KS3 Ethical Questions Lesson: What makes a life valuable?

KS3 Religious Studies/Philosophy and Ethics: Ethical Questions

Lesson: What makes a (human) life valuable?

This unit, ‘Ethical Questions, is devised as part of a brand new, interleaved scheme of work for KS3, aimed to prepare KS3 students for the move up to KS4, introducing some key concepts that can be developed later on at GCSE.

Individual lessons are intended as a double (roughly one and a half hours per lesson) however, due to time restrictions and the embedded support in the corresponding Work Pack, could also be taught in a minimal one hour per lesson.

This scheme of learning has been devised explicitly to support the Recovery Curriculum, interleave learning with previously-learned units and support cognition through interleaving techniques.

Although part of a unit, lessons can also be taught as a stand-alone lessons, e.g. for revision. The corresponding Resource Pack(s) would also support a home-learned curriculum as the PowerPoints and Packs themselves include differentiation and scaffolding, where required.

The interleaved schemed of work are specifically designed to promote the two skills desired for success at GCSE:

• AO1 (Knowledge and Understanding)
• AO2 (Analysis and Evaluation)

The resources are specifically created to ensure students are aware of the skill they are demonstrating and how to improve further through modelling.

These new units bring the relevance back to our topics, for example, through thought experiments and reference to current affairs. Students will experience greater engagement and enjoyment in a fair and balanced approach.

Lesson includes:

• Homework Slide
• Unit Cover and lesson overview
• Starter activity, including interleaving
• Key words (literacy focus)
• Introduction of key information (AO1 - knowledge) and how this is used (AO1 - understanding)
• Introduction of a contentious issue or debate (AO2 - analysis) and finalised judgement (AO2 - evaluation)
• Plenary

The Work Pack:
If you would rather work in exercise books, the Work Pack is designed so that you can print off relevant pages - it is a resource pack. This would be useful if you have appropriate curriculum time to cover the content of the course. Unfortunately, this is not the case across all schools, and therefore the Work Pack helps by providing time-saving activities, whilst still being able to cover the breadth and depth of the course.
In addition, students who may be limited by literacy issues, e.g. slower writing paces, are not disadvantaged or capped in their progress. Therefore, some classes could use a mixed approach - part Work Pack, part exercise book - and all students will be able to progress through the same volume of content.
Please give feedback: I am always happy to respond to comments - whether positive or constructive - this will help to improve the quality of my resources in the future and, more importantly, the quality of pupils’ RE/RS education in general - which is what we’re all here for!