Policy:
Subject Ambassador: Mrs. D. Cross
Link Academy Councillor: Ms. S. Ingwersen
Statement of Intent 2021 -2022:
Our Vision:
A place where our children, adults and community can grow and thrive rooted in
Kindness, Fellowship and Confidence.
At Stanhope Barrington C of E Primary school, our Christian Vision is embedded in KFC (Kindness, Fellowship & Confidence) and our values are underpinned in everything that we do across the whole curriculum.
Religious Education plays a significant role in the development of children’s spiritual, social, moral and cultural development. We develop respect and open-mindedness towards others with different beliefs and none and to encourage children to develop a sense of their own identify and belonging through self-awareness and reflection.
We develop our children’s religious literacy, their ability to think deeply about religious and cultural issues and to develop and explain their own thoughts and opinions.
We engage our children in enquiry-based lessons which are of a high quality and allow them to explore and understand biblical text, to understand the impact on Christians and to make connections to their own lives today.
We promote strong links with both St Thomas’ Church and the Stanhope Methodist Church. Our children regularly visit our local places of worship for religious festivals and celebrations and also use them as a learning environment such as for maths and literacy lessons. Children are given time to reflect and engage in Collective Worship, which supports the children’s understanding of the Christian religion and the strong values it promotes. Music plays a key role in our times of collective worship and allows the children to engage and enjoy songs.
At Stanhope we provide a wide curriculum which allows our children to embrace the diverse global community in which they live. RE teaches children to have respect for themselves, show empathy, generosity and compassion towards others.
Opal Learning Zone
Our fantastic Amethyst Year 1 children have become teachers as they have been informing all of the Opal children about the Easter Story. The children retold the story using images they had created to give further details. The children of Opal showed a fantastic understanding of the story and were able to provide some very mature responses.
Esmae said, “It’s a sad story but has a happy ending.”
Amber said, “It was unkind for that to happen to Jesus.”
Amethyst Learning Zone
God’s Creation – In the Amethyst Learning Zone the children have been covering the Creation story. The children have thoroughly enjoyed understanding the story and how that impacts the. We were also delighted to welcome Rev. Claire McClelland into school who helped us unpick the sequence of the story through Godly Play. The children then had the opportunity to create a picture about what they most related to. This is Alfie’s painting and here is what he said,
“I did a painting of the day God made the sea and land. I love the beach and all the fish that are in it.”
Sapphire Learning Zone
Why do Christians eat Hot Cross buns at Easter? – To answer this enquiry question we invited members of our local Bread Church (St. Thomas’) into school to work with our children in the Sapphire Learning Zone.
Rev Tony (also a baker), Mrs Stancliffe (author of The Christian Aid Book of Bread) and Dr Haynes (Chair of our Academy Council) came into school on Thursday 17th March 2022 and taught the children how to make Hot Cross buns. While the buns were left to rest and rise, the children literally grilled Rev. Tony! They asked really thoughtful and probing questions about why Holy Week is so important to Christians and they discussed the events of Holy Week and how Christians remember Jesus today.
This was a cross-curricular lesson which covered areas such as weighing and measuring; writing and following instructions, food technology and RE.
The children had a fantastic time and were very proud to take home their Hot Cross buns which they’d made for their families.
Dr Haynes was very impressed with the knowledge such young children have about some very deep and spiritual concepts.
We would like to thank Rev. Tony, Mrs Stancliffe and Dr Haynes for giving up their time to spend with us.
Salvation – In our unit on Salvation, the Sapphire Learning Zone have learnt that ‘salvation’ is about Jesus rescuing people. We have learnt where salvation comes in the Big Story of the Bible and have explored what rescuing people means. We have considered why Easter is important to Christians and how people felt when Jesus arrived in Jerusalem. We made our own Palm Crosses – which was very tricky and learnt how Judas betrayed Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. We then moved on to look at how Jesus asked God to forgive those who had crucified him and whether we would find it easy or hard to forgive others for things they do. Finally, we considered how we could show forgiveness when people make the wrong choices or make mistakes and the children wrote their own ‘Forgiveness’ poems.
RE – Sapphire 2022 – Forgiveness Fingers RE – Sapphire 2022 Making Palm Crosses
Incarnation – The children have been learning about Incarnation and what Christmas means to Christians. As part of our journey we looked at the Advent wreath and the symbols it carries. We invited Reverend Sawyer into school to tell us all about the meaning of advent and its importance in the lead up to Jesus birth.
God’s Creation – The children have been looking at God’s Creation. We have investigated the natural phenomenon’s God has created by exploring the school grounds looking for natural items and then creating artwork to reflect our findings. We have understood the importance of giving thanks and we were able to visit our local Chapel to take part in a Harvest festival, to give thank for the Harvest. This made us think about what we can do to help those less fortunate than ourselves and what we might be thankful for in our lives.
Reverend Claire came in to deliver a hands-on Godly Play workshop for the Year 1 children, based upon our theme of The Creation. The children again had chance to reflect upon the story and what it meant to them.
Ruby Learning Zone
‘Why do Christians call the day Jesus died Good Friday?’ – Our RE topic this term is Salvation and we are building up to the events of Easter. As a class we are working to answer the question ‘Why do Christians call the day Jesus died Good Friday?’ and are considering how Christians today base the way they live on the events of Holy Week.
God as Creator – Children learned about how Christians view God as creator. They thought about Him as an artist and looked for the colours he used to create the world around us. They went on to learn about his creation of humans and how Adam and Eve gave into temptation. The children themselves were tempted by a mysterious button on the board, which allowed them to understand how Adam and Eve felt.
Emerald Learning Zone
Salvation – This term the Emerald Learning Zone are learning about Salvation and we have used a range of different teaching and learning activities in our RE lessons with Mrs Cross.
We have looked at Biblical text to consider why Peter denied knowing Jesus; we have debated who the children think was responsible for Jesus’ death and they created a ‘responsibility pie’ to show what they thought and why.
We have used artwork to work empathetically in considering how Jesus might have felt facing death, how Christians today feel about his death and then children have made a link with their own lives and how they feel about it too.
The children really enjoyed using drama to understand the sequence of events in the Garden of Gethsemane and children have also created their own artwork to show how feelings about Easter change for Christians – from feeling sad when he died to being joyful when he rose again.
Next half term we will be welcoming Dionne McCreedy into school to work with the children on What Holy Week Means to Christians.
RE – Emerald 2022 RE – Emerald 2022 RE – Emerald 2022 RE – Emerald 2022
Incarnation – The Emerald class have been studying Incarnation in RE and discussing if Jesus is the Messiah. They wrote a fantastic radio advert on the hunt for the chosen one. We have also looked at the meaning of Christmas and why it is important for Christians to focus on the birth of Jesus at this time.
Diamond Learning Zone
‘What did Jesus do to save human beings?’ – This half term the children have focused their learning on the enquiry question, ‘What did Jesus do to save human beings?’ To kick this off, the children read and analysed the text from Isaiah 53 to find out what signs suggested that the suffering servant was a sacrifice. The children then drew an outline of a human and wrote all of the things the suffering servant had done on the inside and all of the things that happened to him on the outside.
What does it mean if God is holy and loving? – This half term we have been looking into the enquiry of, ‘What does it mean if God is holy and loving?’. The children have explored passages taken from the Bible to reflect on the things that God disagrees with and reasons why we should forgive others. We have researched the Community of the Cross of Nails (CCN) to gather information about the Coventry Blitz. The children found out how they helped spread the message of love and forgiveness.
Archived Information
You can view our archived RE & PHSCE information on our website.
