Intent
We are a Catholic school and we are committed to the Catholic Faith, recognising and valuing every individual as special and unique in the image and likeness of God.
Religious Education at St. Oswald’s respects and promotes each child’s innate capacity for wonder, awe, reverence and spirituality. Our Religious Education curriculum leads our children to aspire not to have more, but to be more; children are taught about God’s love; they learn about their Christian responsibilities; children are provided with experiences of church, Catholic and Christian traditions, as well as being taught to be respectful and understanding of people and traditions from other faith backgrounds. Through Religious Education our children learn about their unique place within the home, school and parish community.
Implementation
At St. Oswald’s we follow the ‘Come and See’ Religious Education Programme in line with guidance from the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle. This programme is followed throughout school from Nursery through to Year 6.
This programme provides:
- Opportunities for celebration, prayer and reflection in implicit and explicit ways
- Children with the language of religious experience – a ‘literacy’ in religious activities, places, stories, symbols and rituals, people and objects
- A ‘systematic presentation of Christian event, message and way of life’ in ways appropriate to the age and stage of development of the child
- That for its implementation and production it requires the adults involved to understand the underlying theological as well as educational principles
- Appropriate materials about other faiths
- Academic respectability as in other curricular areas – utilising appropriate stages
from the National Curriculum
The programme explores the religious dimensions of questions about life, dignity and purpose within the Catholic tradition. Links are made with the children’s own experience and with universal experience. It will raise questions and provide material for reflection by the children on their own experiences. It will enable them to explore the beliefs, values and way of life of the Catholic tradition and where appropriate other faith traditions.
Catholic Life of the school
Thank you God for our school today,
Bless us as we work and play.
Please be with us all day long,
In our work, or game or song,
May all the happy things we do,
Make our Father happy too.
Amen
Scripture is at the centre of everything the Church does. The word of God shapes our prayer and worship. The Bible shows us how to understand the world, how we are called to live and relate to each other. 2020 is the 10th anniversary of Verbum Domini – Pope Benedict XVI’s Apostolic Exhortation on ‘The Word of the Lord’ and the 1,600 anniversary of St Jerome’s death. These dates have inspired the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales to dedicate 2020 as a year of focus on the Bible and ‘The God Who Speaks’.
During the year, the Catholic Church in England and Wales will be celebrating, living and sharing God‘s word with an exciting new Scripture initiative. It’s an opportunity to enrich current practice and to develop and explore new ways of responding to ‘The God who Speaks’. Throughout 2020 there will be a range of events, activities and resources to participate in all around the country. To help achieve transformation in our hearts and in our communities there will be three themes of celebrating, living and sharing God’s word.
The Official Prayer for the Year of the Word
Living God, you walk alongside us and speak to us throughout the Scriptures. Your Son, Jesus Christ, listens to our hopes and fears and shows us how to live for one another. Send us the Holy Spirit to open our hearts and minds so that we may be your witnesses throughout the world.
Amen
Your word is our path and your truth is our light.
This day and every day.
Our Lady of the Annunciation
Pray for us
St Matthew
Pray for us
St Jerome
Pray for us
RE Curriculum 2025-2026
Content pending ...
Stations of the Cross 1-4
The stations of the Cross remind us how much Jesus loves us. The first 4 stations focus on acceptance, suffering, weakness and love at the start of the journey to the crucifixion. Reception reflected on these stations by lighting candles, saying a prayer, and thinking about small sacrifices or kind actions they could make to help others and improve the world.
Autumn Term
Domestic Church
Baptism
Advent
Year 2 – Beginnings
Judaism
Year 2 – Baptism – Signs and symbols
Spring Term – Giving All
Spring Term – Listening and Sharing
Spring Term – Islam
Spring Term – Journeys
Autumn Term – Visitors
Autumn Term – Promises
Autumn Term – Judaism
Autumn Term – Homes
Content pending ...
Hope
Life Choices
Judaism
Domestic Church – Ourselves
Autumn Term Religious Education
RE Curriculum 2024-2025
Exploring Celebrations – Our thinking map ideas!
Exploring Advent-We are preparing for Toby Ted’s Birthday by planning a party for him. We made a thinking map where we put all of our Birthday ideas including decorations, cards, gifts and food. Then we set to work on making the decorations for the party on Forest Friday.
After learning about the sacrament of Baptism during our ‘welcome’ topic some children used the resources available to create their Baptism celebration.
During October we have been learning about the Rosary. We spent time looking at the beads, counting out the sets of ten and learning to pray the ‘Hail Mary’.
At the end of our Domestic Church topic we celebrated with prayers. We planned our focal point together, choosing the cloth, the blue stones and the candle to represent the love we have for our family. This helped us to deepen our understanding of being part of Gods family.
Domestic Church- Family
Judaism Week! We looked at what happens during Hanukkah and found out Jewish people eat doughnuts and play a game with dreidels! We tasted our own doughnuts and then made our own dreidel’s!
As we come to the end of our ‘Myself’ topic we thought about how we feel when we hear our name! We then drew our face onto our biscuit, lots of smiles! We then responded thanking God for loving us and remembered we are unique.
Finding our names and thinking about how we are all special to God
Autumn Term
Domestic Church
Belongings
Waiting
Spring Term
Special People
Meals – Eucharist
Change – Lent
Summer Term
Holydays and Holy Days – Ascension and Pentecost
Reconciliation
Reconciliation – Rules
Pentecost – Spreading the Good News
Easter Cards – Celebrating the Resurrection of Jesus
Year 2 – Lent/Easter – Giving: Opportunities
Year 2 – Eucharist – Relating/Thanksgiving
Year 2 – Islam
Year 2 – Local Church: Community – Books
Year 2 – Baptism – Belonging – The children acted out the steps of the Sacrament of Baptism and we talked about the meaning behind the actions and artefacts used.
Year 2 – Judaism – The children were learning about how people act because of their beliefs. The children ended their lessons about Judaism by making a Havdalah spice box which is used in the Havdalah ceremony at the end of Shabbat
Year 2 – Domestic Church – Family – Beginnings – Describe the life and work of some key figures in the history of the People of God
Summer – Energy
Spring – Giving All
Spring – Listening and Sharing
Spring – Islam
Spring – Journeys
Autumn – Visitors
Autumn – Promises
Autumn – Judaism
Autumn – Homes
Memorial Sacrifice, Sacrifice and Transformation
Mission
Hope
Life Choices
Domestic Church – Ourselves
Daily Prayer – Examen
We used our hands to pray. We paused and reflected using our fingers. Firstly, we were still and present. Secondly, we reflected on our day and thought about things that we are grateful for. Thirdly, we reflected on our victories and challenges before saying sorry to God. Finally, we looked ahead and thought about the differences that we can make to change our world.
RE- Witnesses
RE-Spring 2-Death/New Life
RE – Spring Term- Unity
Visit to South Shields Mosque
RE Autumn term- Loving/ Judaism
Visit to Newcastle Reform Synagogue
The Annunciation and Marys Expectations
Vocation and Commitment
RE Curriculum 2023-2024
Stations of the Cross
Our Local Church Display
Islam
As part of our Islam topic we learned about ‘special objects’ and how Muslims have a special prayer mat which they use when praying. We looked at a prayer mat and designed our own. We are developing an understanding of how different communities have different beliefs and traditions.
Travelling Crib
In our Harvest liturgy we gathered around our bread basket and thought about how lucky we are to have food to eat. We thanked God for the harvest and made a promise to share with others.
We used our ‘go forth’ and donated food to our Harvest collection. This was a charity collection and we shared it with our local food bank.
In our prayers today we gave thanks for our friends. Just as Jesus had his special friends, the disciples we have made some special friends since we started in Nursery.
Judaism celebrations
Thinking about what makes a good friend! We made each other friendship bracelets!
Good News! We shared our good news during our class worship at the end of our Pentecost topic.
Our new topic is growing for Lent and Easter. We have been thinking about how the chicks are growing and we went outside to see what was growing on our Spring walk!
Let’s Celebrate! In our RE lessons we have been looking at all different types of Celebrations.
EYFS Nativity!
Some of our work in the provision during advent!
Advent- As a class we talked about purple being the colour of Advent we changed to a purple cloth and added a nativity scene to our focal point. We talked about the meaning of Advent, waiting and preparing for Jesus. We looked at the Advent Wreath and when each candle is lit. We then made our own Advent Wreaths.
This week we have spent time talking about birthdays! We made our own birthday display in class and talked about how some of us have had our 5th birthday and some of us are waiting for our 5th birthday! The children decided to have their own birthday party!
Baptism Response Celebration of the Word. We reflected about how we feel when we are welcomed and thought about the importance of the sign of the cross.
Our Baptismal Candle
During our ‘Welcome’ topic we have been learning all about Baptism. We listened to the story and sequenced the different parts of the sacrament of Baptism.
Looking at our key vocabulary in our Baptism topic and making our Baptismal Candles!
Today we had our very own Baptism for baby Joy. The children remembered all of the key people who are present at the baptism and could remember our key symbols too! We even had a party to celebrate after!
Judaism Week! We talked about times we celebrate and then sequenced the story of Hanukkah! We then explored our environment with lots of Hanukkah links.
We talked today about how God looks after us! We talked about how it feels to look be held. We passed around the babies and made sure to look after them like God looks after us.
We have been talking about the importance of our names. We played pass the name and picked our friends name out and found the right person to give it to!
Look at these beautiful pieces of work by Year 1!
Year 2 – Reconciliation – Rules
Year 2 – Pentecost
Year 2 – Local Community – The different books used in church
Year 2 – This year the children have been learning about two other religions; Judaism and Islam.
Year 2 – R.E. – Celebrating our Advent topic and creating a class advent wreath to remind us of God’s everlasting love for us.
Year 2- RE Judaism. We discussed the different parts of the Havdalah ceremony which marks the end of Shabbat (a special time for people of the Jewish faith). Next, we then made this come alive by recreating part of the ceremony by making our own spice boxes. It was fun choose the spices by taking in their scent and including appropriate images to decorate the box.
Year 2 – R.E. Responding to our Beginning Topic – The children carefully planned their focal point for our class Celebration of the Word. They ensured that each object had a link to our chosen scripture.
What beautiful work from our Year 3 children!
As a group, we planned a class Celebration of the Word using our planning board to inspire us.
The final part of each RE topic is Respond. During this, we respond to what we have learned throughout the topic. Part of this is planning our own Celebration of the Word. For this, we used the planning cards. This will also help us for when we work in groups to plan our class celebrations.
Spring 1
Composer Will Todd visit to hear Gaudete – Mass Setting
Belonging – We all have a mission
Using a maze to help reflect and speak to God
Autumn 1
Islam
Eucharist – Unity
Judaism
The Year Six children have been exploring Judaism. We learnt about the festival of Rosh Hashanah which leads to Yom Kippur (the day of atonement). The children created a Rosh Hashanah card and wrote about its importance to the Jewish faith.
Loving- Oscar Romero
Our topic in Year 6 this half term has been ‘Loving,’ during one of our RE lesson we found out about the life of Oscar Romero. We described how Oscar Romero is a role model and thought about how he loved unconditionally.
