While the knowledge, skills and understanding are central to the Copthorne Prep RS syllabus, it is also vital that RS encourages pupils to develop positive attitudes to their learning and to the beliefs and values of others. We teach the following criteria through RS.
Self-awareness
- enabling pupils to feel confident about their own beliefs and identity and to share them without fear of embarrassment or ridicule
- developing a realistic and positive sense of their own religious and spiritual ideas
- recognising their own uniqueness as human beings
- becoming increasingly sensitive to the impact of their ideas and behaviour upon other people
Respect for all
- developing skills of listening and willingness to learn from others who are different
- readiness to look at the positive potentialities of diversity and difference
- sensitivity to the feelings and ideas of others
- willingness to make a contribution to a diverse society for the well-being of all
Open mindedness
- willingness to seek new truth through learning
- the ability to engage in argument or disagree reasonably and respectfully (without belittling or abusing others)
- the development of attitudes that distinguish between such things as superstition or prejudice and such things as conviction and faith
- the ability to argue respectfully, reasonably and evidentially about religious, moral and spiritual questions
Appreciation and wonder
- developing their imagination and curiosity
- recognising that knowledge is bounded by mystery
- appreciating the sense of wonder at the world in which they live, and their response to questions of meaning and purpose