At Birchington CE Primary School we use the Understanding Christianity resource to plan and teach all of our Christianity units.
Understanding Christianity has identified eight core concepts at the heart of mainstream Christian belief. The children are introduced to the concept and the accompanying image at the beginning of the term. As the children progress through the school from EYFS to Year 6, they will meet the same concepts and images which help to embed and deepen their understanding of them. For example, in Term 4 all year groups will be exploring the concept of Salvation.
Below we can see how the children will meet the key concepts a number of times as they grow. This is known a spiral curriculum.
As well as the eight key Christian concept images which help tell the ‘Big Story of the Bible’, the children will also engage with a ‘Big Frieze’ which details the story of the Bible from Creation to the Kingdom of God.
At the beginning of a term the children will be given a chance to explore the frieze panel that links to their topic.
Understanding Christianity’s approach to teaching about Christianity builds up pupils’ encounters with these core concepts through biblical texts, placing the texts and concepts within the wider Bible story.
Each unit addresses a concept, through some key questions, exploring core Bible texts, their impact for Christians, and possible implications for pupils. Each unit incorporates the three elements below:
Pupils’ achievement can be assessed against the knowledge building blocks and against end-of-phase outcomes related to the elements above.
At the beginning of each term the children are introduced to their ‘Big Question’. This question helps to shape the learning for the whole term. The children are given a chance to answer this question at the beginning of the unit and at the end. This gives the children and the teachers a chance to see the learning that has taken place over the term. The ‘Big Questions’ for each year group are shown below: