Big Ideas for Religious Education

Big Ideas are generalised summaries of what we want students to understand through their study of religion and worldviews from 5 – 18 years.
The Big Ideas are common destinations, which can be reached by many alternative routes.
Because Big Ideas describe what we want students to understand, they frame the questions that lead to that understanding.
Click here to see our Six Big Ideas for RE.

Our Programme of Study for a well-rounded education in Religion and Worldviews describes the learning that children and young people need to gain real depth in their understanding of what really matters in the world today.

The Programme includes statements relating to each of the Big Ideas for each age-range: 5-7; 7-11; 11-14 and 14-18. To go with these statements of content, we have prepared Medium-terms plans for each age-range that bring the Big Ideas to life.

And to illustrate each set of these, we are building a comprehensive set of exemplar units of learning: detailed lessons plans and resources ready to use!

This is where you will find links to exemplars of short term planning for a complete term’s work that relates to the Big Ideas for each age-group. They were written by a team of teachers and advisers and are being tested in the classroom.

Over time we will have at least one exemplar for each Big Idea in each age group.

If you would like to submit an idea for a new unit please let us know via the Contact Us button. We are also interested to hear about your experience of teaching the units. Please do Contact Us with your feedback!