Religious Education lies at the heart of the Church’s response to the call of Christ to ‘go out into the world and teach all nations’ and covers both what is explicit and what is implicit. [1]     

The governors and staff of St. Catherine hereby set out their policy with the understanding that,

“Teaching has an extraordinary moral depth and is one of our most excellent and creative activities. For the teacher does not write on inanimate material, but on the very spirits of human beings.” [2] 

Religious Education at St. Catherine School aims to promote:

• The content of the Religious Education Directory (RED)
• Knowledge and understanding of The Catholic Church
• The foundation for a life of faith
• Knowledge and understanding of the response of The Catholic Church to the ultimate questions about human life, its origin and purpose
• The skills required to engage in examination of and reflection on religious belief and practice
• A degree of understanding and awareness of other major world religions
• St. Catherine's School Mission Statement
• An understanding and yearning for Social Action through an understanding of Catholic Social Teaching.

 

Teaching and Learning

An important aspect of Religious Education is to ensure that it permeates throughout the curriculum and all other areas of school life.

• • St Catherine School dedicates 10% of teaching time to the teaching of Religious Education as required by the Bishops of England and Wales.
  • Regular inset and appropriate funding for resources, together with rigorous assessment and monitoring of the subject to ensure that R.E. has the same status as that of the other core subjects of the school’s curriculum.
  • The RED model curriculum is used by all classes at St Catherine School.
  • The Ways of Knowing are used to assess children in Religious Education
  • The Sacramental programmes in preparation for receiving the sacraments of Eucharist and Reconciliation are based in children’s parishes, for many of whom, this is our school parish, St Catherine of Alexandria.

Conclusion

The outcome of Religious Education is to develop religiously literate young people who have the knowledge, understanding and skills – appropriate to their age and capacity – to think spiritually, ethically and theologically and who are aware of the demands of religious commitment of every day life.[3]  

Each member of the school community has a part to play in the implementation of this policy, which seeks to maintain and strengthen the ethos of St. Catherine as a Catholic school.

 

[1] Statement on Religious Education in Catholic Schools issued by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales –  May 2000

[2] The Catholic School on the Threshold of the Third Millennium: 1998

[3] Statement on Religious Education in Catholic Schools – issued by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales May 2000