Religious Education

Attainment

We wish to foster a love of learning for the sake of learning, rather than to see their subjects as having only a utilitarian value. It is to encourage enquiry and questioning of beliefs and practices and see the value in them. It is to promote critical thinking, higher order thinking and insight into the reasons why people behave the way they do and how that behaviour shapes all of society.

Religious Education is therefore taught in four skill areas: Investigation into religious truths, development of argumentation, interpretation of scripture and formation of character. These skills are transferable to other subjects.

Appreciation

We aim to help students to shape their morality around the Gospel Values of love and to see how that impacts on their thinking, learning and relationships. We seek to help students see themselves as made in the image and likeness of God and to make all feel welcomed and loved. We also seek to identify aspects of cultural capital, things we learn when we are not learning to appreciate Religious Education as an integral part of the education experience.

Religious Education is therefore taught in the context of a Catholic school with the aim to show students how their learning can lead to various careers and study in other subjects. We want to show that Religious Education is a facilitating subject for educating the whole person.

Reflection

Our vision in Religious Education is to develop the whole person from Year 7 all the way through to Year 13. It is to develop a healthy curiosity of their and others’ faith, to see it as an enrichment of life and a pursuit of transcendent truth based in the revelation of God. Religious Education is unique among the subjects because it is not a subject that leads students to one particular end. It is a subject that forms the whole character.

Through the skills we teach and using the content that we cover from Year 7 to 13, our purpose is to form our students into critical thinkers and active participants, and, where students share our school’s faith, become more educated believers and future leaders. We aim to facilitate moral engagement and their own sense of morality and ultimately seek truth.