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Religious Education

The Key Stage 3 Religious Education curriculum at Ernest Bevin College focuses on four key themes:

Historical and Cultural Context:
Students learn how religions change and develop over time. This includes the historical reasons for changes in beliefs and the connections between faiths.
The Lives of Believers
Students also learn about how belonging to a religion affects the daily life of believers. How do their religious beliefs shape their decisions and their relationships with others?
Tolerance
The world is full of people with very different beliefs and opinions. Students will learn how to respect the beliefs of others who may have views that are different to our own.
Religion in Society
The final theme concerns how different religions live together in the modern world and how sometimes this can lead to conflict and challenges

Topics Studied

Year 7

Autumn
The autumn term of Year 7 introduces Critical Religious Education and different world views. Students will discuss the nature of ultimate questions, such as, ‘How do we know what is real?’

Spring
The spring term focuses on Judaism.
Beliefs: Abraham and the Covenant, 10 plagues, Exodus, Orthodox and Reform and the 10 Commandments
Practices: Passover and Shabbat
The Holocaust

Summer
The summer term focuses on Christianity
Beliefs: Birth, life, death
Practices: Baptism, Catholics and Protestants and influence of the sacrifice
Christian Art

Assessment

Each unit of work will have three written assessments, usually set as homework. These will build up a student’s skill at writing explanations and essays which need to evaluate different perspectives in Religious Education. At the end of each term students will also sit an exam style assessment for which they will need to revise everything they have learned that term.

Year 8

Autumn
The autumn term of Year 8 focuses on Islam.

• History: Abrahamic connection, Life of Muhammad
• Beliefs: divine or manmade, six beliefs, 99 names of Allah and key events
• Practices: The Five Pillars
• Islam and Society: Sunni and Shia

Spring
The spring term focuses on Hinduism.

• Hindu belief: Gods Goddesses and the afterlife
• Pluralism
• Hindu Practice: worship and practice
• Hinduism and Society: caste system and Gandhi

Summer
Students learn about Buddhism in the summer term.

• History: Siddhartha the Hindu and Life of the Buddha
• Beliefs, Practices and Society: 3 Universal Truths, Middle Way, 4 Noble Truths and Enlightenment

Assessment

Year 9

Autumn
Students learn about Sikhism in the autumn term.

• History: Origins of religion and Sikhism

• Beliefs: revelation and the Guru Granth Sahib

• Practices: 5ks and the Langar

• Sikhism and Society: Sacred Thread

Spring
Students are introduced to ethics in the spring term.

• Ethical theories

• We do we get our morals from?

• Applied ethics

Summer
The summer term introduces students to philosophy.

• Arguments for and against the existence of God

Key Stage 4 GCSE Religious Studies

By studying Religious Studies at GCSE, students will gain an appreciation of how religion, philosophy and ethics form the basis of our culture. Students develop analytical and critical thinking skills; the ability to work with abstract ideas; leadership and research skills. All these skills will help prepare them for further study.

Career Paths from studying RE at GCSE and A-level:

• Medicine

• Financial and Legal Teams/Law

• Journalism

• Teaching

• Youth Worker

• National and local government (Politics)

• Civil service

• NGOs

• Psychology

Assessment

GCSE Religious Studies is split into two exams that are taken at the end of Year 11.

These are two written exams:

• Each exam is 1 hour 45 minutes

• 96 marks in each exam

• (Plus 5 for SPAG)

• Each exam is worth 50% of the GCSE

Paper 1: STUDY OF TWO RELIGIONS:
Islam & Christianity

Paper 2: THEMATIC STUDIES:
Four religious, philosophical and ethical studies
Theme A: Philosophy and the existence of God
Theme B: Religion and life
Theme C: Religion, peace and conflict
Theme F: Religion, Human Rights and Justice