THE MISSION STATEMENT

Living, loving and learning as followers of Jesus Christ.

Holy Family Catholic Primary School is committed:

1. To celebrate the uniqueness of the individual.
2. To promote the values of the gospel as summarised in the Beatitudes so that every person knows they are precious.
3. To nurture the true potential of every person.
4. To welcome and include families of all backgrounds and abilities.
5. To be the best that we can be.

By the examples we set and the planned experiences we provide we hope to foster their capacity for awe, wonder and reverence. We promote the belief that God is part of every aspect of life. Living, loving and learning as followers of Jesus Christ, we seek to show witness to God’s love through all we say and do, in all aspects of school life and beyond.

THE AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

The following strategies and aims underpin the effective delivery of religious education in the Catholic school.

• Religious education will be taught discretely and developmentally. It will include the deepening of knowledge, and understanding of key theological ideas and their application to life.
• Ample opportunities will be offered for children to apply and use their knowledge and skills in cross-curricular studies to deepen their understanding of religious truths and think creatively.
• Engagement with their own and others’ beliefs and values will help to develop good attitudes and dispositions so that children are instilled with a love of learning and a desire to go on learning.
• Engagement with difficult questions of meaning and purpose which everyone has to face will enable them to think critically about their own questions of meaning and purpose.
• Offer the children a sense of self -worth through their experience of belonging to a caring community and an awareness of the demands of religious commitment in everyday life.

OBJECTIVES

The objective of religious education requires:

•   analysis and reflection and critical appreciation of sources

•   marked progression through the different stages of education

•   the unequivocal support of the management of every Catholic school

•   10% of the length of the taught week for each Key Stage of education

•   the encouragement of investigation and reflection

•   development of appropriate skills and attitudes which allows for a free, informed response to   God’s call in everyday life

•   the use of skills in other areas of the curriculum

To achieve this we:

• Provide stimulating, interactive RE lessons. The emphasis on children’s involvement.
• Seek links to consolidate the learning in RE through other subjects.
• Differentiate RE lessons to help all children reach their academic potential, just as in all other subjects.
• Provide opportunities for reflection on learning and experiences through class, key stage and whole school collective worship.
• Enable all children to celebrate masses in school and church.
• Enable all children to attend and participate in religious services with parish priest. 
• Celebrate the main Christian feasts and holy days with a form of collective worship.
• Provide the opportunities for children to celebrate their learning both in class at the end of a topic and through leading whole school collective worship and class masses/services.
• Model good relationships.

We strive to present engagingly a comprehensive content which is the basis of knowledge and understanding of the Catholic faith;  To enable pupils continually to deepen their religious and theological understanding and be able to communicate this effectively; To present an authentic vision of the Church’s moral and social teaching so that pupils can make a critique of the underlying trends in contemporary culture and society; To raise pupils’ awareness of the faith and traditions of other religious communities in order to respect and understand them; To develop the critical faculties of pupils so that they can relate their Catholic faith to daily life; To stimulate pupils’ imagination and provoke a desire for personal meaning as revealed in the truth of the Catholic faith; To enable pupils to relate the knowledge gained through Religious Education to their understanding of other subjects in the curriculum; To bring clarity to the relationship between faith and life, and between faith and culture.

We encourage pupils to have the knowledge, understanding and skills – appropriate to their age and capacity – to reflect spiritually, and think ethically and theologically, and be aware of the demands of religious commitment in everyday life.