A Bury school is one of the first to have been honoured for promoting the teaching of religious education.
St Mary’s CE Primary School in Hawkshaw has received the new AWARE award (Award for Widening Achievement in Religious Education), Bury SACRE's (Standing Advisory Council for Religious Education) way of further promoting the importance of quality religious education.
SACRE chair Alan Beedie said: “Religious education is a vital subject for all our children to experience.
"Taught well it provides a lively and fascinating insight into belief and practice, and uses big questions to enable pupils to make sense of the religions and non-religious worldviews studied, understand the impact of these beliefs in people's lives, and to make connections in their own learning and wider experience of the world.
"The AWARE award is designed to celebrate schools like St Mary’s which are providing a varied and exciting curriculum in RE. This award is richly deserved.”
Mr Beedie presented the award in an assembly on June 27.
Both the headteacher and the student faith representatives received the award.
St Mary's headteacher Geraldine Skinner said: “We are delighted to have achieved the AWARE award which validates our high quality religious education curriculum.
“All teachers are passionate about inspiring our children to have a developing understanding of our wonderful world."
The day was a celebration of the importance of religion and faith in education as later that day the school and its students were visited by Holy Cross College's faith ambassadors.
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The college students shared with the children how their faith has an impact on their life, they showed artefacts and celebrations from each of their faiths.
Religious education coordinator for St Mary’s, Claire Clark, said: “It is essential our children have first hand experience of living world religions.
"This enables our pupils to ask questions and better understand the different forms of faith in our world.”
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