Religious Education at Hurst Green is designed in line with the Dudley Agreed Syllabus and aims to help pupils develop a secure understanding of religion, belief and worldviews, alongside respect for the diverse communities and perspectives that shape modern society. The curriculum is carefully sequenced from Year 1 to Year 6 to ensure that pupils build both substantive knowledge and increasingly sophisticated disciplinary thinking over time.

Structure & Sequencing

Our RE curriculum is structured around key strands including Beliefs about God & Theology, Stories & Sacred Texts, Worship & Practice, Identity & Belonging and Ethics & Values. These strands are revisited throughout the school so that pupils can deepen their understanding of important religious and philosophical concepts and make meaningful connections across religions and worldviews. Pupils begin by exploring concrete concepts such as belonging, special stories, worship and simple beliefs about God in Key Stage 1 before progressing towards more complex theological, ethical and philosophical questions in Upper Key Stage 2, including interpretation, morality, justice, freedom and Humanism.

Enquiry

Each unit is enquiry-led and built around a “Big Question” which encourages pupils to think critically, ask questions and develop understanding through discussion, reflection, comparison and evaluation. As pupils move through the curriculum, they progress from identifying and describing beliefs and practices to explaining how beliefs influence actions, comparing different viewpoints and evaluating religious and non-religious responses to complex questions.

Vocabulary

Vocabulary is carefully mapped across the curriculum to ensure that important disciplinary and topic-specific language is explicitly taught, revisited and applied in different contexts. Medium-term plans clearly identify core knowledge, enquiry questions, disciplinary thinking and vocabulary to support consistency, progression and high expectations across the school.

The curriculum explores Christianity and a range of principal religions alongside non-religious worldviews such as Humanism, enabling pupils to develop religious literacy and an understanding of diversity within local, national and global communities. Through the curriculum, pupils are encouraged to become curious, reflective and thoughtful learners who can engage respectfully and critically with different beliefs, values and ways of life.