Religious Education

Here at Ivington CE Primary School Religious Education (RE) is seen as a very important element in our children’s education. Our school has adopted the Herefordshire Agreed Syllabus as the basis for RE. As well as using the understanding Christianity resource.

Religious Education for children and young people provokes challenging questions about the meaning and purpose of life. It develops pupils’ knowledge and understanding of Christianity amongst other religion and religious traditions. At Ivington, we provide an outstanding RE curriculum, which enables pupils to build their sense of identity and belonging, which helps them flourish within their communities and as citizens in a diverse society. It teaches pupils to develop respect for others, including people with different faiths and beliefs and helps to challenge prejudice. Through a broad range of cross-curricular opportunities, our children experience world religions and learn to live respectfully together. RE prompts pupils to consider their responsibilities to themselves and to others and to explore how they might contribute to their communities and to the wider diverse global society. It encourages empathy, generosity and compassion.

Our aims are to:

• Provide pupils with knowledge and understanding of Christianity and other principal religious traditions represented in Great Britain;
• Develop their understanding of the ways in which beliefs influence people in their behaviour, practices and outlook;
• Enable pupils to apply the insights of the principal religious traditions to their own search for identity and significance;
• Enable pupils to become aware of their own beliefs and values and to have a positive attitude to the search for meaning and purpose in life;
• Encourage pupils to develop a positive attitude towards other people who hold religious beliefs different from their own.

Due to our out-of-the-way location, we feel it is our duty to endeavour to ensure that our pupils are also exposed to the richness of the major faith traditions now present in our multicultural nation, through study, visits and visitors.

We aim to foster through our RE, the Christian ethos of our Church school.  We place great value on our links with our local Church and Clergy.  We use our local Church as well as others, for experiencing the joy of Christian Worship and the Anglican Liturgy.

ICT plays an increasingly important part in the delivery of our RE studies and really enriches resources and experiences.

Our SIAS report (Statutory Inspection of Anglican Schools) in October 2012 stated that ‘Christian values are prominent and practised by all the school community and make a strong contribution to children’s personal well being.’

COLLECTIVE WORSHIP

Our collective acts of worship are seen as an important part of our school life.  They reflect and support our promotion of Christian values.  The children are given time to reflect and to think in a way to help them grow as spiritual beings.

Worship in school is organised around termly or half termly themes. They follow the following pattern:

• Monday – Class Worship.
• Tuesday – Rev Matthew's Collective Worship.
• Wednesday –  Head Teacher's Worship .
• Thursday – 'Open the Book' dramatic presentation on the Bible stories, led by members of Leominster Priory Church.
• Friday – celebration worship, when stickers, certificates and praise are awarded to children for effort, work, following our Christian Values, attitudes, citizenship, sporting or musical achievements etc. A positive way to end the week!

We also take part in Acts of Worship:

• With other schools – e.g. The Leominster Pyramid Carol Concert;
• In our village church as we celebrate our school and Christian year;
• As guests of the local community for some of their church services.

Parents have the right to withdraw pupils from acts of worship and religious education lessons.

Our collective worship was judged to be ‘outstanding’ in our SIAS report in October 2012. ‘Daily worship is a special, important and meaningful part of the life of the school. The effort put into worship and its centrality in school life raises the aspirations of learners and has a strong influence on their conduct and charitable social actions.’