EYFS – Exploration and Belonging 

In the Early Years, Religious Education is woven into the wider EYFS framework, supporting children’s personal, social and emotional development. We aim to:

• Create inclusive environments where children feel safe to express their thoughts, beliefs and questions. 

• Use books and storytelling to introduce children to special times, people, and places in their own lives and across different belief systems.
• Encourage talk and dialogue using early religious vocabulary (e.g. “celebrate,” “special,” “kind,” “holy”).
• Develop curiosity and empathy through discussion and reflection on children’s experiences of celebrations, visits, and traditions.
• Lay the foundation for British values by exploring fairness, kindness, respect, and celebrating difference.
  Children begin to understand that everyone has unique beliefs and experiences and are encouraged to express their own ideas through speaking, listening, art, and role-play.

Key Stage 1 – Awareness and Understanding

In KS1, pupils begin to build more structured knowledge of religious and non-religious worldviews through stories, celebrations, artefacts, and experiences. Our curriculum:

• Promotes British values by teaching children about fairness, respect, and how different communities live and celebrate together.
• Develops oracy through the retelling of religious stories, using sentence stems to explain their understanding (e.g. “I think this is important because…”).
• Uses carefully chosen books and sacred texts to stimulate curiosity, moral thinking, and discussion.
  Encourages children to ask questions, explore different perspectives, and recognise shared values across belief systems.
• Introduces children to a wider range of vocabulary, helping them speak confidently and respectfully about religion.

Key Stage 2 – Depth and Dialogue

By KS2, children are increasingly able to think critically, compare belief systems, and reflect on deeper moral and philosophical questions. Our RE curriculum enables children to:

• Engage with complex issues such as justice, suffering, and peace, encouraging respectful dialogue and debate.
• Deepen understanding of how religion influences personal identity, ethical choices, and cultural traditions.
• Continue to explore British values through case studies, stories, and lived experiences, discussing issues like tolerance, liberty, and mutual respect.
• Use books, sacred texts, and real-life examples to explore traditions, symbols, and rituals with increasing depth.
• Develop advanced oracy skills through formal debates, group discussions, presentations, and written reflections.
• Visit places of worship and listen to speakers from different faiths, using these experiences as springboards for thoughtful questioning and respectful analysis.

By using structured talk strategies and vocabulary scaffolds, children become confident in expressing and justifying their viewpoints while listening to others with compassion and interest.

By the end of their time at Lady Margaret Primary School, our pupils will:

• Understand the core beliefs and practices of a range of world religions and non-religious worldviews.
• Be able to use precise vocabulary and confident oracy to engage in respectful discussions about faith, morality, and identity.
• Demonstrate values of tolerance, empathy, and respect, informed by British values and a strong moral framework.
• Reflect on their own experiences and those of others through storytelling, debate, and text-based learning.
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• Reflective practices are supported by sensory-friendly environments and emotional literacy strategies. 
• Pupils engage with abstract concepts through visual aids and structured discussion formats. 

RE curriculum termly overview

Parents/carers have the right to choose whether to withdraw their child from RE without influence from the school, although a school should ensure parents or carers are informed of this right and are aware of the educational objectives and content of the RE syllabus. If students are withdrawn from RE, schools have a duty to supervise them, though not to provide additional teaching or to incur extra cost; suitable work relating to the child’s religious education should be provided by the parents/carers.

If a parent chooses to withdraw their child from RE, they need to:

• Inform the school of their request for their child(ren) to be withdrawn from RE and/or ‘religious assembly’ and whether they intend partial or total withdrawal for their child(ren)
  • This should be either in person or in writing to the Headteacher; verbal communication (e.g. on the telephone, through the student or a note in a student’s books) is not an adequate method.