RE

Westhaven School > RE

Religious

Education

Valued – Inspired – Prepared

Westhaven School is a unique learning environment with high expectations for learners who experience barriers to learning for a range of reasons. We promote a calm environment which enables everyone to learn. The golden thread that permeates our curriculum and our conduct through every school day are the core values which shape our learners to be:

  • safely independent
  • confident communicators
  • respectful citizens
  • resilient learners
  • inquisitive thinkers

The Westhaven Way is our ethos and it underpins our daily approach to behaviour and learning.

How the Religious Education Curriculum Links to the Westhaven Core Values


Safely independent
Learners understand how to be tolerant and ask questions appropriately. They are then able to consider all points of view and be protected against radicalisation. These things can be discussed and challenged in RE lessons.


Confident communicators
Learners are given opportunities to express their ideas around belief or non-belief and be able to ask others and listen to others 


Respectful citizens
While following the British values of democracy, rule of law, individual liberty, respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs, learners will know how to respond respectfully to those with different beliefs and faiths and the way those are demonstrated.


Resilient learners
Learners are challenged in their thinking and assumptions and encouraged to question what they believe and what others believe.


Inquisitive thinkers
Studying RE allows learners to be exposed to different ways of life, different cultures and to be able to question what they see and learn about.

Democracy, Rule of Law, Respect and Tolerance, Individual Liberty.
The RE curriculum at Westhaven fits very well into our teaching and promotion of the 5 British values. In particular, in fostering respect and tolerance and allowing each person individual liberty to believe and express those beliefs within the framework of democracy and the rule of law. We seek to demonstrate this in our learning and classroom discussions.

Following Bruner’s spiral curriculum, our learners are encouraged to think about RE in Lower School in terms of their own experience of the world, gradually moving on to artefacts and visual representations of religions and beliefs as they move up the school. As they progress through the curriculum, learners visit and revisit the six main world religions as well as other beliefs and faiths. They are equipped with key vocabulary to think about and discuss what they learn and understand, allowing them to express their own beliefs while understanding and being tolerant and respectful towards others who hold different beliefs and ideas.

RE is a statutory subject, and at Westhaven, we follow the Awareness, Mystery and Value curriculum which is the locally agreed syllabus for Bath, NE Somerset, Bristol, North Somerset and the London Borough of Haringey. The units of study follow a series of questions. They follow 6 Areas of Enquiry:

Here is an example from the year 7 syllabus:

1. What experiences and beliefs are important to me and to others? (Christianity and Sikhism)
This unit explores ideas of what it is to be human and relates them to religious and other beliefs 
(a) What makes human beings special? 
(b) What do we mean by the human spirit? 
(c) Why is prayer, reflection and contemplation important for some people? 
(d) What do we mean by religious experience? 
(e) What do I think about the value and purpose of human beings?

Learners are given the chance to experience Christianity and Sikhism by handling artefacts, watching video clips and where possible visiting a church (with plans to visit a gurdwara in the future).