Should everyone believe the same?

A KS3 Religious Studies lesson, using an enquiry based approach to learning exploring Islam. This is lesson 1 of the topic ‘What makes something special?’ which covers Islamic worship, particularly Salat and Hajj of the Five Pillars of Islam. The SoL follows the 2018 Berkshire SACRE agreed syllabus with a focus on exploring the principles of ‘believing, belonging and behaving’ in a religious and secular context. All tasks are differentiated by choice or challenge in order to stretch learners of all abilities.
Students are hooked into learning by being asked to respond to a map of the Middle East, with countries colour coded depending on a majority of either Shi’as or Sunnis. Students are invited to ask a question or make an inference from the map.
Students then move on to a short historical overview of the reason for the initial split within Islam before a mini-plenary summarises the learning so far and allows students to ask a question about Islam.
Students then complete a content clock with 12 blocks of information about the Sunni ‘Articles of Faith’ as well as the Shi’a ‘Roots’, supported by extracts of sacred writing from the Qur’an.
There is a further mini-plenary where students get to ask another question and summarise their learning and some might also be able to answer a question they posed earlier in the lesson.
Students are then given a choice of analytical question to answer in full paragraphs about how Islamic beliefs infuence Muslims in their daily lives, before a final plenary highlighting the similarities and differences between Sunni and Shi’a Muslims.