This resource will be useful to anyone teaching students how to answer a GCSE essay question in Religious Studies. The focus is on the statement: ‘All Muslims should fast during Ramadan’. It gives the indicative content under the question so students know what should be included in the essay, and it is followed by a model essay which students are then encouraged to mark, using the markscheme that is attached at the end of the second page. I created this to be used as a quick way for students to learn how best to structure a two-sided essay, and show them how a detailed answer could also be a concise one. Hopefully it saves you some planning time! Thanks for taking a look :)

This Powerpoint covers everything students studying AQA A Level philosophy need to know about Utilitarianism, according to the specification. It is purely informative and you could adapt it to include written discussion questions, or simply use it as a prompt for class discussion during the course of your teaching. It also doubles as a handy revision aid. It’s all laid out clearly and neatly to reduce cognitive load and to ensure the information contained within it is as accessible as possible, My students really appreciated the format and the real world examples offered to help cement their understanding of these concepts. Topics included: Normative ethical theories What is normative ethics ? Utilitarianism The question of what is meant by ‘utility’ and ‘maximising utility’, including: Jeremy Bentham’s quantitative hedonistic utilitarianism (his utility calculus) John Stuart Mill’s qualitative hedonistic utilitarianism (higher and lower pleasures) and his ‘proof’ of the greatest happiness principle non-hedonistic utilitarianism (including preference utilitarianism) act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism. Issues, including: whether pleasure is the only good (Nozick’s experience machine) fairness and individual liberty/rights (including the risk of the ‘tyranny of the majority’) problems with calculation (including which beings to include) issues around partiality whether utilitarianism ignores both the moral integrity and the intentions of the individual.

This letter successfully landed me an interview for a Head of RE at a faith school (The official title of the role was Curriculum Leader for Religious Studies). The school was large and there was a significant TLR attached to the role. This letter is designed to be used for informative purposes and as a guide to the things you would be able to write and say in your own letter of application for a similar role. There may well be things you can’t take from my letter since they may not be true for you, but the spirit of this resource is very much to provide a template and an inspiration for you to write your own letter. Just as we know it’s helpful to provide our pupils with a model for exam questions they need to answer, so too I have always found it helpful to have something for me to model my own letters of application on. There isn’t anything within this letter which identifies the school that was being applied to, and when I mention ‘your school’ in the text, it would be wise to replace this phrasing in your letter with the school’s own name. Where there is experience I have written about which you yourself have not had, it may be worth thinking of examples from your own practice that you can write about in a similar style which match the person specification of the role you are applying for. For reference, the letter of application is nearly two pages in length. Thanks for taking a look and good luck in your job search - hopefully this will make the process a tiny bit less stressful :)

These notes were created for my students studying the AQA A Level Religious Studies specification and are designed to be ‘at a glance’ revision notes that act as the basics of what each student needs to know about Religious Experience for their exam. For students who are predicted lower grades than their peers, I have found this resource is invaluable in giving them ‘slimmed’ down content for religious experience and these notes allowed them to tackle revising the topic without the fear of drowning in lots of content. For my more able students they used these for self-quizzing and as a starting point for making their own very detailed notes (an important part of revision in itself). Thanks for looking and I hope this saves you a little bit of time in the run up to exam season! :)

These notes were created for students studying the WJEC / Eduqas AS Level Religious Studies specification and are designed to be ‘at a glance’ revision notes that act as the basics of what each student needs to know about Islam Theme 2 (Religious Concepts) for their exam. For students who are predicted lower grades than their peers, I have found this resource is invaluable in giving them ‘slimmed down’ content for Islam Theme 2 and these notes allowed them to tackle revising the topic without the fear of drowning in lots of content. For my more able students they used these for self-quizzing and as a starting point for making their own very detailed notes (an important part of revision in itself). Thanks for looking and I hope this saves you a little bit of time in the run up to exam season! :)

These notes were created for students studying the WJEC / Eduqas AS Level Religious Studies specification and are designed to be ‘at a glance’ revision notes that act as the basics of what each student needs to know about Islam Theme 3 (Religious Life) for their exam. For students who are predicted lower grades than their peers, I have found this resource is invaluable in giving them ‘slimmed’ down content for Theme 3 and these notes allowed them to tackle revising the topic without the fear of drowning in lots of content. For my more able students they used these for self-quizzing and as a starting point for making their own very detailed notes (an important part of revision in itself). Thanks for looking and I hope this saves you a little bit of time in the run up to exam season! :)

This PowerPoint is designed to use with students who need complete and concise notes on Kantian Deontological Ethics for their A Level exams The Powerpoint covers the following areas: Immanuel Kant’s account of what is meant by a ‘good will’. The distinction between acting in accordance with duty and acting out of duty. The distinction between hypothetical imperatives and categorical imperatives. The first formulation of the categorical imperative (including the distinction between a contradiction in conception and a contradiction in will). The second formulation of the categorical imperative. And also Issues, including: clashing/competing duties not all universalisable maxims are distinctly moral; not all non-universalisable maxims are immoral the view that consequences of actions determine their moral value Kant ignores the value of certain motives, e.g. love, friendship, kindness morality is a system of hypothetical, rather than categorical, imperatives (Philippa Foot). My students found them really useful and they are written in a way to make sure the entire specification is covered as far as Kant is concerned. Any questions just ask and thanks for taking a look :)

This in lesson resource is designed to get students to engage with the WJEC markscheme. Each side of the handout has a 5 and 8 mark question on it respectively, and a model answer to accompany it. Students are presented with both indicative content and the markscheme and their task is to re-write the answer that is given, but to improve it given the available information. My students found this task particularly engaging and useful as they didn’t feel like they were starting with a blank canvas, they were looking to improve an example that has already been created for them. In this way the task is very accessible and low stakes. Thanks for taking a look :)

This series of five slides is designed to be printed off and stapled together in the top left and given to students to work through in roughly an hour. The question they will be working on is the following 8 mark WJEC Religious Education GCSE question: Explain from Christianity and Islam attitudes to the use of contraception. On the first page, students are given a very simple model answer an are tasked with explaining how it could be improved. On the second and third pages, students are given indicative content that could be included and are tasked with highlighting key information from both Christianity and Islam’s viewpoints on the issue. They are then, on the third slide, given a better model answer. They will read this and explain, given the information they now have in their heads from the previous two pages, how it could be improved. Finally, they are given space to write their own answer to the 8 mark GCSE question without looking at any notes. My students really liked this because it was clear and the tasks were ‘chunked’ into easy to digest pieces. There was a clear structure to the lesson which needs minimal teacher input since the instructions are clear on each page. Lined paper isn’t needed either - it’s all self-contained. By the end of the lesson every single student had made progress and, crucially, felt better able to answer 8 mark questions under timed pressure. Hope this helps, thanks for looking and hopefully it’ll save you some time in the hectic run up to exams! :)

These notes were created for students studying the WJEC / Eduqas AS Level Religious Studies specification and are designed to be ‘at a glance’ revision notes that go into detail for each part of the specification - i.e. what each student needs to know about Islam Theme 1 (religious figures and sacred texts) for their exam. For students who are predicted lower grades than their peers, I have found this resource is invaluable in giving them ‘slimmed down’ content for Islam Theme 1 and these notes allowed them to tackle revising the topic without the fear of drowning in lots of content. For my more able students they used these for self-quizzing and as a starting point for making their own very detailed notes (an important part of revision in itself). Thanks for looking and I hope this saves you a little bit of time in the run up to exam season! :)

These detailed course / revision notes were specially written to give AQA A Level Religious Studies students a comprehensive understanding of all the key knowledge from the specification for Component 2: Study of religion and dialogues - 2B Christianity: Section A: Christianity Sources of wisdom and authority God Self, death and afterlife Good conduct and key moral principles Expressions of religious identity Christianity, gender and sexuality Christianity and science Christianity and the challenge of secularisation Christianity, migration and religious pluralism Section B: Dialogues The dialogue between Christianity and philosophy The dialogue between Christianity and ethics These extensive notes are especially useful for students whose note-taking in lesson isn’t as good as others, or whose organisational skills mean they are missing notes/handouts on certain topics / areas. These notes will certainly help reduce the time it takes them to catch up with their peers, and also students like to use these as a checklist of topics to go into in further detail. They give peace of mind that every single corner of the specification/syllabus has been covered in great detail. Hopefully these notes help to save your students (and you!) some time in the hectic run up to exams. Thanks for taking a look :)

These detailed course / revision notes were specially written to give AQA A Level Religious Studies students a comprehensive understanding of all the key knowledge from the specification for Component 2: Study of religion and dialogues - 2A Buddhism: Section A: Buddhism Sources of wisdom and authority Ultimate reality Self, death and afterlife Good conduct and key moral principles Expressions of religious identity Buddhism, gender and sexuality Buddhism and science Buddhism and the challenge of secularisation Buddhism, migration and religious pluralism Section B: Dialogues The dialogue between Buddhism and philosophy The dialogue between Buddhism and ethics These extensive notes are especially useful for students whose note-taking in lesson isn’t as good as others, or whose organisational skills mean they are missing notes/handouts on certain topics / areas. These notes will certainly help reduce the time it takes them to catch up with their peers, and also students like to use these as a checklist of topics to go into in further detail. They give peace of mind that every single corner of the specification/syllabus has been covered in great detail. Hopefully these notes help to save your students (and you!) some time in the hectic run up to exams. Thanks for taking a look :)