St Mary’s School in Walthamstow received the Gold quality mark for R.E.

The gold quality mark represents the highest level that can be awarded by the Religious Education Council of England and Wales.

St Mary's has been recognised for the award for embedding excellent, creative and innovative RE practice throughout the school and for recognition as outstanding in the wider community.

The assessor noted that,

"this church school lives through R.E. and they live out their vision of loving one another, through a variety of different projects."

Some of those projects include; sponsoring a refugee family, becoming a School of Sanctuary, hosting a Courageous Advocacy speech competition and creating a podcast to share our vision far and wide.

The school also continuously adapts and reflects on its R.E. curriculum. For example, ensuring each lesson has a captivating moment, critical thinking questions, links to scripture and moments for reflection.

When the assessor asked children what they thought about R.E. in their school they responded with: "RE includes lots of debates and it lets us give different perspectives." "I feel free to express my opinions. They disagree well with me." "In Maths, there is always a right answer to an equation, but in RE you can have lots of different answers" "I can incorporate other people's beliefs and their values into my opinion." When asked what happens in RE lessons, children replied: "Sometimes there is not a definite answer and you can have your opinions, which blossoms into a discussion."

Congratulations again to all the staff and pupils at St Mary's.

Read more about the RE Quality Mark at www.reqm.org.