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Religious Education

                                                   

St Johns is following the recommendations of the Archdiocese of Liverpool by phasing in the new Religious Education Directory 'To know You more clearly'.  

Early Years through to Year 3 are following To know You more clearly which teaches 6 central themes across the academic year linked to the Churches Liturgical year.

They are:

Creation and Covenant

Prophecy and Promise

Galilee to Jerusalem

Desert to Garden

To the Ends of the Earth

Dialogue and Encounter

The teaching of other Faiths is incorporated discretely and children will learn what the Church teaches about their relationship with other Christian traditions, Judaism, Islam and other religious and non-religious world views. Each theme is explored dependent upon the respective age of the child. 

There are 4 strands built into each theme. They are:

Hear- Listen to the Scripture from the Bible

Believe- The Church teaching

Celebrate- The Scaraments and Prayer and Liturgy

Live- How we live out the message of our Catholic Social Teaching

 

                                                                                        

Children from Years 4-6 continue to follow the Come and See programme and explore the religious dimensions of questions about life, dignity and purpose within the Catholic tradition. This is taught on a four week cycle teaching 9 topics from a central theme across the school year, in addition to this there are two other Faith topics taught. Judaism and Islam/Hinduism (on a two year rolling cycle). Each topic is broken down as follows:

Explore

Children learn through shared experiences and make connections between their life experiences and their friends.

Reveal

At the heart of the programme is the mystery of God’s self-revelation of love through Jesus Christ. Come and See gives pupils the opportunity to explore the mystery of faith through Scripture and Tradition. 

Respond

Children remember and celebrate what they have learnt and apply their knowledge individually.

Children learn through shared experience and make connections between life’s experiences and the gospel teachings. Teaching methods stimulate activities resulting in a response from the ‘heart’ of the child, developing attitudes of respect and reverence and an understanding that following Jesus is a call to holiness and wholeness of life.

 
Both programmes encourage creativity to bring the curriculum alive and children are taught in as creative a way as possible, using for example, role play, hot seating, drama, art, music, reflection; the children learn and live through experiencing living faith.