The GCSE Religious Studies Debate Generator! [Religious Education, RE, RS, Ethics]

This download contains an editable 50+ slide PowerPoint featuring debates for GCSE Religious Studies students. It also contains a ‘randomiser’ slide so that debate topics can be selected randomly.

This tool focuses on Christian teachings and does not refer to a specific comparative religion (making it suitable for all GCSE RS teachers). I based the debate topics on commonalities between AQA, OCR and Eduqas specifications: it should be useful regardless of the specification you are using.

Debates take an ‘agree or disagree’ format: students are asked to move from one side of the room to the other depending on their response to the statements that appear.

This format allows teachers to foster debates and discussions between students, it can be helpful to ask students to justify their reasons and use sensible arguments. Questions you might ask include:

• “What is wrong with the other position in your view?”,
• “Why did you choose to stand where you’re standing?”,
• “Why do you think people disagree so much about this question?”

It is best to encourage students to pick a side rather than float in the middle: but it can also be fun to allow students to change side as the debate progresses, so that students can try to persuade one another to move.

This is a great resource to use at the end of lessons if you have a few minutes left, it can be used as an entire lesson or revision session. It’s a fun way to introduce a course or to use as an ice-breaker with new classes, and can also be used by tutor groups as a whole-school initiative.

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