Pupil Voice

In the Spring and Summer term 2024, we asked our pupils some questions about their learning in Religious Education. Please find some of their responses below and the actions we have taken to address the areas they find difficult and what we could do to make their Religious Education lessons even better.

 

What activities do you enjoy doing in your Religious Education lessons?

“Learning about Jesus’ birth, how he died for us and His resurrection.”

“Learning about God and how he made the world”

“I enjoy doing role plays and making posters.”

“Finding out facts about different religions.”

“Reading and learning from the Bible.”

“I enjoy reflecting on art.”

“Painting things to reflect on our RE lessons.”

“Learning about charities.”

“Computing in RE.”

“I like using the art scale when looking at different pictures.”

“When we work together.”

“I like making posters so I can think back on what I’ve learnt in my lessons. I like drawing in RE.”

 

 

We also asked our children what they find difficult in Religious Education. Here are some of their responses:

“I find remembering meanings difficult.”

“Remembering some things I learnt in my lessons.”

“I find it tricky spelling the correct holy words.”

“I find retelling stories difficult.”

“I sometimes struggle with remembering the names of religious objects.”

“I find it difficult to remember things.”

“Sometimes I don’t understand some of the words.”

“Using the Bible to find different Scripture based on what we are learning.”

“I find it hard to get to the right page in the Bible.”

As a school, we have done a lot of work on retrieval practice, spaced practice and activating prior knowledge. We are confident that this will help our pupils to know more and remember more. We have redesigned our school timetable so that lessons are sequenced in a way that optimises students learning, taking into account their working memory. We have also made knowledge organisers that contain the key religious vocabulary for the topic, along with the definition and a corresponding image. This dual coding is one strategy we are using to help pupils to develop their religious literacy.

 

How could Religious Education lessons be even better?

“Even more art.”

“Religious Education lessons could be better by having more time in lessons.”

“More acting out of Bible stories.”

“If we could have more time to write.”

“More RE lessons.”

“More acting in RE lessons.”

“To have more time to let our brain soak up all of the information, then we have an empty brain ready for more.”

“To talk about the lesson after the lesson has finished.”

“We should do more acting in RE because I remember it more.”

“I’m not always sure what to write when writing longer pieces. Having a bit more time to think about it.”

“They are already good, so nothing for now.”

“Having some time at the end where we’re either silent or reflect on the lesson that we’ve just done.”

“More lessons about inspirational people and saints.”

“Having time to reflect to take in what we have learnt.”

“I think RE lessons could be better if we dive deeper into the topic.”

“When there is a PowerPoint, you can split it into smaller parts so we can remember it more easily.”

“We could say our thoughts before we find out the answers.”

“If we have a bit more time to think about what we’ve learnt.”

This year, we have restructured the timetabling of our Religious Education lessons, so that children have more time to dive deeper into the content, ask questions, retrieve what they have learnt, activate what they already know, record their learning in a variety of ways and then to respond to what they’ve learnt and how they can apply this in their lives. Teachers also use a range of questioning strategies to help ensure full attention and active participation. Importantly, time for silence and reflection is also provided.

 

And finally… we asked the children if they had any further comments:

I love RE and I think it teaches me a lot. I like learning about Jesus.

I really enjoy RE, especially learning about Catholic Social Teaching and learning about Saints and charities.

I have no comments because my RE lessons are brilliant because you also get to pray and be calm.

I enjoy Spirituality days.

I love RE lessons!