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Teaching | September 16, 2021

Religious Education

With religion and beliefs becoming more visible in public life locally, nationally and internationally it’s important that children learn about them and understand them.

Studying these subjects also allows us as a school opportunities to promote an ethos of respect for others, challenge stereotypes and build an understanding of other cultures and beliefs. This in turn contributes to promoting a positive and inclusive ethos at Old Ford that champions democratic values and human rights.

Religious Education actually has no statutory curriculum, so Paradigm Trust has formed our current curriculum by taking the best parts of the Tower Hamlets syllabus and the Suffolk syllabus (the two authorities which Paradigm schools fall under), combining them in a way which reflects our ethos and values.

We teach RE systematically, so children learn about each of the chosen religions – Christianity, Hinduism, Humanism, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism – twice in their primary career. The first time we establish their initial knowledge, then build on what they’ve learnt when we revisit it later.

To ensure the children make progress there is a different focus in each year. For example, Year 2 looks at how and why the religions celebrate festivals, and in Year 5 they will explore what it means to follow a certain religion in Britain today. This way there is no repetition when children revisit the religion and we can keep it fresh and interesting.

We take a ‘whole school’ approach to teaching religion, which means every year group studies the same religion at the same time. This evokes a great sense of community in the whole school; siblings from different year groups can discuss the same issues at home, albeit at different depths. When festivals come around the entire school can take part in the celebrations.

RE is a very artefact-rich subject so we make sure to use items from the religion, such as Bibles, kippahs and patkas, to enhance the children’s learning. We also arrange for external parties from different religions to come in and run workshops, so the children can enjoy a range of experiences as they learn.

We also go out and explore religion in our community by taking a visit to a different place of worship every year. This way they will have experienced a workshop on every religion, and visited every place of worship too by the end of Year 6.

RE provokes challenging questions, encouraging pupils to explore their own beliefs, enabling pupils to develop respect and understanding for others and prompting them to consider their rights and responsibilities to society, and helps them understand themselves.

General | September 16, 2021

Toddlers World at Poplar Baths

Newsletters | September 10, 2021

Read our latest Newsletter – Friday 10th September 2021

General | September 2, 2021

September reopening arrangements

General | July 27, 2021

Violin Performances

Our Pupils had the opportunity to learn the Violin and are delighted to share this performance:

Newsletters | July 22, 2021

Read our latest Newsletter – Thursday 22nd July 2021

Newsletters | July 16, 2021

Read our latest Newsletter – Friday 16th July 2021

Teaching | July 15, 2021

How we build Cultural Capital for our children – and why it helps

Our pioneering Hinterland programme is providing cultural capital for Old Ford’s pupils so they can enjoy a richer life experience and improve their learning.

Cultural capital has existed as a phrase and a concept for decades, but was introduced by Ofsted into its framework in September 2019. They describe it as “the knowledge and cultural capital children need to succeed in life.” which dovetails smoothly with work we have been doing in this area for years.

The amount of cultural capital a child has can impact how much they get from their lessons at school. Due to differing circumstances and backgrounds, children inevitably come to the classroom with a range of different life experiences. For instance, some pupils may have been to the seaside, while others will never have visited the coast. If then, in an English lesson, the class reads a story set by the sea such as The Lighthouse Keeper’s Cat, everyone can understand it and answer questions on it to some extent, but the children who have actually been to the coast are able to relate far more readily and enjoy a richer experience than those who haven’t. 

We are committed to levelling this playing field, ensuring all pupils have access to high quality experiences. We do this through Paradigm’s Hinterland programme, which it has designed not only to increase cultural capital in its pupils, but academic capital (the knowledge which supports new learning) and character capital (the knowledge which lets you engage with the world). 

It’s a curriculum of thought-through systematic experiences which we expect every child from Early Years to the end of Y11 to benefit from. These include going to the seaside, the zoo, having a picnic, residential trips, museum trips, visiting backstage at a theatre, taking part in plays and other activities which prove beneficial to children’s learning. The activity is then brought back to the classroom and the teachers spend a lot of time unpacking and exploring it to ensure maximum value is drawn out of every experience.  By running the Hinterland programme we, and the other Paradigm schools, are working hard to ensure no child is disadvantaged in their education. In this way, we are able to broaden children’s life experiences and help prepare them for future study, employment and, most importantly, leading a fulfilling life.

Newsletters | July 9, 2021

Read our latest Newsletter – Friday 9th July 2021

Newsletters | July 2, 2021

Read our latest Newsletter – Friday 2nd July 2021

Last updated July 2, 2021