The following guidance may be helpful for teachers who want to review or create their own
scheme of work.
Defining a key-stage plan
A key-stage plan for RE:
- precedes the development of a scheme of work;
- takes account of the requirements of the locally agreed syllabus, the circumstances of the
school and its aims and purposes;
- is a whole-school plan agreed by all staff;
- sets out an agreed time allocation for RE per year for each year group or mixed-age class;
- makes clear school priorities, for example PSHE.
When developing a key-stage plan, teachers may find it helpful to consider:
- the balance between knowledge and understanding (learning about religions) and
opportunities for developing the skills of asking and responding to questions (learning
from religions);
- how content may best be sequenced;
- how to check children's progress;
- the practicalities of organising the teaching of RE, for example the availability of visitors
and opportunities for visits;
- links with other curriculum areas;
- the aims and purposes of RE at key stages 1 and 2, and the subject's contribution to the
whole primary curriculum;
- ways in which children make progress in learning RE.
Evaluating RE key-stage plans and units
It is important to ask how far the school's key-stage plans and units:
- provide long- and medium-term plans that are clearly linked to the locally agreed syllabus;
- provide a secure basis from which teachers can plan lessons on a daily or weekly basis to
meet the needs of all children in the class;
- show how RE ideas and skills are built up in an organised, systematic and rigorous way
based on learning that has already taken place;
- show links between the different attainment targets, including the development of skills of
asking and responding to questions;
- link teaching activities to the learning they are intended to promote;
- identify what children are expected to learn, both within a unit and by the end of a specified
period, and how children's learning might be assessed;
- provide opportunities, where appropriate, for the development of literacy, mathematics, ICT,
PSHE and citizenship, thinking skills and links to other subjects;
- give indications of the time needed to teach each unit.
Evaluating the extent to which a key-stage plan encourages progression in children's learning
- What is known about what children have already achieved when they enter the key stage
and how does this affect the pitch of the early units?
- Which ideas in RE depend on secure understanding of other ideas?
- How can units be sequenced so that earlier work lays the foundations for later work?
- Are there opportunities for revisiting and reinforcing the ideas children need to understand
and which some will find difficult?
- When ideas are revisited or reinforced, is it in a different context or using different
activities?
- How are children who have some competence or expertise beyond the levels expected in
particular years challenged?
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