GCSE Buddhism: Beliefs & Teachings - Unit of 6 Lessons

Religion Studies / Philosophy and Ethics

This 6-lesson unit, ‘Buddhist Beliefs & Teachings’, is a brand new exploration into Buddhist Beliefs and Teachings. Lessons are up-to-date, well-designed and engaging to keep in line with current thinking and relevant issues. Created with the AQA specification in mind, however the topics and learning are relevant across different specifications.

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 lesson sheets, could also be taught in a minimal one hour per lesson.

Lessons Include:

1. Introduction to Buddhism
2. Buddha
3. Dhamma
4. Four Noble Truths and Eightfold Path
5. Human Personality
6. Human Destination

*Lesson resource sheets if using exercise books
This scheme of learning has been devised explicitly to support all learners, 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 lesson sheet(s) would also support a home-learned curriculum as the PowerPoints and sheets themselves include differentiation and scaffolding, where required.

The new scheme of work is specifically designed to promote the two skills desired for success at GCSE (and beyond):

• 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.

This new unit brings the relevance back to our topics, for example, through thought experiments and key debate topics. Students will experience greater engagement and enjoyment in a fair and balanced approach.

Lessons include:

• 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 lesson resource sheets:
These are designed so that even those who have limited curriculum time can explore the full unit without having to feel the time pressures on their classwork.
The resources provide 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 resources, 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!