Smithdown School is made up of children who originate from many nationalities, cultures and faith groups. As a school we aim to celebrate this diversity and offer a welcoming and inclusive environment for all our pupils, including new arrivals and non-native English speakers. We believe that Religious Education (RE) provides an opportunity to celebrate and foster awareness of these differences within our school and the wider world.  It is a subject that celebrates diversity.

RE explores big questions about life, in order to find out what people believe and what
difference this makes to how they live, so that pupils can make sense of religion and worldviews, and
reflect on their own ideas and ways of living.

Our Aims

  • To help our children develop respect and sensitivity for all people
  • To help our children understand faith and moral codes to guide them and develop informed opinions
  • To help our children develop an understanding of modern multi-cultural Britain and how this is reflected in their lives and local community
  • To help our children understand more about the importance of religion in today’s world.

Whole school RE Overview 2024-2025

 

Parental right to withdraw their child from Religious Education (RE)
The right to withdraw your child from RE was first granted in 1944 when RE was called ‘Religious Instruction’ and carried with it connotations of induction into the Christian faith. However RE is very different now and is very open and broad; exploring a range of religions and non-religious worldviews.
Our RE curriculum is a subject that celebrates diversity and gives children an understanding of the similarities and differences between faiths.  We do not teach any religion as true or untrue. We firmly believe that it is your absolute right to bring your child up following your religious tradition but this religious nurture happens at home, not in RE lessons. In our RE lessons, pupils are finding out about what different people believe and how they practise their religion.  In their future lives, our pupils will need to work and live alongside people from a range of religious backgrounds so it is essential that they know enough about other religions to do this respectfully and successfully. We want our children to understand that they can hold their personal beliefs whilst being respectful of others who may hold different views. We believe that our RE curriculum supports our one school rule of showing Kindness and Respect.
Parents can only withdraw their children from RE –  no other curriculum areas. For example, pupils cannot be withdrawn from a study of religious art in and art lesson.
If, after reading the above documentation (Whole school overview and Liverpool Agreed Syllabus for RE), you are still considering withdrawing your child from RE on the grounds that you will provide your own RE education, then we ask that parents arrange a meeting with a member of the senior leadership team to discuss your wishes.
chatter icon

Religious Education Chatter

chatter icon

Year 2 Nativity

17-12-2024

Our Nativity Slideshow.

Thank you all for coming to watch. We loved performing for you.

44
chatter icon

The concept of ‘Ahimsa’

05-12-2024

In R.E. today, we learnt about the Hindu belief in AHIMSA – non-harm. We learnt about Ghandi and discussed what some of his quotes meant.

6
chatter icon

A visit from B-Tales!

02-12-2024

B-tales shared the story of Jonah and the Christmas twist.

63
chatter icon

Some completed mosque sketches

28-11-2024

We think some of these mosque pictures are incredible!We drew them as part of our RE unit which includes learning about ‘Ummah’ as part of the Islam religion.

9
chatter icon

Mosque sketching

27-11-2024
11
chatter icon

RE: The importance of the mosque in Islam.

14-11-2024

We’re now in the Islam section of our RE unit and we are learning all about the sense of community and how the mosque plays an important part in bringing the community together. We took the opportunity to utilise our artistic skills too.

17
chatter icon

Timetables in RE

12-11-2024

In RE we looked at the difference between a Christian’s daily timetable and our daily timetables. We discovered some similarities and some differences.

16
chatter icon

We have been learning about Diwali and are manipulating salt dough into our own diya lamps. 🪔

24-10-2024
16
chatter icon

To celebrate Diwali, we made some Rangoli patterns!

24-10-2024

66
chatter icon

In Year 1 we loved having Ms Ronak give us a talk all about Diwali!

24-10-2024

57
chatter icon

Diwali lanterns

22-10-2024

We have been busy painting our Diwali lanterns this week.

26
chatter icon

Diwali workshop!

22-10-2024

Thank you to our wonderful visitors for speaking to us about Diwali. We loved our workshop.

57
chatter icon

Diwali Celebrations

22-10-2024

Year 4 had such a great morning at our Diwali workshop. We wore some traditional Hindu clothing, learned some traditional dance, and even got to paint and create our own diya lanterns. 

25
chatter icon

Diwali lanterns

22-10-2024


We are having so much fun making our Diwali lanterns with rangoli patterns.

59
chatter icon

Diwali 🌟

22-10-2024

We have really enjoyed learning about the celebration of Diwali this week. We are very excited to see our lanterns lit for our Diwali lunch tomorrow

57
chatter icon

Diwali Celebrations

21-10-2024

Today,  year 3 had a workshop based around Diwali. The children enjoyed learning about this celebration. They learned how it called ‘the festival of lights’ and created their own pieces of art that candle lights are placed in. We got to dress up and took part in a traditional Diwali dance.

 

65
chatter icon

Diwali lanterns

21-10-2024

Today we are designing our Diwali lanterns for next week. We have learnt the story of Rama and Sita and thought about why Diwali is celebrated in Hindu religion. We are trying to focus on using Rangoli patterns.

78
chatter icon

Diwali Celebrations

21-10-2024

Year 6 had some special visitors today who helped us to learn about the Hindu festival of Diwali. We looked at traditional food, special dress and other forms of celebration which take place. Most of all, we loved the dressing up and the dancing!

20
chatter icon

Year 4 Temple trip

15-10-2024

Year 4 had a very exciting morning visiting a local temple. We asked lots of questions related to our Hinduism unit.

 

48
chatter icon

Hinduism … What is Moksha?

14-10-2024

we learned about reincarniation and how Muslims believe if you have good Moksha you will be reborn, if you don’t you will come back as an animal.

48
chatter icon

Great work in RE year 2

12-10-2024

Your art work was impressive in RE this week! Well done Year 2

16
chatter icon

‘Good Guy Code For Living’

10-10-2024

We have completed our ‘Good Guy Codes for Living / How to be a Good Guy’ in RE. We made suggestions on actions and behaviour we can display to make the world a better place.

46
chatter icon

RE: Villains and Rules

10-10-2024

Within our RE unit of ‘What Matters Most To Christians and Humanists’ we talked about villains – What villains do we know? What makes a villain a villain? We then looked at positive and negative behaviour and consequences in school, at home and in society. We followed this up by designing our own ‘Good Guy Codes for Living’ which we are still working on.

 

10
chatter icon

We shared our special things with each other

12-09-2024

As part of our new topic we shared special things from home. We explained why they are special and what they mean to us.

16
chatter icon

Eid Mubarak!

25-06-2024

We loved celebrating Eid last week.

112
chatter icon

Eid Mubarak!

25-06-2024

Happy Eid to all our families celebrating! We had a lovely day and week celebrating with all our children and adults.

 

144
chatter icon

We have been busy sharing how we celebrated Eid. ?

18-04-2024

59
chatter icon

Throwing and Catching

27-02-2024

 

We have been practicing our throwing and catching skills in a group. We worked together to see how quickly we can move the beanbag around the circle.

 

 

57
chatter icon

RE: Geometric Patterns

29-01-2024

After learning about Mosques, we followed step by step instructions to create our own geometric Islamic patterns. Now they are designed, we are going to colour. How symmetrical can we make them? ?

55
chatter icon

RE: Grace, Ummah and Ahimsa

25-01-2024

As part of our unit (Grace, Ummah and Ahimsa), we learnt a little about Ghandi, and how he protested peacefully against wrongs and injustices. We then used some key words to present in his name.

40
chatter icon

Reception RE

23-01-2024

Reception had a wonderful morning listening to the story of Noah and the Ark

40
chatter icon

Mosques Around The World

18-01-2024

As part of our RE unit, we are finding out about mosques around the world and presenting our findings in Google Slides.

61
chatter icon

Year 3 and 4 had an amazing time watching a Christmas performance! We all had a good laugh and got involved.

11-12-2023

68
chatter icon

Starting our new RE topic

15-11-2023

We started our new Christianity topic by looking at Christian symbols and artefacts. Christians believe God has many titles so we thought about the different labels we have.

198
chatter icon

Celebrating Diwali

15-11-2023

We have been learning all about the festival of Diwali this week. We made Diwa decorations and cards for Diwali. We also found how Diwali is celebrated and how Diwali means Festival of Light. ?

201
chatter icon

Diwali candles in 2GH

13-11-2023

We have enjoyed creating our own Diwali candles today

220
chatter icon

A happy Diwali from 3TS! We made beautiful lanterns to represent the festival of light.

13-11-2023

227
chatter icon

Happy Diwali

13-11-2023
73
chatter icon

Year 4 celebrations for Diwali. We love our Diwali lanterns!

13-11-2023

215
chatter icon

Diwali Lanterns

13-11-2023

As part of our Diwali celebrations, Year 6 made lanterns displaying the symbols of, not only Hinduism, but other religions of the world too.

70
chatter icon

What a day! Year 4 really enjoyed learning about the Hindu culture.

10-11-2023

 

205
chatter icon

We discussed actions of people in The Good Samaritan story.

09-11-2023


We really had interesting ideas about the responses of each of the characters in the story of The Good Samaritan and related situations to everyday life.

63
chatter icon

Year 3 loved exploring Hinduism and the different elements in the religion.

08-11-2023

65
chatter icon

3TS explored the Puja in R.E.

19-10-2023

3TS explored the Puja in R.E. then moved onto some tricky rolling in gymnastics. Well done! @SmithdownPrimY3 #smithdownpe #smithdownre

74
chatter icon

First day back for me today and a lovely day spent with year 2

19-10-2023

First day back for me today and a lovely day spent with @SmithdownPrimY2 counting and discussing precious items important to us @misshath2 #smithdownre

61
chatter icon

Jewish creation story with each other this week

19-10-2023

Year 2 have worked so hard to share the Jewish creation story with each other this week #smithdownre

69
chatter icon

Eating apple dipped in honey…

19-10-2023

On Friday we celebrated Rosh Hashanah by eating apple dipped in honey #smithdownre

68
chatter icon

Today we explored an adult Bible and children’s Bible

19-10-2023

Today we explored an adult Bible and children’s Bible. The Bible is the special Christian Holy Book #smithdownre

72