Religious Education

 

“Show me your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths.”

Psalm 25:4 

At Our Lady of the Rosary, Religious Education is firmly rooted in the teachings, traditions and mission of the Catholic Church. Guided by the Religious Education Directory To Know You More Clearly, the curriculum supports children in deepening their understanding of God, growing in faith and recognising how the Gospel shapes the way Catholics live and respond to the world.

Pupils explore the story of salvation, the life and teaching of Jesus, and the faith of the Church handed down through Scripture and Tradition. They come to understand how Catholics pray, celebrate and put their beliefs into action, and they develop the language and knowledge needed to talk meaningfully about what the Church believes and why it matters. Religious Education nurtures a sense of wonder, commitment and reverence, helping children recognise God’s presence in their lives and in the life of the Church.

As part of their formation, pupils also learn about other world faiths. This study enables them to recognise the dignity of every person and to understand that respectful engagement with different religious traditions is part of living out the Gospel call to love one another. Children consider how people of faith express their beliefs, how they worship and how they seek to live with integrity and compassion.

The Religious Education Directory provides a clear structure for this learning. Through its branches and learning lenses, children hear the Word of God, understand Catholic belief, explore the meaning of worship and reflect on how faith is lived daily. Across the primary years, pupils build a secure and coherent understanding of Catholic life and teaching, supported by opportunities for prayer, contemplation and reflection.

Religious Education shapes the spiritual and moral character of our school community. It fosters a deep sense of identity, belonging and purpose, encouraging children to grow in wisdom, generosity and hope. Through this curriculum, pupils are invited to respond to God’s call with open hearts, guided by the Gospel and inspired to serve others.

Parents of pupils at Our Lady of the Rosary Catholic Primary School are permitted, by law, to request that their child is withdrawn from receiving all or part of religious education given at the school and any such request shall stand until such time that a parent’s request is withdrawn.     

 Religious education as the heart of the curriculum

Religious education is the core of the core curriculum and is intended to be the source and summit of the whole curriculum. It is an academic discipline with the same systematic demands and rigour as any other subject, and it is to be delivered within a broad and balanced curriculum where it informs every area of learning. All subjects should be shaped by and strongly connected to religious education. Across each year of compulsory schooling, religious education must be taught for at least ten per cent of curriculum time within each repeating cycle of the regular school timetable.

 

The aims of religious education are:
1. to engage in a systematic study of the mystery of God, of the life and teaching of Jesus Christ, the teachings of the Church, the central beliefs that Catholics hold, the basis for them and the relationship between faith and life;
2. to enable pupils continually to deepen their religious and theological understanding and be able to communicate this effectively;
3. to present an authentic vision of the Church’s moral and social teaching to provide pupils with a sure guide for living and the tools to critically engage with contemporary culture and society;
4. to give pupils an understanding of the religions and worldviews present in the world today and the skills to engage in respectful and fruitful dialogue with those whose worldviews differ from their own;
5. to develop the critical faculties of pupils so to bring clarity to the relationship between faith and life, and between faith and culture;
6. to stimulate pupils’ imagination and provoke a desire for personal meaning as revealed in the truth of the Catholic faith;
7. to enable pupils to relate the knowledge gained through religious education to their understanding of other subjects in the curriculum.

 

Outcome of religious education
The outcome of excellent religious education is religiously literate and consciously engaged
young people who have the knowledge, understanding, and skills - appropriate to their age
and capacity - to reflect spiritually, and think ethically and theologically, and who recognise the demands of religious commitment in everyday life.