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.

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.

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.

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.

This is a double sided worksheet with Q4 type questions on Relationships & Families, and Religion, Peace & Conflict. It has 2 questions per topic on each side, started with 2 basic ideas. The students need to complete the paragraphs to turn each question from a 2/5 to a 5/5 answer.

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 an excel file which contains a tab for each unit relevant for Paper 1 of the John Frye Hodder textbook. Each tab contains flashcard templates for each unit. The flashcards are arranged in order so that your students can use the flashcards as a revision resource - they work through the book, chapter by chapter, completing the back of the flashcards with notes. There are over 650 flashcard templates so enough to keep them going! It is arranged in tabs so that you can email the excel file to your repro dept and ask them to print a certain tab onto A4 card. The cells are set up so that you just need to quarter the sheets of A4 card. I give them to my 6th formers to do for homework, and they take them away, cut them up themselves and bring them back completed with notes. It is good for getting them reading independently and also to create a revision resource for exam time. There are 16 units in total for the Philosophy & Ethics paper so well worth starting revision as early as possible. The excel file will not be locked so you can add extra ones to it should you feel the 600-odd flashcards aren’t enough! It took me over an hour per unit to read the textbook chapter, consider what they need to know for the exam and make the flashcards. So that is 14 sets of flashcards taking over an hour each to produce! Truth be told, I would not have started making these had I realised precisely how much time would need to be invested in it! You can buy back days of your life by buying this, plus can be reused every year, so at £3 this represents a cost of 22pence per hour of your time saved.

As Humanities Faculty Leader I have always looked for ways to help the team to easily plan creative and collaborative learning. I have developed this idea over a few years and it has been well used in my department and around the school - at my school there aren’t enough classrooms and teachers are always in and out of each others’ rooms to teach lessons here and there. You can’t carry much with you and your lesson may suffer by not having all your usual resources to hand if you need to adapt the lesson. The concept here is that with the 10 inexpensive resources on the top row you can do the 99 lesson activities underneath. Once you’ve got your head around the different activities, you have effectively planned for spontaneity! Crucially, all ten resources can fit into a ‘toolbox’ no bigger than a shoebox which you can keep under your desk for those moments when the lesson is not going to plan. I observe a lot of trainee teachers and the number 1 thing I see that pulls a lesson down is the lack of interaction with what is happening in the classroom - with this concept teachers have 99 ideas up their sleeve to rescue a lesson with, rather than sticking to the lesson plan rigidly. If you were doing your training or NQT year at my school then this is one of the first techniques that our Teaching & Learning team will teach you. You would be given a box (by me!) and then challenged to use all 99 activities in 2 weeks. I think new teachers need ideas for lesson tasks and strategies for dealing with the unexpected, not volumes of theory! Its also something our cover supervisors have with them as they go from room to room trying to teach the best lesson they can with very little preparation. I’m not suggesting its a good idea not to prep a lesson, but the reality is that there will always be a time when you need to pull an activity out of your sleeve or ‘wing’ a lesson - this resource is for just those situations. You will get the file as a word document that will print to A3, but you can adjust the paper size in settings. It is an unlocked word document in case you decide you want to add or change it for your own use - the art of being a magpie is something else I encourage our new teachers with!

This is an excel file with the front templates for over 200 cue cards for revising the whole of the new AQA Religious Studies short course GCSE - this is for the units Key beliefs of Christianity, Key beliefs of Judaism, Relationships & families, Religion, peace & conflict which also constitute 50% of the AQA Spec A full course. It comes with instructions on the first tab so you can effortlessly ping it to your reprographics department and tell them how many copies you need. I would recommend having each unit (on a separate tab on the file) printed on a different colour card to make it easier for the students to recognise which unit each concept goes with. There are 8 cards on one sheet of A4, and the idea is that it prints with lines to separate them that the students can cut into a series of Cue cards, tagged with a treasury tag (not supplied!). It forces them to read your prescribed revision materials as they write on the reverse of the card with information and details about the concept. You will get the excel file in an unlocked state so if you want to you can add your own into the template, but with 200+ concepts included, it is a complete set for the short course. If you are teaching the full course AQA spec A then it will give you half of the concepts your students need. I am an experienced Head of RE and been doing this sort of thing for quite a while now - the most important thing after teaching good lessons is to have good revision resources. In my experience Cue cards work well as they are a good tool to break the course down into manageable chunks (I give them a few to do at a time as homework) but also to allow them to take responsibility for their learning and so they can see their subject knowledge building as the revision period progresses.

A template with 23 different bunting flags for all major world religions in appropriate colours. Good for brightening up any classroom and helping students to recognise religious symbols. You will need 2 copies of each flag and a length of string. Fix one flag around the string at the line on the template, then glue the other onto the back of it. My Year 7 class did mine for me in under 10 mins - one flag each! It makes a string of bunting long enough to stretch across an average classroom, or you can reuse flags to make a longer string of bunting.

This is a colour A3 Knowledge Organiser. It is presented in an easy to access style, with pictures, text graphics and explanation, and includes the basic facts needed for AQA 9-1 Short Course Religious Studies with the Christianity and Judaism units. I have used it to start the revision period off - an attractive sheet of revision that students don't mind having on their bedroom wall. It can also form the basis of "memory homework" tasks for each section. In addition, I also have it laminated to use as a placemat in my classroom to inspire some ideas for the Q5 answers.