AQA GCSE RE RS - Christianity Beliefs - L8 Heaven and Hell

This is actually quite a convoluted topic, what you realise very quickly is that Christians have lots of different ideas about heaven and hell because the Bible is actually rather vague on exactly what happens.

The best part of the lesson is the activity where they have to rate how ‘good’ the various famous people are. I printed those slides out and got students to hold them. They then stand in a line and move along it based on the relative ‘goodness’ of the other celebrities. The crunch bit of the learning comes when you get to the last one - God. Ask the class if it looks right that God is right next to (normally MLK) because that suggests God is only a little better, it requires the rest of the names to shuffle down to get further away from God. In my classroom they end up lining up against the side of the class opposite God. It shows really clearly that from God’s perspective, humans are all sinful and evil and no matter how much good they’ve done, they are not worthy to get to heaven. My year 10s got a lot out of this activity.

I’ve tried to steer the lesson simple but I have a theology degree so if you’re not confident in certain bits, just cut it or simplify it.

The diagram maybe useful if you want to teach it to that depth. I would say that it is important to mention that a Christian isn’t just someone who goes to church or even identifies as one, it is someone who truly believes that Jesus has died for their sins, not simply that non-Christians go to hell but they go because they are not forgiven. Also worth mentioning that many Christians these days are unsure if God really does send people to eternal punishment, maybe they still get to go to heaven - we don’t know.