St Joseph’s R.E. Curriculum

From Nursery up to Year 6, we follow the ‘Come and See’ Religious Education Programme. Each class covers three topics per term, with each topic lasting about 4 to 5 weeks. The topics focus on The Local Church, The Sacraments and Gospel stories about the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Classes from Years 1 to 6 also find out about other faiths. They learn about Judaism in the Autumn Term and Islam in the Summer Term. In the Summer Term, all year groups find out about how we can reach out to people in the wider world in the Universal Church topics. Children learn about the work of CAFOD in developing countries. We also support CAFOD with fundraising activities such as our sponsored silence in Lent. There are Home Learning packs for each year group on the Hexham and Newcastle Diocesan Education website (edurcdhn.org). There are packs for the current Sacramental topics as well as the Advent/Christmas topics. There are also links to the resources on the CAFOD website.

Sacramental Preparation

The children in Year 4 prepare to receive the Sacraments of Reconciliation and The Eucharist. The responsibility for preparing the children to receive these sacraments is shared between school and the parish. The First Reconciliation usually takes place in Advent and children receive their First Holy Communion in May or June.

Collective Worship

At the moment, Mr Craig is recording our weekly liturgies every Monday morning so the school can come together virtually rather than meeting in the hall as we would normally do. These liturgies are based on the Gospel passage from the Sunday before. Each class teacher is also on a rota to prepare a liturgy for a Wednesday morning, which is shared online too. We discuss the Statement to live by each week and have a class liturgy based around this statement. The statement is a simple message about being kind and caring towards one another. The children will also have a liturgy to celebrate what they have enjoyed about their RE topic.

Mrs. M. Jordan
R.E. Co-ordinator