Here is an A3 booklet-style worksheet on extremism and terrorism. There are 3 worksheets for differentiation of reading tasks. I planned this for an interview lesson (yes, I got the job!) and therefore it can operate as a ‘stand alone’ lesson on extremism, or be incorporated as part of a scheme of learning. Starter task asks students to compare 2 suspect profiles and decide which one is the terrorist. Suspect 2 is Jihadi John, but they will all assume it is suspect 1. This opens up discussion. The main lesson task is to work in pairs, reading the info about Dylann Roof and Jihadi John. This is the part of the lesson that is differentiated into different reading ages. Once read, they compare their notes and draw conclusions together. The Plenary is to write an answer about the causes of terrorism and apply them to how they could help to make the world better. In colour, with maps & infographs to make it attractive, this is a flexible resource which allows you to demonstrate your teaching ability however the lesson unfolds - the key to interview lessons.

A basic worksheet with texts from pre and post exile about the Messiah as part of a lesson on how Jewish concepts of the Messiah changed and why Jesus was not recognised as the Messiah.

Here are the flashcards set for paper 2 - the ones for Paper 2 are also on TES. This follows the same principle as the Paper 1 flashcard templates I did - a set per chapter of the John Frye textbook, with the concepts in the order they appear in the textbook so students can read the book and make notes on the reverse. This checks they are reading and creates an excellent revision resource. There are 436 flashcards on this download to prepare for the Paper 2 exam. The vast majority are for the first part of the Paper 2 exam, using the Christianity option. I don’t think that flashcard making is the proper revision style for the second part of Paper 2 - the synoptic assessment. Note - the photo is of Paper 1 flashcards, but the concept is the same! You will get an excel file with a tab for each unit for the Paper 2 exam, and instructions for your reprographics department to produce them. These took me over 10 hours to make - I had to re-read the textbook myself to get the order right, consider the specification demands and decide which concepts to include on the flashcards. For the record I am HoF at my school, and with more than a couple of years’ experience at getting 6th formers to do well in A’ level Religious Studies. See also the Paper 1 flashcards, if you haven’t already.

Here is another one of my workbooks - I originally started making them in lockdown and realised that staff and students preferred this style of learning. They are fully self contained, so are suitable for home learning as well as classroom based lessons. Non specialists will find this style of teaching valuable as well as RE specialists - everything is in one place and the students can continue with the work at home, on holiday or in the absence of the teacher. I have over 15 years’ experience as Head of RE! What you have here is a series of lessons that I have honed and perfected overthe 20-odd years of my career so far, to include the right sort of challenge, to tick all the boxes, to meet the demands of your locally agreed syllabus, allow differentiation by outcome and expectation, that prepares students for GCSE level work and contributes to PSHE outcomes. There is a focus on scriptures and for those who want to get technical, I would describe my pedagogy as broadly critical realism, however I try to keep the lesson activities varied and make it to it a booklet that can be printed on A3 folded to an A4 booklet. O#sted have observed me teaching with one of these lessons and the inspector was complimentary. There are 6 lessons in each workbook I write, because I teach to an hour a week so each unit neatly fits a half term, with an assessment at the end of the unit. For the sum of £4 you can buy back a day of planning lessons - you will download a file that can be easily sent to your school reprographics department and/or adapted to fit your own school context.

Here is a very full PPT on how and why religion causes war for AQA GCSE Spec A or the Short Course. Has historical context in the Crusades, ‘Jihad’ including quotes from the Quran about war, extremism and makes a parallel with Joshua 6 (the story about Joshua defeating Jericho). Was the seige of Jericho a war crime by modern standards? It is hard reading for any believer today so how should stories like it be interpreted? By the end of the resource students should be ready to write a Q5 answer with well developed ideas. There is a template for this with basic ideas included and students develop the ideas to form their own answer. There are 2 or 3 hours of lesson time in this, or for a higher ability you might work through the PPT in the lesson and give them the Q5 task for HW. I’ve included a ‘memory sheet’ on Just War criteria since the next obvious lesson in the sequence is probably going to be how Just War fits with modern conflict.

Here is a lesson’s PPT & worksheets on Kosher. Pitched at high ability Y8, it can be scaled down by using only page 1 of the scripture worksheet. I also recycle this same lesson for Y9 with GCSE AQA Judaism practices.

This will print as a handy A5-sized booklet with all the key concepts and terms students needs for the short course when taught with Judaism. Also at the back there is a page of useful quotes and a page of exam technique for each question type.

A good exercise to get your students thinking about how they can pick up the marks from a Q4 answer in as few words as possible. They read through my very long-winded but 5/5 answer, crossing out the words that don’t help to get the marks.

This is a 56 page revision guide that I put together for my own students as a complete guide. We do the AQA short course with Christianity & Judaism. This is not all original work, but if you teach the SC to whole cohorts you will know how reluctant parents are to buy the official printed revision guides so I made my own that is comprehensive enough to benefit top set students but also the right size so that our reprographics department can print it as an A4 stapled booklet. I have 15 years of experience of being Head of RE and training students for different exam specifications over that time - I have tried to condense the most useful aspects of exam preparation into this guide - it is a complete guide including what the expect, how to revise, checklists and information on the subject content. This is the only revision guide I use with my students and we get decent results - comparative with English, Maths & Science. It took me days of my time to write this! There are other revision resources I have put on TES that will save time for you. The contents page shows what it includes: What the exam paper looks like – 3 What is development? - 4 Exam strategy - 5 Memory Cheat Sheet #1 – 6 Memory Cheat Sheet #2 - 7 How to revise for the exam (C.R.A.M.P.S.) - 8 Revision checklists Christianity checklist - 9 Judaism checklist - 10 Families and Relationships checklist - 11 Religion, Peace & Conflict checklist - 12 Religious groups within Christianity & Judaism - 13 Course content notes Christianity notes - 14 Judaism notes - 22 Families & Relationships notes - 31 War & Conflict notes - 41 Basic quotes to learn - 52 Sample exam questions - 53

Here are 10 x revision cards: 2 each for the 4 units of the Short Course with the Judaism option (ie includes Christianity, Judaism, War & Family). Each of these has 10 Key Concepts and explanations including other ideas. The Key Concepts are taken from the AQA specification. 1 x 2 page card of useful quotes to learn to develop answers for Q3, Q4 & Q5s. 1 x 2 page card with revision mnemonics to help students remember some basic concepts. I have years of experience as Head of RE and over that time I have tweaked and adapted my revision resources - others are available on the TES!

This is a complete 6 lesson unit of work exploring Holy Week & Jesus. I use it in the run up to Easter with Year 7. It is fully resourced with a detailed scheme of learning document. Every resource has a file name that denotes the lesson it belongs to, and resources also contain the phase of the lesson it may be used at, and these lesson phases correspond with the scheme of learning document for ease of use. Every lesson has a quality Powerpoint presentation to accompany it, with lesson tasks, ideas and information. Homework tasks are also built into the scheme, as are reading texts and extended writing tasks. Lesson 1 explores the historical evidence for Jesus and asks questions abou tthe feeding of the 5000. Lesson 2 looks at the people involved in Palm Sunday and gets students writing a newspaper article to report on events with a bias. Lesson 3 considers the Last Supper and links this to the Eucharist. Lesson 4 asks students to consider Good Friday from the perspective of someone who was there. Lesson 5 reviews the evidence for the Resurrection in preparation for the following assessment lesson. Lesson 6 is focussed on getting the students to write an extended piece of writing about whether the Resurrection actually happened. There is a structure sheet available for this, and it is intended to build evaluation skills needed for GCSE AQA Question 5 type answers, though this could be adapted for whichever GCSE syllabus you follow. I am an experienced RE teacher, now Head of Humanities faculty, and with responsibility for leading and delivering Religous Studies at every level. This scheme of learning has been in the making for 15 years, being tweaked each year for improvements here and there - here is 15 years of effort and experience available to you for £5! I use this scheme of learning when I am training teachers about lesson planning to show what a good unit of work should contain. May also be of interest to schools without a specialist RE teacher - I have many non-specialists teaching RE so all my schemes have to be written in a way that presumes no subject knowledge by the teacher.