Religious Education and World Views
At Markington Church of England Primary and Nursery School our Christian vision and values underpin every aspect of daily life of our school community, providing a climate for personal and academic growth. Our caring ethos, and the value we place on the holistic development of every child is reflected in the way that we teach Religious Education and World Views, and our rich and varied curriculum ensures this has a high profile, instilling respect for different beliefs through a program covering the major faiths. We want our children to engage with religious texts and make links with other curriculum areas, whilst learning about diversity in belief and practice – both within religions, as well as between.
Our principle aim in the teaching of Religion and World Views is to develop the knowledge and skills to enable pupils to hold balanced and infomed conversations about religions and world views, both those of others and their own.
Our school is a Voluntary Controlled Church of England School and we welcome pupils and staff from all faiths and none. We highly value our RE and World Views teaching and it enables us to develop greater understanding of how religion and beliefs affect our lives, and it is part of our broad and balanced curriculum. At the heart of this teaching in our church school is the teaching of Christianity and World Views.
The content of our RE curriculum is determined by the North Yorkshire Agreed Syllabus of Religious Education 2024-2029, and all children have a weekly RE lesson, - we use resources drawn from NATRE (National Association of Teachers of Relegious Education) - as well as opportunities to learn about, and celebrate, other significant religious events throughout the year. Children learn about Christianity and at least three other major world faiths: Judaism, Islam and Hinduism. In addition to this, our curriculum includes ‘thematic units’ which bring together and compare multiple different religious and non-religious worldviews around a single overarching concept or big question, rather than studying just one faith in isolation. This is outlined in our long-term, rolling program for RE.
Multi-Cultural Opportunities
As well as our planned curriculum for RE, we also welcome visitors, go on trips, and provide other opportunities for the children to learn about other faiths and cultures.
Church at School
St Michael's Church, Markington is currently closed...so, once a month, the church service is held at school. This service is for all members of the community and are held in the portacabin to the rear of school on the 4th Sunday in each month.
Links
Rev Paul Harford is our Markington vicar, and is a regular visitor to our school. He leads Collective Worship, joins us for special events, and supports the staff and children.
Canon Matthew from RIpon Cathedral is a good friend to our school, and we try to make a whole-school (jointly with Markington School) visit to Ripon Cathdral, once a year.
Learning about Christianity
Reverand Paul is a regular visitor to school. He leads Collective Worship and visits the children in class.
Canon Matthew from Ripon Cathedral also visits school to lead Collective Worship.
Learning about Judaism
Our special Jewish visitor Mr Warner came to talk to the children about Judaism. He answered some thoughtful questions from the children, and spoke about the similarities and differences between Judaism and other faiths. The children had a chance to look at some Jewish children's books too.
Learning about Islam
The children in KS2 had lots of good questions to ask Sara about her Muslim faith, when she visited school recently.
Class 1 have been learning about Christian Beliefs...
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Class 2's topic have been an 'Understanding Christianity' unit called 'What Would Jesus Do?'
Jesus told a parable about a wise man and a foolish man. We tried to see if we could build our 'house upon the sand'...
This week, important people from all around the world met at COP26 to discuss the problems human beings are making in the world.
What do you think Jesus would do about...
All the bad behaviour in the world
'I think that Jesus would help people even if they were mean and wouldn't listen to him'
Class 2 wrote poems during the week of COP26, thinking about what God might think if he looked down on the world today.
