Religious Education

Religious Education at St Matthew's

 

As a church school, educating children about Christianity and other World Faiths is at the heart of RE teaching.  Religious Education enables children to investigate and reflect on some of the most fundamental questions asked by people. We help the children learn from religions as well as about religions. Our RE curriculum reflects the diverse multi-faith population which we serve. We follow the Blackburn Diocese RE curriculum which is based around Emma Yarlett's amazing "Big Frieze" artwork. Our aim is that through an enquiry approach, we provide a curriculum that is rich and varied, enabling pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.

In addition to RE lessons, every day we take part in worship. This takes many forms including: whole school worship; key stage worship; in-class worship and Prayer and Praise worship. We also have reflection areas in each classroom, which the children can access throughout the day for moments of quiet and contemplation. 

 

St. Matthew’s CE Primary School & Nursery is proud to be a flourishing church school at the heart of the community. Our vision is to ‘Be blessed by God, be happy and aspire to be….’ This is what we wish for every child, family, member of staff and the whole school community. Our Vision is rooted in the Bible, specifically Jesus' Sermon on the Mount which is sometimes known as 'The Beatitudes.'

We begin each day with an act of worship to remind us of the Christian Values we want to portray in our daily lives. If you visit our values page you will see the values which we explore through our class and whole school worship.

RE lessons, taught by the class teacher weekly, are based on the Blackburn Diocesan syllabus. The teaching of RE is closely monitored by the Subject Leader to ensure that the teaching is effective, engaging and inclusive for all our children. These lessons teach the children about all aspects of Christianity and make clear links to other world religions such as Islam, Hinduism and Sikhism. We believe it is important to make these links as many religious teachings give a similar message. As a culturally diverse school, it is wonderful to compare beliefs and learn about and begin to understand one another’s values and customs.

As we journey through the year, there are many significant events in the Christian calendar such as Harvest, Christmas, Easter and Lent which we celebrate and remember. We always mark these events in school and we hope to share these events with our families in any way possible, as the children really enjoy it when others are involved. Please continue to visit this page to see what we have been up to in RE, it is at the heart of our spectacular curriculum and should be celebrated!

R.E Intent, Implementation and Impact

R.E. Policy

RE Curriculum

Statement of Entitlement

RE in Action

This is what our children think.

Please take a look at the pictures of what each group have been doing in RE.

Nursery

Reception 

Year 1 

Year 2 

Year 3

Year 4

Year 5 

Year 6 

Here are some more images of RE in Action around our school

Moon Conference at Blackburn Cathedral

 A group of year 4 children joined lots of different schools at Blackburn Cathedral to look at the giant moon! We spent the day thinking about creation, how the moon was created and doing lots of amazing activities about the moon.

 

 

Blackpool Bible Youth Workers

Year 6 recently had a visit from the Blackpool Bible Youth Workers who delivered a session about how faith can have a wide reaching impact on our lives. They looked at this from the viewpoints of many people from the Bible as well as in our own lives.

 

Year 4 have been linking their RE and PSHE lessons together and have been creating cards of 'hope' for the homeless in our community. These cards were passed on to the street pastors in Preston and have been handed out to those people who have nowhere to go, hopefully to spread even a little hope. One of our governors Mrs. Smith is part of the group helping those on the streets and said she had seen some of these cards circulating around which was really nice to hear! Well done year 4!

 

Year 5 have been linking their RE and PSHE lessons to create an amazing piece of artwork that also includes part of our school vision 'Be Blessed'. They created this fantastic piece using recycled bottle tops! Isn't it great! They are immersed in our vision but also helping save our planet too! Well done Year 5!