We believe that it is important for all our pupils to learn from and about religion, so that they can understand the world around them. The aim of RE in our school is to help children to acquire and develop knowledge and understanding of Christianity and the other principal religions represented in Great Britain; to appreciate the way that religious beliefs shape life and behaviour, develop the ability to make reasoned and informed judgements about religious and moral issues and enhance their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.

 At HLC, we believe that RE is imperative because:

• It helps pupils understand the world they live in by developing their religious literacy.
• It helps them to develop skills in recognising, handling and analysing the big questions and concepts that arise from experience and help make sense of life.
• It provides opportunities for and develops their ability to reflect on experience
• It develops debating, reasoning, self-expression, relationships and self-understanding.
• It helps with their literacy, creativity, personal development and critical thinking.
• It helps their understanding of identity and their search for meaning, purpose and value.
• It helps the school with their ethos and values.
• It helps develop a sense of community and belonging.
• It provides opportunities to build positive relationships for learning and behaviour.
• It helps the children to explore meaning, truth and live by values.
• It allows us to understand and respectfully challenge and be challenged by people of different lifestyles, beliefs and practices.

We follow the Discovery R.E. scheme which adopts an enquiry based approach to teaching and learning. Christianity is taught in every year group, with Christmas and Easter given new treatment each year to develop learning in a progressive way. Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism are also covered. Humanist perspectives are added when appropriate. Each session has a learning objective which shows the learning over the enquiry and SMSC development opportunities are mapped throughout as is each contribution to the British Values agenda.

The Discovery R.E. syllabus has been created in a recurrent format to enable children to revisit and build on their prior knowledge of the different beliefs and practices taught across the school. The syllabus also allows for teachers to be flexible and adapt the term in which units are taught in their year group, to allow for cross-curricular links or involvement with parents and other members of the community.

At HLC, we are committed to providing our children with an exciting and positive learning environment, in which they have the opportunity to develop their knowledge and understanding of religions.

We also seek to ensure that all pupils in our school are educated to develop spiritually, academically, emotionally and morally to enable them to better understand themselves and others and to cope with the opportunities, challenges and responsibilities of living in a rapidly changing, multicultural world. We strive to ensure we respect people in the wider community, including their beliefs, traditions, culture, language and history.