How I… built a S.E.N curriculum

On my first day in my current post as class teacher and R.E. lead in a school for pupils with S.E.N aged 4 to 16, I tried to find details of the current R.E. curriculum, only to find that it did not exist. I urgently needed to write one from scratch, a daunting prospect. Fear soon turned to excitement as here was an opportunity to write a curriculum that was accessible and meaningful. However, cracks soon appeared in my enthusiasm.

Religion is an abstract concept, the idea of a God even more so. I spend a lot of time working with pupils on object permanence, things exist even when we cannot see them. A pupil arrives and their coat is taken and hung up, they then move into class. To that pupil the coat now does not exist. At the end of the day when they return to the cloakroom to find that their coat is there, it is like you have performed a miracle! If pupils cannot recognize that the coat is always there, finding a way for them to understand a God that they cannot see would be tough.

‘Hey, people believe there is a God who has powers beyond measure, who knows and sees everything. They believe he is looking at you right now!’ At this point there is pandemonium in the classroom as the pupil runs around the room trying to find the God that is looking at them. I continue, ‘Do not worry, he is not really here looking at you.’ The pupil is now confused, ‘But you said he sees everything?’ Another pupil offers another opinion, ‘Does God know when I am on the toilet and am I being watched because that is just weird?’ Finding a way to promote these concepts was a challenge.

Another hurdle was how to embed the locally agreed syllabus into the curriculum. The current syllabus has scant guidelines on how a school like ours should incorporate the agreed content.

After a term of work, I came up with a curriculum that had clear intent: Our pupils will benefit from learning opportunities which allow them to engage with and retell religious, moral and spiritual stories and describe the key figures, symbols and practices of a variety of religious, humanist and secular beliefs. They will be encouraged to develop their understanding by asking questions about religious beliefs, religious practices and on a variety of world views.

The curriculum also had to be implemented: Pupils will be provided with varied, dynamic and differentiated learning materials that encourage them to explore a range of beliefs. The work produced each week will be evidenced through pupil’s files of work, annotated photographs and learning journeys. Content of individual lessons will be observed on a regular basis through the school provision monitoring system.

Most important of all, the curriculum would need to have an impact on the pupils: Pupils will know about and understand a range of religions and worldviews. Pupils will be able to express their own views on religion and worldviews and empathise with other’s beliefs and practices. Pupils will have the spiritual, moral, social and cultural knowledge needed to allow them to become resilient, respectful and to feel valued.

Our pupils benefit from a kinesthetic approach. When learning about the ten plagues of Egypt, I gave my pupils buckets of plastic frogs and we spent ten minutes throwing them about, covering everything in sight. This physical representation of the plague was great fun to do and allowed the pupils to gain understanding.

Visual resources are available for all content. Our pupils struggle to absorb and recall written information, so our learning uses a range of media including animations, pictures and storytelling.

This approach has enabled all of our pupils to access R.E. This work is ongoing, we try to maximize cross-curricular opportunities and my colleagues are always coming to me with fantastic ideas of how to differentiate content, this has enabled me to build an accessible curriculum.