Lilliput Church of England Infant School

Subject leader

Linked governor

Sharon Tyrrell/Rosie Miles

Rev Tom Pelham

Intent

To help children acquire and develop knowledge and understanding of Christianity and the other principal religions represented in Great Britain and the way they can shape behaviour and enhance their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.

What do we expect pupil to know by certain points?

All year groups follow the ‘Discovery’ planning closely and feel that the activities really help our children to develop their knowledge and understanding and build upon this throughout their journey at Lilliput and beyond. We are on a journey with the ‘Understanding Christianity’ resources and are taking elements of this to improve and develop the children’s thinking skills and deepen their understanding.

We assess understanding of the key Christian concepts of Christmas and Easter in each year group as their knowledge and understanding deepens. The RE Spirituality progression document details the school overview of learning in line with the Early Learning Goals and National Curriculum.

What is the clear sequence in which the children will encounter the curriculum?

Is it logical?

Does each year build on the last/prepare for the next (including Year 3?)

We use the Discovery learning scheme to choose our concepts. We use an enquiry-based method based upon a key question that enables each child to have their own level of understanding, without limiting the outcome.

The Discovery medium term planning and the spirituality progression document shows clear progression of the skills the children will learn in each year group. The objectives can also be found in the year group assessment documents. The skills being learnt will assist children from when they start school with their progression into year 3 and beyond. We have considered the subjects being taught and approach these in a progressive depth. The skills being taught and topic can be found in topic overview. Teachers are encouraged to look at the child’s previous year assessment, previous objectives and next year’s so they can see where the children have come from and where they are headed to.  

Contact with the main Y3 subject lead has been made and will be a focus during this year.

Why have we chosen to teach this and not alternatives?

 The Discovery learning scheme was felt to be the best fit with our Christian values and identity as a school whilst also offering understanding of other religions and beliefs. We placed an emphasis upon the key skills being learnt, how these reflect our values of Respect, Friendship, Creativity, Courage and Thankfulness and how this can be developed in their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.

Due to the Christian identity of our school we chose to supplement the Discovery scheme with Understanding Christianity to further deepen children’s understanding of Christianity.

Does the teaching planned match the content?

The Discovery Scheme offers medium term planning, which the year teams use to create weekly plans. The planning is scrutinised by the subject lead termly.  Termly meetings as a year group take place where the RE ‘big books’ to record evidence from weekly lessons covering practical activities and comments for each class are cross referenced to ensure continuity.   Daily observation of whole-school worships is recorded in a reflection book with key comments from children quoted.  Subject Lead is new to the role and the need for CPD has been identified. The newly implemented progression in Spirituality document has been shared with staff and implementation will need to be monitored. 

Is there clear progression of skills considering prior learning (revisiting previously taught knowledge including linking with other subjects), which takes into account what will be taught in the next school.

All year groups spend time revisiting skills previously taught and subject leader meets with middle schools to identify the key skills required for children to be successful moving on.

Have we carefully considered why work has been placed in specific year groups including Reception and at particular points in the year.

Subject leader has spent time looking at progression of skills across EYFS,  KS1 and KS2 to ensure each stage prepares the children effectively for the next stage.   Assessments at key points in Christian calendar. The themes are chosen with consideration of  key events in the religious calendars such as Diwali and Harvest and are monitored in our daily worship reflection book. Links with our local church school are celebrated weekly with visits to conduct school worships.  These all follow the weekly themes that are a focus in school.

Implementation

The curriculum is ambitious and meets the needs of all pupils including disadvantaged and SEND.

All children are carefully tracked and monitored with a specific focus on disadvantaged and SEND.  Subject leader to check these children are receiving quality first teaching and additional support.

Does teaching include key elements such as explanation, modelling, scaffold, practise?

See curriculum overview and lesson plans to see lessons clearly broken into short input practice, lots of practical learning which will involve modelling and scaffolding and ensuring that a warm up and cool down takes place. We also incorporate teamwork within our lessons, linking to our big ideas. Teachers are continually assessing and adapting the teaching throughout the lesson in accordance to how the children are responding. This can include scaffolding or furthering their learning. Planning for each term will also be looked at and this year a lesson by each teacher will be observed by the subject lead.

Planning scrutiny to look for clear lesson plans with opportunity for clarification of misconceptions and greater depth outcomes.

Can you articulate why teachers are teaching your subject in a particular way?

At Lilliput we recognise the importance of our identity and the demographic of our children and with an aim of developing our intent in RE alongside our school values felt that an enquiry-led approach best embedded these.  We recognise that the majority of children continue their education in a school with a Christian ethos and felt that teaching progression in levels of understanding in key Christian themes alongside developing spirituality was the most suitable.

All our leaders across the school, including governors, regularly review and quality assure the subject is implemented sufficiently well.

Subject leader to provide a termly reports to SLT regarding curriculum implementation.  Subject leader also to meet termly with link governor to review and quality assure subject.

Impact

How do you know that the children have learnt the things that we expect them to learn?

Each class uses a ‘big book’ to record evidence from weekly lessons covering practical activities and comments from children.

Each theme has an evaluation lesson where children will reflect upon their learning and the ability to answer the original key question. Exemplification material are provided to determine level of understanding.

Each term children are assessed by their class teacher.

Children are assessed in their level of understanding at the two key Christian festivals (Christmas and Easter) each year in a progressive manner.

What do we do if the children haven’t learnt them?

Daily collective worships reinforce children’s understanding of Christianity and gives opportunity for daily reflection of how our values shape their world. Key values and messages of spirituality are taught continuously and are embedded in day to day school life and teachers are encouraged to use these opportunities to support children who haven’t achieved the expected level. The use of the same points of assessment each academic year as well as our enquiry-led method offer the opportunity for misconceptions to be addressed and place no ceiling on the children’s learning. Formative assessment during the lessons will mean children can be supported and immediate feedback can be given to children to further their learning. Summative assessment clearly outlines the children who are below ARE or working above ARE and what the next steps for those below ARE are. This will then be passed up to the child’s next teacher so they are aware and can support the children with closing any gaps. Teachers ensure that children with SEND are planned for and appropriate resources are considered to support these children.

Are there regular opportunities for retrieval practise?

Daily collective worships reinforce children’s understanding of Christianity and gives opportunity for daily reflection of how our values shape their world. Key values and messages of spirituality are taught continuously and are embedded in day to day school life and teachers are encouraged to use these opportunities to support children who haven’t achieved the expected level. The use of the same points of assessment each academic year as well as our enquiry-led method offer the opportunity for misconceptions to be addressed and place no ceiling on the children’s learning.

How can we see that children’s fluency and mastery is incrementally improving?

Daily collective worships reinforce children’s understanding of Christianity and gives opportunity for daily reflection of how our values shape their world. Key values and messages of spirituality are taught continuously and are embedded in day to day school life and teachers are encouraged to use these opportunities to regularly formatively assess the children’s level of understanding . The use of the same points of assessment each academic year as well as our enquiry-led method offer the opportunity for misconceptions to be addressed and place no ceiling on the children’s learning and encourage an observable progression.  The individual class ‘big books’ clearly demonstrate the progression of mastery when used with the age related exemplification materials. Links between activities and skills development are made clear to the children in order to develop metacognition.

CPD

At the end of each academic year we send out a staff questionnaire where the teachers identify their strengths and areas for improvement ready to inform CPD for September. CPD is planned based on the staff’s needs and we aim to rotate the CPD offered so it’s not the same each year. In terms of identifying SL needs, this is drawn from the past RE lead and other RE leads within our HLP network meetings as well as guidance from SLT.