Children are taught Religious Education (RE).  During these lessons, pupils explore religious and non-religious beliefs and world views through open, enquiry-based, exploratory RE. They examine how belief may shape everyday life and reflect on their own ideas and ways of living. RE lessons at Burnside are planned to ensure pupils enjoy a varied range of enrichment opportunities such as exploring religious artefacts, participating in group and class discussions, engaging with visiting speakers, collaborating in art/creative work, enjoying moments of quiet reflection and producing individual written work.

Children study in depth the religious beliefs and traditions of Christians, Jews, Hindus and Muslims as well as non-religious beliefs and world views. The religion of Christianity is a theme that is revisited in each year.

At Burnside we follow the Northumberland Agreed Religious Education syllabus. The main purpose of the syllabus is to ‘explore what people believe and what difference this makes to how they live, so that pupils can gain the knowledge, understanding and skills needed to handle questions raised by religion and belief, reflecting on their own ideas and ways of living.’

It aims to ensure that all pupils: make sense of a range of religious and non-religious beliefs, understand the impact of significance of religious and non-religious beliefs and make connections between religious and non-religious beliefs, concepts, practise and ideas studied. 

The RE curriculum is designed so that pupils acquire knowledge and understanding of several religions and beliefs through a well-planned, systematic order studying one religion at a time before bringing together and comparing different traditions through thematic study. This allows the children to draw together their learning each year building upon the skills acquired from the previous year.

The Religious Education curriculum makes links to the wider curriculum.