The Faith and Beliefs domain encompasses the traditional subject of Religious Education as well as elements of PSHE.

A Worldviews Approach

At Stoke St Gregory Primary School, our vision for Faith and Belief is rooted in a worldviews approach, supporting pupils to engage in rich, meaningful thinking about how individuals and communities understand the world and their lived realities. Pupils are encouraged to explore how religious and non-religious worldviews shape identity, influence behaviour, and respond to fundamental questions about life, meaning, and purpose.

The Three Ways of Knowing

Our curriculum is structured around the integration of substantive knowledge (knowledge of religious and non-religious traditions), disciplinary knowledge (the ways in which knowledge is formed through theology, philosophy, and the social sciences), and personal knowledge, enabling pupils to reflect thoughtfully on their own perspectives and experiences.

Pupils study Faith and Beliefs through four worldviews concepts: identity and belonging, meaning and purpose, power and authority, and values and morality. Through these lenses, pupils learn to recognise both shared human questions and the diversity of lived experience, understanding that variation exists between traditions and within them.

Pupils progressively build secure substantive knowledge of religious and non-religious worldviews, including their core beliefs, practices, stories, values and forms of community life. This knowledge is carefully sequenced so that pupils move from recognising what is special and meaningful to understanding deeper ideas about God, humanity, duty, spirituality, equality and change over time.

The Lived Reality

Across the curriculum, pupils encounter a range of religious and non-religious traditions and case studies, enabling them to understand how beliefs are formed, expressed, lived out and interpreted differently within and between worldviews - the 'lived reality'. As a result, pupils develop an understanding of what people believe, how and why those beliefs are expressed, how they shape individual and communal life, and how worldviews respond to change over time. By the end of Year 6, pupils are able to draw on secure knowledge of religious and non-religious traditions to analyse, compare and articulate their own informed worldview.

Through this study, pupils develop a deep understanding of people and cultures, building culture awareness and appreciation of the multicultural world in which we live. They are supported to recognise and respect diversity not only between religious and non-religious traditions, but also within them, avoiding simplistic stereotypical understandings of belief and practice.

The curriculum develops pupils’ ability to think critically, ask meaningful questions, and understand how beliefs and practices are shaped by historical, cultural, and social contexts. Pupils are supported to make connections between local, national, and global events and the beliefs, communities, and identities they influence.

In collaboration with the Trust’s Faith and Belief curriculum, each school embeds its own values within a carefully sequenced and ambitious programme of learning, ensuring pupils experience an inclusive, coherent, and intellectually rigorous worldviews education.