion studied can contribute to the education of all our pupils. We promote teaching in Religious Education that stresses open enquiry and first-hand experiences wherever possible for both staff and children.
The children at Airy Hill enjoy learning lots about other religions and why people choose, or choose not to follow a religion. Through their R.E. learning, the children are able to make links between their own lives and those of others in their community and in the wider world. R.E. acts as a hub, therefore, between social aspects of learning, science and geography. Through R.E. our children are developing an understanding of other people’s cultures and ways of life, which they are then able to communicate to the wider community.
R.E. offers our children the means by which to understand how other people choose to live and to understand why they choose to live in that way. As such, R.E. is invaluable in an ever changing and shrinking world.