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Aims, Strands & Objectives

The Primary School Curriculum celebrates the uniqueness of the child, as it is expressed in each child’s personality, intelligence and potential for development. It is designed to nurture the child in all dimensions of his or her life – spiritual, moral, cognitive, emotional, imaginative, aesthetic, social and physical.

Religious Education has a particular role to play in the ‘celebration’ proposed for the education of children in primary school. The primary curriculum acknowledges this role for Religious Education and notes that it can enable the child to develop spiritual and moral values and to come to a knowledge of God (p.58). In Ireland, the provision of a curriculum in Religious Education is the responsibility of religious authorities; the programme prepared by the Church of Ireland, the Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church, and presented here, seeks to fulfil that responsibility for children and schools of that tradition.

The programme is constructed using the same framework of strand units found throughout the rest of the curriculum. This structure can facilitate the integration of Religious Education with the rest of the curriculum – connections can be made with other curriculum areas which can give Religious Education a place in the life of the school beyond the time allocated to it each day.