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RE and Worship

Intent
At Whittingham Church of England Primary School, our vision is that, hand in hand, we will become kind, collaborative and courageous citizens of our community and the wider world. Inspired by the story of The Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37), Religious Education and Collective Worship play a central role in enabling our children to live out our Christian vision.
We recognise the importance of Christianity as the foundation of our school's distinctively Christian character, while ensuring that children develop a respectful understanding of a range of world faiths and worldviews. Through high-quality Religious Education and meaningful Collective Worship, children are encouraged to ask deep questions, think critically, reflect spiritually and develop as compassionate, respectful and informed members of society.
Our curriculum is carefully sequenced to ensure that children progressively build substantive knowledge, disciplinary understanding and rich religious vocabulary. It provides opportunities for children to make connections between belief and practice, explore big theological ideas and reflect on how faith can influence individuals, communities and the wider world.
Implementation
Religious Education is taught through a carefully planned curriculum which meets the expectations of the Northumberland Agreed Syllabus and incorporates the Understanding Christianity resource.
Across both Religious Education and Collective Worship we will:
  • provide a well-sequenced curriculum where new learning builds securely upon prior knowledge and understanding;
  • revisit key concepts, vocabulary and theological ideas to strengthen long-term memory;
  • explicitly teach and model ambitious subject-specific vocabulary;
  • encourage children to ask and answer challenging questions, discuss different viewpoints and think critically with respect and curiosity;
  • provide regular opportunities for reflection, spirituality and personal response through the 'In, Out and Beyond' approach;
  • make meaningful links between Religious Education, Collective Worship, our Christian vision and everyday life;
  • ensure learning is inclusive, engaging and accessible for every child, enabling all pupils, including those with SEND, to flourish;
  • use Collective Worship to deepen children's understanding of Christian values, biblical teaching and our vision, whilst providing opportunities for pupil leadership, prayer, reflection and community involvement.
Impact
Through Religious Education and Collective Worship, children will develop a secure understanding of Christianity alongside knowledge and appreciation of other faiths and worldviews. They will increasingly recognise both similarities and differences, enabling them to become respectful, informed and active citizens within their local community and the wider world.
Children will demonstrate:
  • growing theological understanding and religious literacy;
  • confidence in using ambitious subject-specific vocabulary;
  • the ability to explain, compare, question and evaluate beliefs and practices;
  • increasing spiritual awareness and opportunities to reflect on their own beliefs, values and experiences;
  • an understanding of how our Christian vision inspires kindness, collaboration and courage in everyday life;
  • respect, empathy and appreciation for diversity within modern Britain and the global community.
Subject vocabulary and key concepts will be displayed and revisited regularly to support learning and encourage independence.
The impact of Religious Education and Collective Worship will be evaluated through:
  • ongoing formative assessment and high-quality questioning;
  • pupil discussion and pupil voice;
  • children's written and practical outcomes;
  • floor books, reflection journals and evidence from Collective Worship;
  • book scrutiny and curriculum monitoring;
  • summative assessment against agreed progression expectations.
This ensures that all children make strong progress in knowledge, understanding and personal development, enabling them to flourish academically, spiritually, morally, socially and culturally as kind, collaborative and courageous citizens of their community and the wider world.
We follow the Northumberland Agreed Syllabus and use the Understanding Christianity resource.
Some examples of  RE lessons in school.
In Early Years the RE focus for the first Spring half term has been all about God and the last few weeks we have learned about the creation story. We have recapped this and thought about what we are most thankful to God for. We made thank you cards. Some of us were thankful for the moon and stars or sun and moon, or the animals and some of us were thankful for everything!
Please scroll down for more as we keep adding to this page.
Links with our Church.
We have very close links with our Church and spend time in it for special occasions as well as lesson time and moment of quiet reflection.
 
Collective Worship.
Reverend Rich, Angela and Ed come into school each week to deliver our Tuesday Daily Act of Worship following the Open the Book resource.
Past trips:
KS2 had an excellent trip to both the Newcastle Hindu and Newcastle Cathedral. They learnt a lot about the features of both buildings and how they were used in their respective faiths as well as the actions and acts that took place in each place of worship.
The Good Samaritan
 
This week, Class 1 had a lovely visit from Reverend Rich. He talked to us about the story of The Good Samaritan, and we created some frieze frames to recreate the story. We had a really good discussion about how this linked to our school values of showing kindness , courage and collaboration. 
Christmas Carols 
We enjoyed a wonderful family Christmas Carol Service led by Reverend Rich. The children particularly enjoyed participating in the story Jesus’ Christmas Party.
Janyary Cheistubgle 
Thank you to everyone who came to the Christingle Service yesterday and to Reverend Rich and his congregation for organising it. We are really pleased to involve families and the wider community into our new style services and look forward to seeing you then.
Visits and Visitors 
Enis and Mirium from the Islamic Diversity Centre came to speak to the whole school about 'What it is like being a Muslim?. We invited our friends from Branton Primary School to join us and they followed this with a workshop on 'prayer' with our KS 2 pupils. It was a very interesting afternoon and the children asked some excellent questions.
Godly Play- Links with our Church 
Rev Rich and Mrs Townend have been joining us for some Godly play sessions in our Early years, one of our sessions was the story of the mystery of Easter. We looked at the circle of the church and how each segment represents each Sunday, we can see that Christmas and Easter are represented by symbols and Pentecost by the colour red. The white is celebration and the green is preparation and known as great green growing Sunday, the purple for advent and lent.

We lit our candle for worship and to represent that Jesus is the light of the world. We had a special purple bag because we are in purple now and we found 6 pieces in the bag, for 6 weeks of preparation in the lead up to Easter. We looked at the pieces and made predictions of what we thought the pieces were. The children had a go at putting the pieces together and then Rev Rich put the pieces together and we discovered it was a cross, the purple can signify sadness and then when we turned it over it turned to white - for celebration, so Easter can also be a celebration. 
Some of our year 5 and 6 pupils are part of the younger leaders debate group. Each month we meet via zoom and discuss and debate topics of importance such as the importance of social justice
More trips! 
Class 2 went to ‘Lifepath’ at Brinkburn Priory where they learned all about St Oswald and his life and how he brought Christianity to Northumberland. Before we went to ‘Lifepath ’ Angela came to visit us and teach us some songs.
Also this month Rev’d Rich visited us in class to talk about his role in the community and how he offers help and support to people.
Faith in the North invited schools across the North of England to come together in saying the Lord’s Prayer on Friday 10th October 2025. It was during our Friday Reflections worship that we came together as a school to say the Lord’s Prayer. We are dressed in yellow as on the same day we were supporting Young Minds mental health campaign.
More Celebrations with the Community -  School Year 2025-6
Reverend Rich came into school and made Christingles with the children in preparation for our Christingle Service. We look forward to sharing our songs and reflections with the community.

May 2026

Class 2 have been learning about Pentecost in their R.E lessons and Angela also delivered an 'Open the Book' collective worship about the story of Pentecost as always the children enjoyed taking an active role, acting out the story.

Pupil Led Worship 

Our pupil led collective worship has enabled the children to plan, prepare and lead worship, building skills of leadership, responsibility and inclusion. 

Every Tuesday we have visitor led worship, we really enjoy these especially 'Open the Book' worship because we love to get dressed up and act out stories. In this story we heard about a man called Jesse who had lots of sons. Samuel was sent by God to choose the future King of Israel. He chose Eliab because he looked like a strong warrior but God said no. God chose David the youngest brother beacause he had a good heart.

Thank you Rev'd Rich Townend for his welcoming and informative visit for the reception class children on Friday. The children even had a special treat ringing  the bells! We are so lucky to have such wonderful links between our church and school community!

We finished the school year 2025-6 with our end of year leavers and celebration service in Church. Rev'd Rich presented the leavers with the Bibles they were gifted at the start of KS2 and gave them a blessing. Wishing everyone a happy and healthy summer.