Religious Studies

LEARNING JOURNEY & SEQUENCING RATIONALE

Year 10 and YEAR 11

Learners will move onto Christianity at the start of Year 10. By this time, learners have gained a good understanding of how to answer questions and how to apply previous and new knowledge as well as justify their own opinion using religious teachings. This also gives learners an opportunity to find similarities between Islam and Christianity.

Much of the teachings they learn as part of Islam in Year 9 and Christianity in Year 10 can be applied to the final two units; Religion, Human Rights and Social Justice and Religion, Families and Relationships.

For example, within Christianity they learn key Christian concepts such as ‘Love thy neighbour’. This can then be applied to areas taught in both the last two units covered at the end of Year 10 and start of year 11.

After the first term, a revision package is then delivered, enabling learners to recap all the topics and for any new learners to catch up with what they may have missed out on.

Unit overview: autumn term

Topic: Christianity
Skills	Analyse religious text Developing skills to examine various interpretations of religion and what they mean. Organisation of work via learning essay writing skills. Developing communication skills via reading answers. Developing a range of quotes that could be used from knowledge organisers. Developing exam skills to answer the exam questions. Comparative skills when looking at different religions. Develop translation skills. Use comparative skills when looking at different Islamic roots.
Knowledge	. Throughout this topic, learners will: Analyse the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Learn the different practices, including the different sacraments Explain religious views regarding worship and prayer Examine religious festivals Examine the influence of believing in the after-life and salvation. Analyse the importance of the role of the church in the local community as well as the worldwide church. Examine Christian persecution and how the church responds to persecution and poverty.
Rationale	As part of the GCSE specification, all learners must sit two papers focusing specifically on religious beliefs and practices. According to Wikipedia 59.5% of the U.K population identify as Christian. The London Borough of Harrow agreed Syllabus 2016 states 37.3% of residents identify as Christian. Harrow High School is a mixed and diverse school with religious and non-religious families. However, taking into consideration that Christianity is the main religion in the UK, it was deemed beneficial for learners to better understand Christian beliefs and practices. It was also chosen due to the fact that nearly half of the UK population identify as Christian. At Harrow High school we have many migrants from other parts of the world who may know little about Christianity but will have heard of the religion. The specification gives learners an opportunity to better understand festivals such as Easter and Christmas giving them a better understanding of why schools have holidays at certain times of the year. The other religion chosen is Islam. By choosing Christianity as a comparable religion, we also feel it gives learners an opportunity to learn about two religions that are often deemed as different yet hold so many similarities. The unit demonstrates similarities in both beliefs and practices; for example, the story of creation/ important figures within both religions and angels. Learners learn through their peers and identify similarities and enjoy sharing experiences.

Unit Overview: Spring Term

Topic: Christianity
Skills	Analyse religious text Developing skills to examine various interpretations of religion and what they mean. Organisation of work via learning essay writing skills. Developing communication skills via reading answers. Developing a range quotes that could be used from knowledge organisers. Developing exam skills to answer the exam questions. Comparative skills when looking at different religions. Develop translation skills. Use comparative skills when looking at different Islamic roots.
Knowledge	. Throughout this topic learners will: Analyse the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Learn the different practices, including the different sacraments Explain religious views regarding worship and prayer Examine religious festivals Examine the influence of believing in after life and salvation. Analyse the importance of the role of the church in the local community as well as the worldwide church. Examine Christian persecution and how the church responds to persecution and poverty.
Rationale	As part of the GCSE specification all learners must sit two papers focusing specifically on religious beliefs and practices. According to Wikipedia 59.5% of the U.K population identify as Christian. The London Borough of Harrow agreed Syllabus 2016 states 37.3% of resident identify as Christian. Harrow High School is a mixed and diverse school with religious and non- religious families. However, taking into consideration that Christianity is the main religion in the UK, it was deemed beneficial for learners to better understand Christian beliefs and practices. It was also chosen due to the fact that nearly half of the UK population identify as Christian. At Harrow High school we have many migrants from other parts of the world who may know little about Christianity but will have heard of the religion. The specification gives learners an opportunity to better understand festivals such as Easter and Christmas, giving them a better understanding of why schools close at certain times of the year. The other religion chosen is Islam. By choosing Christianity as the other religion, we also feel it gives learners an opportunity to learn about two religions that are often deemed as different yet hold so many similarities. The unit demonstrates similarities in both beliefs and practices, for example, the story of creation/ important figures within both religions and angels. Learners learn through their peers and identify similarities and enjoy sharing experiences.

Unit overview: summer term

Topic: Religion, Human Rights and Social Justice
Skills	Analyse religious text Developing skills to examine various interpretations of religion and what they mean. Organisation of work via learning essay writing skills. Developing communication skills via reading answers. Developing a range of quotes that could be used from knowledge organisers. Developing exam skills to answer the exam questions. Comparative skills when looking at different religions.
Knowledge	Throughout this topic learners will: Analyse the impact of Human Rights , Examine different forms of discrimination and what Christianity and Islam teaches. Explain religious views in regard to religious freedom, use of wealth and responsibility of those living in poverty. Examine the religious views regarding giving money to the poor, Examine the influence of religious text in matters of helping those in need and also how wealth is used.
Rationale	This is a theme within the GCSE specification. Learners are taught about Rights and Responsibilities in Personal Development in Years 7- 8, and the knowledge they have is built on to include religious views. Learners are given opportunities to discuss and formulate different arguments regarding different forms of discrimination. As part of the theme, learners look at Human Rights and the right to religious freedom, what learners find most interesting is analysing differences and also similarities. Learners are given an opportunity to look at examples of countries where gender inequalities still exist. The theme was chosen as it promotes social justice in many different areas. Learners are interested in justice and their rights and find the subject interesting. As part of the topic, learners examine different reasons for certain inequalities and learners enjoy discussing their opinion on different aspects of social justice. By giving learners different examples of social justice and injustices and the consequences of treating people unfairly, we believe learners will gain the knowledge they need in terms of tolerance of all and respect. We believe this will encourage respect and diversity during their school years at Harrow High School but also going on into their adult lives.

Knowledge Organiser

A knowledge organiser is an important document that lists the important facts that learners should know by the end of a unit of work. It is important that learners can recall these facts easily, so that when they are answering challenging questions in their assessments and GCSE and A-Level exams, they are not wasting precious time in exams focusing on remembering simple facts, but making complex arguments and calculations.

We encourage all pupils to use them by doing the following:

Quiz themselves at home, using the read, write, cover, check method.
Practise spelling key vocabulary
Further researching people, events and processes most relevant to the unit.