Religious Studies

Vision Statement

Religious Studies at The Swan School empowers students to understand the world around them and to analyse their place within it. Students will pursue knowledge of world faiths, philosophical questions and ethical quandaries; each respectively helping them to formulate and articulate their beliefs and ideas of the world. Students will be equipped to engage with a wide range of topics sensitively to understand all perspectives; putting empathy at the heart of our study and looking for connections across the globe.

Our Students on Religious Studies

The thing that helped me feel confident in RE lessons is:

• I can give my thoughts without pressure

• My teachers are experts and answer our abstract questions

The best thing about studying RE is:

• I appreciate the beauty in all religions

• That it uncovers new perspectives of people around the world

• Debating how beliefs and practices affect people’s lives

The thing I didn't expect about studying RE is:

• How it helps to develop communication and debating skills across perspectives

• Is the depth we would go into to enrich our understanding of morals and values

• How much we learn in a short period of time

A typical RE lesson

• Our students start with a retrieval with an explicit focus on vocabulary to build their historical fluency

• Then we connect their current learning with previous learning, either the narrative or theme that they have previously learnt about

• Content is introduced with whole class reading followed by mini white board questions to check our students understanding 

• Then content is practiced through written tasks that increase in complexity over lessons and cycles

• Once our students are confident in the content we will start applying this to more complex extended writing questions that will develop their core extended writing skills and stretch their academic thinking

Curriculum Map Year 7 to 13

Year 7 Unit Overview

Year 8 Unit Overview