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The broad aims of Religious Education and World Views in Weston school are set out within the locally agreed Herts syllabus and the Church of England Education Office Statement of Entitlement (2019). The primary purpose of religious education is to promote religious literacy. By this we mean that pupils are able to hold balanced and well-informed conversations about religion and belief.  

A world view approach is defined as: “a person's way of understanding, experiencing and responding to the world”, alongside this “worldviews” includes: secularism and atheism. It can be broken down into seven areas: 

• View of human nature. 

• View of the good life. 

• Equality with others. 

• Responsibilities to others. 

• Relationship between the individual and the state (government and society) 

• Relationship of humans with nature. 

• Sources of ethical wisdom. 

In order to meet the statutory requirements, at Weston school we aim: 

• to achieve high quality RE for all pupils to build up their substantive knowledge and understanding about Christianity as a diverse global living faith, which give life value faith through the exploration of core beliefs using an approach that critically engages with biblical text; 

• to achieve high quality RE for all pupils to build up their substantive knowledge and of other faiths, principal religions and worldviews, appreciating diversity, continuity and change within the religions and worldviews studied;  

• build their disciplinary knowledge; “ways of knowing”. By this we mean to develop the children’s understanding that we may be learning how people believe (theology), think (philosophy) or live their religion (sociology) as we explore the substantive knowledge;  

• build their personal knowledge – understanding that when our children study the RE content they do it from their own viewpoint, which is influenced by their own values, prior experience and sense of identity;  

•  to enable pupils to become religiously and theologically literate so they can engage in life in an increasingly diverse society. It is not about telling pupils what religious views they should have but rather assists them in gaining shared human understanding and respect, developing personal identity and searching for meaning in the context of evaluating different viewpoints.  

• to ensure that all pupils develop knowledge and understanding of sources of wisdom and their impact whilst exploring personal and critical responses. 

• To engage with challenging questions of meaning and purpose raised by human experience and existence; 

In order to meet these aims, Weston school has developed their RE and Worldview curriculum using the Understanding Christianity resources for Christianity teaching and The Emanuel Project for all other faiths and none. RE is taught weekly by a qualified teacher and 50% of the annual teaching time is spent studying Christianity and the other 50% other faiths and none.  In achieving these aims, religious education contributes in a significant way to the flourishing of all children, allowing them to live life in all its fullness (John 10:10).