Boredom is the enemy of education. These resources aim to give students an engaging, fun way into topics that are relevant to their lives, including awkward ones like sex education, and informing about issues that are shaping the world and their future. My hope is that they help be an effective tool to the teacher to wake up a hunger for knowledge in students, and that everyone in the classroom would have a more enjoyable and enriching experience because of their use.
Boredom is the enemy of education. These resources aim to give students an engaging, fun way into topics that are relevant to their lives, including awkward ones like sex education, and informing about issues that are shaping the world and their future. My hope is that they help be an effective tool to the teacher to wake up a hunger for knowledge in students, and that everyone in the classroom would have a more enjoyable and enriching experience because of their use.
A resource to help explore and counter Islamophobic rhetoric in schools, which is sadly increasingly common. This lesson includes individuals and philosophies in Islam which have been profoundly positive in their influence on society, including nobel prize winners, human rights activitists, politicians, charitable donations and international charities. Differenatiated, independent learning activities and links to youtube videos all included.
Learning questions are as follows:
Does Islam make any positive contributions to the world? (Level 4)
What are some of the reasons Muslims contribute positively to the world? (Level 5-6)
“Islam a force for good in the world” Do you agree? (Level 5-6)
This lesson has a look at the truth and reconciliation trials in S. Africa and how those principles can be applied in everyday life, as well as solving more international issues such as ISIS. A bit of a labour of love, this one, as teaching about terrorism and extremism is always a bit depressing. It's a lesson to really help students connect to hope, and the Citizenship, SMSC and PHSE targets of self-awareness, other cultures and moral values.
Learning Questions include:
What was Apartheid?
What were the truth and reconciliation trials?
What was their aim?
How might Religious Believers respond?
What is your opinion on them?
Youtube clips, miniplenaries, differentiated activities and group creative tasks included following a blooms taxonomy structure, influenced by Kagan's learning cycle.
This is a resource to help tackle un-nuanced views that Christians are homophobic. It looks at some examples of welcoming Churches, and has a broad variety of resources for you to choose from including: debates, youtube videos, written evaluations and a choice of plenaries too. It's therefore well differentiated.
There are two lessons here: one focusses more on the westboro baptist church, whereas the other is more general. There is some repeated material in the two lessons, but plenty for you to pull two or even three lessons out of.
WARNING: The drama-documentary has some scenes of self harm at the end of it so could be a potential trigger for some students and should be skipped for younger year groups.
A powerpoint, worsearch, timeline, video and youtube video about how Nazi Germany gradually slid into more and more extreme versions of anti-semitism. It chronicles the dates of some of the 2000 laws passed against Jews in the years following Hitler's election in 1933, and attempts to answer the question HOW did normal people allow, and participate, in the Holocaust. It attempts to answer this to help students understand how vigilance in any society, and the trends within it, are something any healthy citizen should take part in.
The Key Learning Question is:
How did the Holocaust happen?
Activities are differentiated, and extension activities are included. Resources suited for yr.6 (10yo) and up.
A small bundle of resources that explore the life and work of Thich Nhat Hanh using a marketplace, with a factfile on his life including quotes and history. Enough here for a few lessons.
Learning Questions include:
Who is Thich Naht Hanh?
How does he interpret Buddhism?
What is my opinion of ‘Engaged Buddhism’?
A video included which is an interview between him and Oprah which is quite powerful and insightful for understanding the man behind the religious robes.
Activities differentiated by outcome, especially if Kagan seating plans are used.
This lesson is a Philosophy for Children lesson, supported by activities and pictures to try and get young people to engage with the huge injustice and personal loss of the Holocaust. It involves getting students to enquire into each others lives using the medium of their shoes: trying to be detectives (in a Sherlock deduction method sort of way). What can we tell about a person from a shoe? Very little. Yet this is all we have left of many human stories from the Holocaust, all 6, 258, 673 Jews and 3 million others. Its an attempt to get students to emote and empathise with the fact that each of those numbers is a person with a full story.
Learning Questions include:
The Holocaust-
What was it?
How many people died?
Why are we learning about it?
More detailed instructions on the P4C exercise included.
This powerpoint and worksheets provide a range of differentiated activities as well as video clips that explore how propaganda and indoctrination was used in the Holocaust to Brainwash people. It includes embedded videos, youtube links, examples of propaganda posters, team work and independent work activities as well as discussion topics.
Fine for use from yr. 6 (10 yo up)
The learning questions are as follows:
How did people let the holocaust happen? (Level 4-5)
Explain why is it important to think for yourself. (Level 5-6)
Can you evaluate the effectiveness of Nazi propaganda? (Level 6-7)
There are also a myriad of extension tasks, including examples of modern day propaganda around Islamophobia and Immigration.
This is a resource, with scaffolding options for SEND, for students to understand Muslim and Christian Attitudes to Justice. It involves an independent study task, built around the concept of co-operative teamwork filling in a 'beehive' as bees do when filling in cells of honey. There are also scaffolded paragraph tasks.
The objectives addressed are:
Why is Justice important to Muslims and Christians?
What are some examples of Islamic and Christian teachings about justice?
What is your opinion of Muslim attitudes to Justice?
EXT: Why might someone disagree with you?
Teachers should aim to really push evaluation, examining why different people believe different things and the benefits and pitfalls of different beliefs.
A lesson to help students explore the meaning of life inclusive of, but not exclusive to, religious belief.
Learning questions include:
What is the meaning of life for you?
Do we all need a purpose in our lives?
Do you have to follow a religion to have meaning and purpose in life?
Excellent for SMSC, Religious Studies, PHSE and citizenship objectives and General Studies or Philosophy modules.
Slides have some instructions in the notes, and there is enough to pick and choose from to suit the needs of your class. 11 slides including youtube clips.
A 3 page glossary with gaps with brief definitions of ALL the words in the AQA religious studies B Unit 3 specification plus 10 key quotes. Also included an answer sheet.
This is a really useful summary of the whole of the ethics exam for helping them answer those shorter and longer questions i.e. "Hospices are a better alternative to Euthanasia" (6 marker).
My kids really liked it, so they inspired me to put it up here. Took about 3 hours to make mind, and about an hours worth of teaching included once all the questions and ideas are recapped. It's a great place to highlight weaknesses in their knowledge too.
A selection of resources to help your school become a school of sanctuary: a place of safety and welcome for asylum seekers. The resources and activities will produce evidence you can use in your application to your local city of sanctuary group.
https://schools.cityofsanctuary.org/
:)
4 lessons, board games, role plays, documentaries, collated from City of Sanctuary, Resources made by me, Amnesty International, Oxfam and online reports. What more do you want? Free? Ok, free.
A resource with embedded video clips, group tasks, differentiated activities and resources as well as mini plenaries. Plenty for students to get their intellectual/philosophical teeth into. There are also a range of miracles to look at: if you would like to explore the miracles of Jesus more then there are resources which look specifically at those, whilst there are also a range of more 'modern' Miracles, like crying statues, floating brooms lambs with 'allah' appearing in their coat and people being cured of cancer. From the sublime to the ridiculous, I know.
Learning Objectives:
To understand what a miracle is
To know some examples of Miracles
To think about if I believe miracles can happen
Links well to religious studies GCSE and KS3 groups, as well as compulsory GCSE sets. I use it in conjunction with my science and religion module to exemplify that much of what we do today with science would have once been considered miraculous.
A lesson to help students explore religious laws in Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism. Differentiated by activity and outcome with independent learning resources that can be used for a variety of year groups and abilities, as well as links to youtube videos.
Learning Questions:
What are religious laws? (l.4)
What are the religious laws of two different religions? (l.5)
What are the challenges and benefits of following Religious Laws? (l.6)
Included is a powerpoint, plan, pdf and .pub file of the resources for editing if necessary. Enjoy!
:)
There is a prezi that comes with this lesson plan, the link for which can be found as a hyperlink in the lesson plan itself.
Or copy and paste:
http://prezi.com/m8egb_g7wt1d/religious-revolutionaries/
Religious leaders often seem able to draw on a well of internal strength that allows them to fight for - and sometimes die for - social justice. This resource is designed with an independent study phase so students can choose who they wish to study, which can be found in the PDF file.
Enjoy!
An entire scheme of work on Immortality for Religious Studies GCSE. Including powerpoints, worksheets, activities, revision resources and clips, plenty to keep your kids interested, entertained and immersed in an educational experience. Shaped around the AQA Religious Studies B syllabus
1) What is reality
2) The evidence for immortality (NDEs and Reincarnation Stories)
3) Religious Attitudes
4) Scriptures and Life After Death (LaD)
5) The Resurrection
6) Muslim attitudes to the Resurrection
7) Paranormal Activity and Evidence for Life after Death
8) Revision
9) Revision 2
8-10 lessons on Medical Ethics, including religious teaching (Christian and Muslim) on various procedures that simply did not exist at the time of the formation of these major world religions. Clips, hyperlinks, presentations (ppt) articles and case studies are all included in the 18 files in this bundle. There are also a couple of cover lessons/film lessons if you happen to have a copy of Gattaca or 6th Day.
The topic includes:
Embryo Research
IVF
Surrogacy
Transplants and Transfusions
Genetic Engineering
Human Experimentation
Cloning
Saviour Siblings (briefly in the consolidation/revision session)
I hope it's all very helpful!
Feedback welcome,
David
p.s. Some DVDs on this topic (particularly My Sister's Keeper, Gattaca (and 6th Day to some extent) are good ones to invest in - you can buy these all on youtube)
When I ask my students: ‘What is money?’, they hardly ever know. Most adults don’t either. This lesson looks at what money is, how the banking crisis happened, what the difference between good debt and bad debt is, and the current global inequality in wealth. It includes individual and group work activities, as well as whole class discussions, to try and stimulate students understanding and critical engagement with the world as it is. A lesson that could work as an introduction for economics, PHSE, SEAL, SMSC and Careers lessons for children aged 11+. Extensions, start and plenary are included to aid differentiation and the learning journey. Learning questions also increase in difficulty as the lesson progresses.
Learning questions include:
What is money?
What’s the difference between good debt and bad debt?
What is crypto-currency?
Extension: Is financial inequality out of control, and if so how can it be resolved?
Instructions on how to use the resource are in the notes of the powerpoint, which also includes a number of youtube videos, and included here is also a short word document which has some of the debate about where money originated from and what preceded it. This document is made from a summary of Graeber’s recent work and watching the ‘crash course’ video on money. Adam Smith’s idea that barter preceded minted coinage seems, in recent academia, to be incorrect. Rather, minted metal coinage seems to have been part of a ‘military-mining-slavery complex’ where wars created slaves to mine metal to pay soldiers.
Perfect for a form discussion or a PHSE/Citizenship lesson, this resource examines the investigatory powers act and gives students the opportunity to debate their opinions on mass surveillance. It also summarises human rights, and is designed to help develop students skills of critical thought and debate. It includes a short youtube video and SMSC objectives.
Learning Questions include:
What is the investigatory powers act?
Should the government be able to see all of our online data?
SMSC objectives met are:
To learn and discuss what is right and wrong and respect the law;
investigate moral and ethical issues and offer reasoned views.
To appreciate diverse viewpoints and resolve conflict.
A lesson which explores Christian Attitudes to War. Learning Questions include:
What are Christian Opinions to War?
Why do Christians disagree with each other?
EXT: How do you think social background affects peoples opinions?
This powerpoint looks includes extension activities, independent learning activities and joint discussion. It covers citizenship, PHSE, SEAL, SMSC and Religious Studies syllabi (I love that plural) and I have found it to be a fairly engaging lesson for many students. It also includes a link to a youtube video animation to the parable of the lost son, and links this to the topic of war and peace for students to consider how religious teachings may be applied to modern day dilemmas. Not dilemmi. Sadly.