Contemporary Contexts of Religious Education
St Benedict’s is committed to delivering a Religious Education Program that is worthwhile and valued. As teachers, we are fail leaders within our community and are called to provide a Religious Education Program which is responsive to the needs and backgrounds of our students and to the contemporary contexts of St Benedict's.
Societal Context
St Benedict's is aware of the changing demographics which influence the learning and teaching of Religion in schools. St Benedict's is continually challenged to engage families in Religious Education in rich and relevant ways. At St Benedict's Primary School, religious education seeks to reflect a Catholic Christian world view that integrates faith, life and culture.
Ecclesial Context
We value our diversity and seek to engage the families of our community in inclusive ways that integrate the faith, life and culture of the wider community. We acknowledge that St Benedict's is the connection for many families to the Church and that we are called to demonstrate and expose our families to catholic mission, outreach, pastoral care and general catholic community spirit. We strive as a catholic school to provide a genuine place of real and specific pastoral ministry to our community. In our community this is evident in:
Catholic and broader Christian traditions within the wider evangelising mission of the Church.
Educational Context
St Benedict’s approaches teaching and learning in a holistic capacity that ensures that Religious Education is taught with the same academic rigour and rich teaching experiences as other learning areas. All educational programs developed are based on the modelof pedagogy which has been adopted and implemented through a BCE system initiative.
This is evident in:
Digital Context
St Benedict’s strives to be creative, critical and responsible users of digital tools and aim to educate our students to be ethical, digital citizens. To achieve this St Benedict’s endeavour’s to include rich, digital experiences for our students into the explicit teaching and learning activities embedded in our Religious educational Program. We regularly review and update our digital technologies and processes to engage in contemporary pedagogical practices.
This is achieved through:
Societal Context
St Benedict's is aware of the changing demographics which influence the learning and teaching of Religion in schools. St Benedict's is continually challenged to engage families in Religious Education in rich and relevant ways. At St Benedict's Primary School, religious education seeks to reflect a Catholic Christian world view that integrates faith, life and culture.
Ecclesial Context
We value our diversity and seek to engage the families of our community in inclusive ways that integrate the faith, life and culture of the wider community. We acknowledge that St Benedict's is the connection for many families to the Church and that we are called to demonstrate and expose our families to catholic mission, outreach, pastoral care and general catholic community spirit. We strive as a catholic school to provide a genuine place of real and specific pastoral ministry to our community. In our community this is evident in:
- Whole school Liturgies and Masses.
- Holy week Liturgies.
- A weekly timetable of class Masses with an open invitation for all year levels to attend.
- Caritas missions and appeals, such as; Socktober, Day for Daniel, Rosies, Caritas, St VDP, Orange Sky Laundry
- Whole school prayer and meditation (PAX).
- Classroom parent representatives who may take on pastoral care initiatives.
- Weekly community gatherings after assemblies for parents and care givers to make connections.
- Religious Education and community news in the weekly newsletter.
- Prayer gatherings for Defence force families.
- An onsite pastoral care coordinator who works with teachers, parents and students.
- Many More
Catholic and broader Christian traditions within the wider evangelising mission of the Church.
Educational Context
St Benedict’s approaches teaching and learning in a holistic capacity that ensures that Religious Education is taught with the same academic rigour and rich teaching experiences as other learning areas. All educational programs developed are based on the modelof pedagogy which has been adopted and implemented through a BCE system initiative.
This is evident in:
- Quality planning for teaching and learning.
- Cross curricula integration
- Quality assessment and reporting
- Professional development opportunities for staff
- Model of Pedagogy incorporated in planning units
Digital Context
St Benedict’s strives to be creative, critical and responsible users of digital tools and aim to educate our students to be ethical, digital citizens. To achieve this St Benedict’s endeavour’s to include rich, digital experiences for our students into the explicit teaching and learning activities embedded in our Religious educational Program. We regularly review and update our digital technologies and processes to engage in contemporary pedagogical practices.
This is achieved through:
- Unit planning documents that allow for digital integration
- Use of data projectors and apple TV’s within classrooms
- Class sets of I-Pads
- Year level access to laptops
- Use of digital tools to present learning achievements
- Digital citizen agreement completed by all one-to-one lap top users across year 5 and 6
- Digital cameras
- An augmented reality station