At Walkley, we aim to encourage pupils to see RE as a means of self-expression and to develop an awareness and fascination of the world around them.

Religious Education is vital for our children to develop into global citizens who are knowledgeable, open minded and curious about our world. Pupils need to learn, express, respect and understand diverse beliefs and opinions held by people today. Walkley children discover, explore and consider many different answers to questions about human identity, meaning and value. They learn to weigh up for themselves the value of wisdom from different communities, to disagree respectfully, to be reasonable in their responses to religions and world views and to respond by expressing insights into their own and others’ lives.

At Walkley, RE sessions are delivered using Discovery RE based on an enquiry learning approach. The key question for the enquiry is such that it demands an answer that weighs up ‘evidence’ and reaches a conclusion based on this. This necessitates children using their subject knowledge and applying it to the enquiry question, rather than this knowledge being an end in itself. Discovery RE focuses on critical thinking skills, on personal reflection into the child’s own thoughts and feelings, on growing subject knowledge and nurturing spiritual development.

Each enquiry follows a four step approach:

• Engagement: The human experience underpinning the key question is explored here within the children’s own experience, whether that includes religion or not e.g. a human experience. If they can relate to this human experience they will be better able to understand the world of religion into which the enquiry takes them. Their personal resonance with this underpinning human experience acts as the bridge into the world of religion.
• Investigation: The teacher guides the children through the enquiry, children gaining subject knowledge carefully selected to assist their thinking about the key question.
• Evaluation: This draws together the children’s learning and their conclusions about the key question of that enquiry. 
• Expression: Children are taken back to Step 1, their own experience, to reflect on how this enquiry might have informed their own understanding.