Religious skills at school applauded

Published on 31st May 2007 in News

Snaith School has received high praise in a special ofsted report on their teaching of Religious and Education (RE) and Citizenship.

Inspector Alan Brine reported that the overall effectiveness of RE was "good, with many outstanding features".

Pupils' achievements at the end of Key Stage Four are above the national average and a high proportion of them gain A* and A grades at GCSE.

"This reflects the outstanding achievements of pupils from Year Nine onwards," Mr Brine said.

He also found: "Their ability to explain and evaluate philosophical and ethical issues is particularly strong, as is their understanding of a number of key areas of Christian belief and practice."

Well-planned lessons and the effective use of questioning and discussion work led the inspector to grade the teaching and learning session as "good and often outstanding".

A strength of the curriculum was the "skillful way in which the department interweaves the two major areas of RE attainment into pupils' learning".

A good range of activities, including visits, visitors and booster classes, support RE in the classroom.

The overall effectiveness of citizenship was judged to be satisfactory.

Although pupils were found to show a good understanding of some aspects of the citizenship curriculum, their knowledge was said to be fragmentary and incomplete.

Teaching and learning, and leadership and management of citizenship is said to be satisfactory and a subject co-ordinator has been appointed to develop citizenship.

Some problems were identified with the curriculum but the school was said to have recognised this and to be addressing them with a plan to introduce a half-GCSE in Year 11.