Religious Education

‘We always treat others with love and kindness following the teachings of the Parable of the Good Samaritan.’

Religious Education at Harnham C of E Junior School respects and promotes each child’s innate capacity for wonder, awe, reverence and spirituality. We encourage our pupils to ask BIG questions, questions about the meaning and purpose of life, beliefs, the self, issues of right and wrong, and what it means to be human.

In exploring our own spiritual journey and the journeys of others, we are embracing the principle of ‘Love God, love thy neighbour as yourself’ from the Parable of the Good Samaritan.  We develop pupils’ knowledge and understanding of Christianity, other principal religions, and religious traditions that examine questions, fostering personal reflection and spiritual development.

RE encourages pupils to flourish with faith love laughter and learning to explore their own beliefs (whether they are religious or non-religious), as they examine issues of religious belief and faith and how these impact on personal, institutional and social ethics which embodies the value active love. Pupils could use the model of windows, mirrors and doors and express their responses based on their reflections.

Religious education at HJS enables all pupils to build their sense of identity and belonging, which helps them flourish within their communities and as citizens in a diverse society. 

We aim to teach pupils to develop respect for others, including people with different faiths and beliefs, to challenge prejudice and promote harmony.  Our curriculum prompts pupils to consider their responsibilities to themselves and to others, and to explore and be curious about how they might contribute to their communities and to wider society and extend the thinking. We encourage all children to aspire to succeed and we stretch and challenge our deeper thinkers to explore their innate curiosity.

We recognise and promote our school values of forgiveness, active love, inspiration, tenacity and harmony through the acquisition of knowledge and practice.

At Harnham C of E Junior School, our Religious Education long-term plan follows the enquiry based Emmanuel Project.  We believe that using an enquiry based model well, children’s critical thinking skills can be developed, their motivation to learn increased and their knowledge, understanding of and empathy with  people and their beliefs, religious or otherwise, will be enhanced.  This approach takes very seriously the philosophy that children are fee to make their own choices and decisions concerning religion and belief.