R​eligious Studies

Curriculum Aims:

• Allows pupils to acquire and develop knowledge and understanding of a variety of religions and world views represented in the United Kingdom.
• Develops an understanding of the influence of the beliefs, values and traditions on individuals, our locality and other communities, societies and cultures and how these impacts on our daily life.
• Embeds the most recent evidence based educational research to accelerate pupil progress.
• Equips pupils with essential skills for life and promotes spiritual, cultural, social and moral development.
• Encourages pupils to value all life and take responsibility for themselves and others.
• Enables pupils to become well-rounded global citizens with an appreciation of the vast range of cultural differences in the world.
• Raises aspirations for future career paths by developing a diverse skillset that is highly transferable.
• Promotes racial and religious tolerance within pupils to allow them to make reasoned judgements.

Strategic Intent for the Religious Studies Department.

To develop a curriculum which:

• Implements research about effective teaching methods – Lessons are designed to allow for application of knowledge across the units. This is a spiral curriculum that uses interleaving and retrieval to ensure that pupils are given the chance to develop deeper understanding into the ways in which religious beliefs and teachings can be/are applied.
• Is meaningful and inspired – Pupils are given the opportunity to make their own meanings by evaluating viewpoints, making judgements and discussing truth vs faith across all units. Concepts discussed are applicable to real life situations and this inspires pupils to find ways in which they can become better citizens.
• Links new subject knowledge to prior experiences so building cognitive pathways and associations. In RS, pupils are encouraged to draw on their own life experiences, media, questions about life etc. and the context of our locality to develop a deeper understanding of the concepts covered.
• Is thoroughly sequenced – RS concepts are mapped out thematically across the units of study.Themes include relationships and families, religion and life, existence of God and Revelation, religion, peace and conflict, crime and punishment, human rights and social justice, philosophical and ethical studies, sources of wisdom and authority and religious beliefs.
• Tier 2 & 3 vocabulary are embedded within lessons to allow the pupils to develop their religious literacy, discussing confidently specific vocabulary linked to the different religions of study.

• Is both religion and thematic based. Pupils will explore a religion before making links with everyday life experiences in order to understand the impact that religion and worldviews has on them. Careers are also weaved through the units so that pupils can see how the subject links with different jobs sectors.
• Is word rich - Key terms and concepts are embedded across all lessons and the key stages. There will be a high expectation on all pupils in their verbal and written work. A strong focus will be placed upon command words in assessment style questions; this will be evident within our MAPs.
• Is designed to allow for fluency and repetition as core concepts are required to be retrieved and then built upon to incorporate new subject knowledge and application, reducing cognitive load in each lesson. Homework is also set to allow for retrieval of knowledge. Retrieval time will be given to topics covered previously, not necessarily for those topics covered during that lesson. This may be included at the beginning of a lesson following homework set about the topics. Teachers will live model (whilst sharing the thought process out loud) before asking pupils to purple pen their own work.
• Responsive teaching is at the heart of each lesson and a key focus of departmental CPD. Effective questioning and teachers use the feedback from the questioning sessions to inform the direction of the lesson. Questioning is not just verbal but may include retrieval practice methods. Pupils are expected to reflect on their learning process across all schemes of learning to develop their metacognition skills.
• The curriculum has been designed via reflections of the SACRE guidance and the national frameworks. This ensures that our pupils are able to gather the knowledge, skills and understanding in line with other pupils across the country whilst still focusing on issues that affect them in their lives, in their locality. Explore our rights and responsibilities as humans.

Curriculum Principles

• Through the mapping of key themes, we have created a spiral curriculum that embeds, revisits and reinforces these across Key Stage 3.
• We build cultural capital in our pupils in order for them to develop a sense of identity and pride in their local community and excel in the wider world.
• We make learning relevant by exploring religious and world views that have impacted on the lives of pupils in our locality and surrounding areas, ways in which the knowledge and skills developed in RS can support their career choices and through the exploration of a range of ethical and moral issues.
• Schemes of work make clear links with specific careers associated which will be explored upon delivery. The key skills that run across the key stage will always be identified as transferrable and applicable to a number of careers options and generic ‘skills for life.’ Personal Development is embedded throughout the RS curriculum.
• We uphold the core principle that, ‘Reading is Power’. We endorse reading, share media sources with pupils during lessons and embed independent and class reading at all opportunities.
• We have high expectations of our pupils to develop articulate and confident young people, who can communicate effectively through the spoken and written word.
• We use opportunities for cross-curricular work to develop transferable skills and to allow pupils to see the links across a range of areas. We make links with the History and English department to develop and embed transferable skills.

Enrichment

The Religious Studies department contributes to Hillside High School’s extensive enrichment offer through providing opportunities for pupils to enrich their learning through guest speakers and visitors and afterschool clubs and activities.

The Religious Studies department offers opportunities for pupils to participate in curriculum days which aim to enhance and bring learning to life for pupils along with developing key skills such as teamwork and leadership.

Personal Development, Behaviour and Welfare

In Religious studies, pupils are encouraged to think about the world around them and demonstrate an open-minded attitude towards others. Religious Studies encourages pupils to think about life’s philosophical questions through developing confidence and the skills needed to discuss, debate and challenge their own opinions and the opinions of others.

Pupils have regular opportunities to work together as part of a group to discus issues and opinions relating to the topic of study. Pupils regularly learn about current issues and wherever possible, teaching staff incorporate relevant current affairs into their teaching to allow pupils to see the link between what they are learning and how this applies to the real world.

Religious Studies directly contributes to the school’s Personal Development programme through delivering aspects of the RSE and HE framework.

Course Content

Key Stage 3 Pathways:

Year 7

1. What is RS? (Religion and family traditions)
2. Christianity
3. Sikhism

Year 8

1. Judaism
2. Buddhism
3. Islam

Year 9

1. Humanism
2. Attitudes towards the Afterlife
3. Ethics and Medical ethics

Key Stage 4 Pathways:

Islam

1. Muslim Beliefs
2. Marriage and Family
3. Living the Muslim Life
4. Matters of Life and Death

Christianity

1. Christian Beliefs
2. Crime & Punishment
3. Living the Christian Life
4. Peace & Conflict

At Key Stage 4 pupils will follow alternate topics from the Christianity and Islam units.