Recognising outstanding learning in religious education

RE helps you to grow in maturity. Seeing the bigger picture helps you to understand things.

The process has challenged us further; we have already put in place a number of new ideas, such as the pupils planning and even teaching lessons. We have also renewed some ideas which had been allowed to slip for a year or two, such as developing closer community links and there are some exciting things happening as a result. You have made us take a fresh look at ourselves, through a different lens. Although we have gained a gold award, the criteria still provide lots of creative pointers to move ourselves forward even further.

We used the RE mark as a tool for our department development plan. In a time where departments are largely judged by outcomes our ‘department development meetings’ have now been re-named ‘department attainment meetings.’ While we recognise the importance of attainment – indeed the RE department at the Ifracombe Academy boasted the best GCSE results in the school and significantly above the national average – we recognise that there are limitations to examination and results cannot tell the whole story. There are always areas for development. The structure of the RE quality mark proved to be a useful tool for development. We worked through it together as a team. For the most part it was an encouragement. Lots of ‘oh yes…we do that…’ as well as suggested areas for development. This document continues to be a point of reference and is useful for setting targets for staff appraisals.

I’ve learnt to be able to think through really important stuff, you know things in daily life that might affect me … I feel I can work through anything now because of RE even when I leave school …

I love the connection between RS and the wider world.

I liked it when we get creative. I liked when we wrote on leaves our wishes, what we wish for, and what we might like to wash away from the world. I like learning things about God.