Welcome to the Religious Education department
Teachers
Ms B Feltham – Head of Humanities
Mr J Navarro
Mr I Vickers
Mr M Whittington
Religious Education at The Bay CE School is not just about learning about religions. This subject is all about learning about yourself, giving you the opportunity to explore your own views, opinions and beliefs. It involves a lot of oral work with lots of debates and discussions surrounding your views and the reasons you have for these ideas. We will challenge stereotypes found in our society and beyond, explore different cultural views as well as religious belief systems and make comparisons between our beliefs and those that are important to others. We will cover a range of topics, not all will be based on a single religion or faith, while developing the five core skills in RE through enquiry based learning. You will be challenged to not only explain but to evaluate, demonstrating an understanding of a range of views in detail and having the ability to then weigh these up and come to your own conclusions which you are able to back up with evidence.
All students will do Core RE in every year group. On top of this students can also opt to do GCSE Religious Studies in Years 10 and 11.
Core RE
Phase 2 (Years 7, 8 and 9)
Year 7 Topics
| Term 1 | Term 2 | |
| Autumn | Introduction to RE.
The cycles of enquiry will be; Truth, Commitment and Hope. |
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| Spring | Buddhism
The cycles of enquiry will be; Dukkha, Nirvana and Sangha. Remote Learning: Miracles Exploring whether miracles exist by looking at a range of modern day and religious miracles |
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| Summer | Christianity
The cycles of enquiry will be; Agape, God and Church |
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Year 8 Topics
| Term 1 | Term 2 | |
| Autumn | Judaism
The cycles of enquiry will be; Torah, Tradition and Remembrance. |
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| Spring | The World
The cycles of enquiry will be; Care, Serve, Protect. Remote Learning: The Conscience An enquire into whether we think the conscience exists |
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| Summer | Christianity
The cycles of enquiry will be; Forgiveness, Reconciliation and Atonement. |
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Year 9 Topics
| Term 1 | Term 2 | |
| Autumn | Islam
The cycles of enquiry will be; Islam, Ummah and Jihad |
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| Spring | Medical Ethics
The cycles of enquiry will be; Life, Choice and Death. Remote Learning inspirational people – Freedom Looking at inspirational people who have worked on freedom for all people. |
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| Summer | Christianity
The cycles of enquiry will be; Authority, Prayer and Grace. |
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Phase 3 (Years 10 and 11)
Year 10 Topics
| Term 1 | Term 2 | |
| Autumn | Humanism
The cycles of enquiry will be; Rationalism, Responsibility and Value of Life. |
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| Spring/
Summer |
Philosophy of religion
The cycle of enquiry will be Existence. Focus – Cosmological argument /Teleological argument/Ontological argument
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Year 11 Topics
| Term 1 | Term 2 | |
| Autumn | Buddhist Ethics
The cycle of enquiry will be Sila. |
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| Spring | Christian Ethics
The cycle of enquiry will be Stewardship. Remote Learning – Sacrifice |
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GCSE Option Religious Studies
Year 10 Topics
| Term 1 | Term 2 | |
| Autumn | Review Theme D
Peace and Conflict |
Review Theme D
Peace and Conflict |
| Spring | Buddhist Practices | Buddhist Practices |
| Summer | Theme A: Relationships and Families | Theme A: Relationships and Families
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Year 11 Topics
| Term 1 | Term 2 | |
| Autumn | Key Christian and Buddhism teachings and practices review.
Theme A Review (work conducted during the COVID-19 crisis) |
Theme E: Crime and Punishment |
| Spring | Theme F: Human rights and social justice. | Religious beliefs, teachings and practices revision (Paper 1). |
| Summer | Revision of content and examination practice | N/A Examinations are both in May. |
Support available
| Websites | The school has set up a google classroom for students to use.
Pixl and GCSE pod can only be used for Christianity (25% of the course). |
| Intervention | For the GCSE option students additional lessons are held one evening a week and one lunch time a week (dependant on the year group). |
How parents can support
| Homework | Year 11 students have a short activity (no longer than 12 minutes) to complete every week day from September to the date of the examination. They had paper copies and also available on the google classroom.
GCSE students also get regular homework. Core students get a homework project every term. |
| Reading | Revision Reading made by staff are provided for all 8 units in the GCSE. |
| Revision Guide | AQA GCSE Religious Studies A (9-1) Christianity and Buddhism revision guide. (Oxford University Press). This is one comprehensive guide which covers all the content in both the GCSE exams.
We recommend all students purchase this at the start of the course and do not wait till year 11 to do s o . |
| Exam Practice | Year 11 receives daily activities.
Walking talking mocks are embedded the schemes of learning for all GCSE students. We also do exam practice regularly in lessons. |
| Resources | As well as the revision guides Oxford University Press have produced workbooks to help students revise. We will be using these.
We make revision reading books for each unit of the GCSE in house too. These are more individu ally designed to cater for different students and will include exam practice and questions to use to check their reading. |
Career Opportunities
Religious Studies encourages a number of skills which are useful in many fields, developing particularly the following skills:
- clear and logical thinking
- research skills
- planning and organising
- evaluation of ideas
- applying abstract ideas to the world
- an ability to empathise and understand conflict
- problem-solving skills
- understanding of the impact of conflicting ideologies
- an appreciation of human diversity, different belief structures, social, cultural and spiritual experiences
These skills are particularly useful for future careers in law, education, social work, politics, medicine, administration, the civil service, public services such as nursing or the police, or the media.