Developing gospel values through active learning - transcript



Developing gospel values through active learning

Headteacher: Over the last few years the school staff and myself have been engaging with the experiences and outcomes of curriculum for excellence and in direct relation to religious education we’ve been focusing on developing our programmes of study and ensuring that the programmes are cohesive from primary 1 to primary 7. We are a Catholic primary school and so our school ethos is firmly based on gospel values and the teaching of Christ and for that reason the pupils themselves in their daily work are very respectful to one another, very tolerant of one another and helpful and kind. So the school is an example of gospel values in action. This is our Faith has been in serviced at diocesan level so the Arch Diocese of Glasgow’s religious advisor, the religious advisor for the diocese of Paisley has also been involved in working with staff here at Our Lady of the Missions and with the cluster primaries in taking This is our Faith forward. Staff have been using it regularly in order to plan lessons, lessons which are active, interesting and exciting, lessons which are motivating. They are inter-disciplinary and involve the staff and the pupils in engaging in their faith across learning and across disciplines and they take their learning out into the playground and perhaps on nature walks, through assemblies. So This is our Faith allows children to develop their understanding of their faith in different contexts and therefore makes the activities more enjoyable, more challenging and also the children are able to choose in make ways how they learn and what they learn. Activities that teachers develop are structured in that way to involve the children in setting learning intentions and success criteria.

Principal Teacher: I think it is really important for children to get outdoors and out of the classroom during religious education experiences. It’s important for them to think about bible passages and think about them in real-day situations. They can appreciate the wonder and awe of God’s creation. Primary 4 look back at the creation story in Genesis and during that creation story we came outside and we looked at what God had created for us. And a lot of it, yes, you can do it in the classroom but it’s so much better when you come outside and you can actually see it in action, you can see the wonderful world that we have.

Headteacher: This is our Faith as a document is very useful for CPD, continuous professional development of staff, and for that reason we have used it to deepen the faith and the understanding and knowledge that our staff have of their faith and this has been a challenge in the last few years to continuously develop our staff’s knowledge and understanding and how they can apply that in their approaches to learning and teaching.

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