Religious Education

At Saint Ambrose Religious Education is classed as a core subject and is central to the life of the school, it is a way of life, living and learning through Faith.

We follow the Learning and Growing as the People of God Strategy for all our Religious Education lessons, which is the curriculum strategy for Religious Education in Catholic Primary Schools in the Archdiocese of Birmingham. The Strategy provides teachers with a range of suggested cross-curricular activities which can be differentiated to suit the learning needs of the children in their class for them to explore the Catholic faith and achieve the learning outcomes. There is a strong emphasis on pupils engaging with and responding to questions of life in the light of religious teaching.

This flexible approach enables teachers to incorporate their own creative teaching ideas into the delivery of the Strategy.

The Strategy is divided into a number of units for each year group, usually 12, which cover four main areas of study:

• The Liturgical Seasons of the Church’s Year: The children find out about the significance of each season, its particular signs and symbols and the different liturgies celebrated in each season.
• Scripture: The children study both Old Testament and New Testament Scripture in order to give them familiarity and knowledge of Scripture as well as enabling them to explore and understand how Catholic beliefs are rooted in what Scripture reveals to us.
• The Sacraments: There is a strong Sacramental focus in each year group. The Year 3 book fully prepares the children to receive the Sacraments of Reconciliation and Eucharist in Year 3 and Confirmation in Year 6.
• Living as Christians including Prayer: The children learn about what it is to live as Christians today, how the Church is organised from global to parish level and also the opportunities which exist for them to participate in the life of the Church.

In each unit, there are additional planned opportunities to pray and time to reflect.

We put a strong emphasis on pupils engaging with and responding to questions of life in the light of religious teaching and our pupils are encouraged to reflect on the wonder and mysteries of God.

Please see our Long Term Plan for 2023 - 2024.

At Saint Ambrose pupils are taught that each person is a unique individual, created in the image and likeness of God to who God has given special gifts to be used for the good of other people. 

Each year group is allocated a different religion to study.  This is often through a multicultural and multi-faith celebration week, individual lessons on special feast days or a mini-topic week during the year decided by the year group teachers. We also have visited different places of worship and we also have invite special visitors into school to speak about their faith and to encourage our pupils to reflect on what unites us as people of faith.