Springfield House Community Special School

PROUD of our Roots

Religious Education at Springfield House School

As a City of Birmingham school, Springfield House follows the Agreed Syllabus. This was developed with support from major religious faiths across the city, to include content covering Christianity and a minimum of two others faiths.

The point of Religious Education is to help children appreciate what it is that inspires ordinary people to ‘love God’ and to avoid ‘being selfish’ and ‘self-centered’. What is it that people live by and live for? What is it that makes people happy? In RE the deepest values of human life are shared and discussed

Faith leaders from across the UK and beyond have become interested in Birmingham’s disposition-led approach to Religious Education with its emphasis on ‘learning from faith’. Birmingham’s collective work on the Agreed Syllabus has been a catalyst in bringing together faith leaders and faith communities from across the city, in the common task of building the character of young people and of our society.

The Agreed Syllabus has two aims; To 'Learn About Religion' and 'Learn From Religion'.

The syllabus also:

  • Promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils at the school and of society; and
  • Prepares such pupils for the opportunities, responsibilities, and experiences of adult life.

Children’s learning in this syllabus of religious education is guided by encouraging 24 dispositions, which all the major faiths saw as particularly important.

We provide children with a well-balanced and structured approach to RE, where the emphasis is on learning from faith rather than about religious traditions. This places the emphasis on the development of pupils within communities and makes religious traditions subordinate to this goal.

In addition, Springfield House has formulated its own aim:

"RE makes an important, although not exclusive contribution to the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of pupils. Springfield House will provide through RE explicit opportunities for all pupils, of whatever faith, to consider the response of religion to fundamental questions about the purpose of being, morality and ethical standards, and thereby develop their own response to such matters."