R.E. Curriculum

Statement of Intent

The primary purpose of Catholic Religious Education is to come to know and understand God’s revelation which is fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ. The Catholic school is ‘a clear educational project of which Christ is the foundation.’ In the person of Christ, the deepest meaning of what it is to be human — that we are created by God and through the Holy Spirit united with Christ in his Incarnation — is discovered. This revelation is known through the scriptures and the tradition of the Church as taught by the Magisterium. Religious Education helps the pupil to know and experience the meaning of this revelation in his or her own life and the life of the community which is the Church. Hence ‘the promotion of the human person is the goal of the Catholic school.’

Religious Education is central to the curriculum of the Catholic school and is at the heart of the philosophy of Catholic education. Religious Education has developed in a way that reflects the particular identity of our Catholic schools in England and Wales. It teaches about the faith in the context of a school which proclaims the Gospel, and invites the individual to respond to the message of Christ. As the individual responds to this invitation, growth in faith and knowledge helps the pupil to respond to the call to holiness and understand the fullness of what it is to be human.

At St Mary’s we strive to deliver a high-quality RE education which will help pupils become religiously literate and engaged young people who have the knowledge, understanding and skills – appropriate to their age and capacity – to reflect spiritually, and think ethically and theologically, and who are aware of the demands of religious commitment in everyday life.

Religious Education Aims at St Mary's

We aim to:

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