Geography Department at the Stanway School

THE STANWAY SCHOOL RE DEPARTMENT

RE at the Stanway School is taught within a new purpose built teaching block. There are 2 dedicated RE classrooms. Each classroom is well equipped with interactive whiteboards, furniture for storage of textbooks and exercise books as well as display boards. In addition we have a large storage room. The department has a wide selection of textbooks at KS3 and KS4, DVDs and other useful shared resources for classroom teaching.

GCSE Philosophy and Ethics, taught alongside Citizenship has been offered as an option subject for the first time this year. It has proved to be a popular choice with students across the ability range. This subject choice will be taught in 5 lessons over the course of one week. Those students who have not opted to do Philosophy and Ethics Short Course are taught in one lesson a week. We currently follow OCR Philosophy and Ethics (for full and short course) and Edexcel Citizenship at Key Stage 4.

At key stage 3 there are 8 classes in each year group. RE is taught in one lesson per week as is Citizenship. Regular assessment, target setting and monitoring student progress is integral to the department’s success. We assess progress 4 times a year and when appropriate students will be moved between sets. Exercise books are marked frequently with useful comments to aid student improvement.

The responsibility for schemes of work is shared within the department as well as the provision of accompanying resources and assessments. Over the past few years the department has worked tirelessly to re-invigorate the Key Stage 3 curriculum to ensure that it is engaging for our students and in-line with the Agreed Essex Syllabus. This is an on-going process that the successful candidate will be expected to further contribute.

As a department, we work closely with a variety of different agencies, including our feeder schools, where we deliver taster Humanities lessons, working closely with the History and Geography departments. We also work alongside Colchester Sixth Form College to provide taster Philosophy and Religious Studies lessons. We have several links with local faith groups who come into school to enrich our lessons. We are also in the process of working alongside other RE departments in North East Essex to further raise the profile of and promote the importance of RE on our school curriculum.

Areas that need to be developed are:

• Embedding philosophical questions and discussions at Key Stage 3 in order to lay grounding for GCSE
• Continued development of innovative schemes of work across the key stages
• Continued links and development of the North East Essex RE teachers’ network

The post offers the opportunity for a candidate who is eager to work as part of a friendly and successful team; although the Humanities are taught as separate subjects, the ideal candidate should be prepared to see themselves not just as a teacher of RE but part of a Humanities team. This candidate must be prepared not only to contribute to the future success of the RE and Citizenships department but work alongside all Humanities Departments in delivering outstanding lessons.

Ms Catherine Gray

Head of RE