Religious Education

The Religious Education Department

The aim of the Religious Education Department is to ensure that each pupil is able to reflect upon their own beliefs and sense of spirituality.  We endeavour to equip pupils with the appropriate skills so that they can achieve their full potential at Key Stages 3, 4 and 5.  The department strives to allow pupils opportunities to uncover and examine the Catholic faith and Christianity community they belong to.

We offer an all-encompassing curriculum, developing pupils’ literacy and creative skills, to enable pupils to communicate effectively with people regardless of culture, religious beliefs or background.  We develop pupils’ abilities through a wide range of teaching styles and the quality of teaching is very good.  Learning occurs in a well-structured manner and pupils are offered additional revision classes at all Key Stages.

There is a well-established system of regular assessments and  pupils are set regular targets to ensure they achieve their best possible level or grade.  Staff work closely with teaching assistants to ensure that the needs of all pupils are met. There is clear evidence of differentiated work, related to both long-term and short-term target-setting.

The Prayer of St Thomas More  

Thank you, O God, for another day.
Help me to spend it wisely and to spend it well.
Grant that everything that I do today may be done as well as I can do it.
Grant that everyone I meet may be happier for the meeting.
Keep me all through today conscientious in my work; truthful in my speaking; loyal to my friends; faithful to those who love me through Jesus Christ my Lord.
Amen

Objectives of Extra-Curricular Activities  

• Pupils to approach religion as an academic discipline and as a means of developing and understanding their own faith position.
• Develop the skills required to engage in the critical examination of and reflection upon religious belief and practice in our culture.
• Enable pupils to reflect critically on the ultimate questions of life, and investigate how religious people contend with them.
• Enable pupils to cultivate a critical awareness of and appreciation for the Catholic tradition, including how the Catholic tradition informs and is informed by its historical situation.
• Allow each pupil to develop and be able to articulate their own faith positions.
• Empower each pupils to explore and to respect the different faith traditions and significance of religion as it is embedded in diverse cultures and contexts.
• Encourage each pupil to appreciate the relationship between religious belief, personal faith and lived experience.
• Enable each pupil  to develop the skills and attitudes to respond to the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of life.
• Endowing pupils with the necessary tools which will then enable them to achieve a greater integration of faith in their various form, such as charities and vocation.

Extra-Curricular Activities  

• Prayers every break-time in the Library
• After school revision classes
• Lunchtime Drop In - 'You have a question, we are here to answer it'
• Chaplaincy Group
• Liturgy Group
• Assemblies for all year groups
• Voluntary Mass every Wednesday morning
• Youth St Vincent de Paul Community Group - 'Working Together to Help our Community'
• Retreats for all year groups
• Whole school Liturgy at the end of each term
• Mass for special days of obligations
• Mass for all year groups at the beginning of the new term
• Young Catenians
• CAFOD Young Leaders

Religious Clubs

• Morning Prayer in Library for all students
• Chapel activities in line with the liturgical year
• Youth St Vincent de Paul Community Group
• Lunch drop in
• Homework club
• Annual trip to Rome
• Sixth Form trip to Lourdes