Welcome to the Religious Education Department at Lyng Hall School

Curriculum Intentions and Aims

Religious Education at Lyng Hall exists to open minds. We want every student to leave our lessons better equipped to ask searching questions, to listen carefully to views different from their own, and to think with clarity and compassion about the big issues that religions and worldviews have grappled with for centuries.

Coventry is a city built on the story of reconciliation, and our curriculum reflects that inheritance. From Year 7 through to Year 11, students explore the beliefs, practices and lived experiences of Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Jewish people, Buddhists, Hindus and those with non-religious worldviews, alongside the work of humanists and secular thinkers. We want students to understand religion not as a distant abstraction but as something lived, argued over, and woven into the lives of people in their own communities.

RE at Lyng Hall plays its part in preparing students for adult life: for the workplace, for further study, and for life as citizens in a diverse democracy. Studying religion and worldviews sharpens the skills of discernment, evidence-based argument and empathy that pupils need to challenge prejudice and misinformation wherever they meet it.

Our department contributes to the whole-school commitment to:

• Honesty and openness in discussion
• Equality of opportunity for every learner
• Mutual respect and compassion
• High expectations and high standards
• Resilience, ambition and pride in achievement
• Emotional wellbeing and self-confidence
• A genuine work ethic and love of learning

Given the pace of global events, RE is one of the places in the curriculum best placed to help students make sense of the world—supporting Citizenship Education and pupils' spiritual, moral, social and cultural development (SMSC) at every stage.

Aims

1. To build secure, progressively deeper knowledge of the beliefs, practices and diversity of Christianity and the other principal religions and non-religious worldviews represented in Britain today.
2. To value and draw on the varied backgrounds, experiences and worldviews that students themselves bring into the classroom.
3. To give students regular opportunities to explore ultimate questions and truth claims—about suffering, justice, identity and belief—that connect meaningfully to their own lives.
4. To develop confident, respectful dialogue and reflection through the study of religion, so that disagreement is handled with curiosity rather than hostility.

These aims support pupils' spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and are built around the expectations of the locally agreed syllabus for Religious Education.

Objectives

We meet these aims by:

• Designing and regularly reviewing schemes of work that provide clear progression from Year 7 to Year 11.
• Ensuring every scheme offers variety and challenge, so that all students can access and be stretched by the content.
• Making explicit links to literacy and oracy through structured argument writing, vocabulary building and talk-based routines.
• Building cross-curricular and real-world links, connecting religious ethics to Citizenship, current affairs and the local community.
• Exploring religion alongside human rights and social justice, so students see the relevance of religious and ethical thinking to real-world issues.
• Delivering a thorough GCSE curriculum supported by mock examinations, model answers and structured revision.
• Promoting an ethos of mutual respect and psychological safety in every classroom, so that students feel able to share and question beliefs without fear of judgement.
• Supporting staff with high-quality subject knowledge development, reflective practice and shared planning.
• Creating a curious, well-resourced and calm learning environment where big questions can be explored properly.

Key Stage 3

Students study the six major world religions over the three years of Key Stage 3, alongside exploring major moral issues that connect belief to everyday life and decision-making.

Key Stage 4

In Key Stage 4, all students take the AQA GCSE Full Course in Religious Studies.