Religious Education

Religious Education

In Catholic Schools Religious Education is teaching and learning what the Catholic Church believes and teaches – it aims to enable children to understand and appreciate how people live, pray and celebrate and how they can respond freely to God according to their gift of faith. […] As their knowledge, understanding and experience increase, children become more aware of what it means to have a Catholic worldview and to live a life as part of the Catholic community.  […] The Aotearoa NZ RE programme reflects the understanding that from ‘learning about Jesus’ children can grow to ‘love Jesus and want to follow him as a disciple. Evidence of this growth can be seen as they share the outcomes of their learning through their prayer, stories, artworks, games, drama, digital learning, music and Scripture activities.

Teachers of St Joseph’s Catholic School will use the Religious Education Bridging Document to plan, integrate, teach and assess Religious Education. The REBD has a greater emphasis on encounters with the person of Jesus. The new emphases included in the RE Achievement Aims are:
  • Greater attention to Catholic Social Teaching
  • Reference to recent Papal encyclicals and Papal quotes
  • Promoting experiences to nurture children’s spirituality
  • Highlighting children’s role in the mission of the Church as disciples of Jesus
  • Calling for more intentional experiences to help children ‘encounter’ Christ
  • Encouraging experiences that facilitate children recognising and responding to their personal call to holiness and entering into a relationship with Jesus
RE learning experience is to be integrated across other learning areas as well as into prayer, liturgical and reflective experiences and social justice outreach programmes. The REBD is delivered in Curriculum Levels rather than Year Levels. In Years 1- 2 the students will cover all strands, and in Years 3-6 four strands will be covered – every year the Jesus and God Strand must be covered and the remaining four can follow a two-year cycle. Resources for RE lessons can be found on Faith Live.

There are six learning strands:
1. God
2. Jesus Christ
3. Holy Spirit
4. Church
5. Sacrament
6. Communion of SaintsWoven through these are the cross strands:
  • Scripture
  • Tradition
  • Prayer/liturgy
  • Doctrine
  • Christian Living
Four learning modules are used at appropriate times of the year. These are:
  • Liturgical Year
  • Prayer
  • Myself and Others
  • Sacramental Celebrations
 
The virtues, gospel values and attitudes are to be embedded in the content and learning experiences of the RE programme.