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Religious Studies

Gable Hall Religious Studies

Our intent is to explore different spiritual, moral, social and cultural world views and traditions; to explain the range of beliefs and values found within modern Britain; and to evaluate how they might influence our own lives and those around us.

Intent: The Religious Studies program at Gable Hall School aims to foster a deep exploration of diverse beliefs and cultures, emphasising the profound impact of these beliefs on students' lives and the broader community. The program is designed to ensure that all students:

  • Investigate a spectrum of religious beliefs, cultivating an understanding of the motivations behind individual faiths and their influence on personal and communal existence.
  • Develop key virtues such as tolerance, self-awareness, respect, and a nuanced comprehension of our community and the world, guided by religious perspectives and moral principles.

Implementation: To bring the intent to fruition, teachers at Gable Hall School will:

  • Devise an engaging curriculum that progressively builds knowledge and skills, immersing students in the rich culture and customs of major world religions.
  • Facilitate opportunities for students to visit religious buildings, engage with faith communities (e.g., Westminster Abbey, Sikh Temple), and partake in religious practices for a deeper understanding of their significance.
  • Ensure a balanced curriculum that provides every student with insights into different religions and life within those belief systems.
  • Cultivate a classroom ethos that encourages open-mindedness, where respectful debate can flourish, accommodating students of any faith or no faith.
  • Emphasise the societal value of tolerance for all religions, contributing to the cohesion of British society.
  • Clearly distinguish between the concepts of faith, religion, and religious denominations.

Impact: The Religious Studies program anticipates the following impact on students:

  • Attainment of comprehensive knowledge about major world religions, fostering confidence, care, and fulfilment as active members of a diverse and truly equal society.
  • A profound understanding of spiritual, moral, social, and cultural questions that repeatedly surface in their lives.
  • The ability to express opinions about religious beliefs with confidence and sensitivity, acknowledging and respecting differing views.
  • Demonstration of tolerance, respect, and a nuanced understanding of individuals with diverse beliefs and the broader world.

RS is taught to all students in Key Stage 3 for one lesson each week and 1 lesson a week at KS4.  At Key Stage 4 it is a core subject for short course GCSE with AQA. It is a subject where we study religious and non-religious beliefs, we look at how beliefs influence people’s actions, how and why people have contrasting views and we study a wide range of ethical and philosophical topics. It is a subject where students are encouraged to think critically and to discuss their own views as well as being able to respond respectfully to ideas that might differ from their own.

At Gable Hall Religious Studies is a rigorous academic subject that engages students in asking questions as well as answering them. The study of key questions surrounding human existence is part of our curriculum, we also examine the beliefs of different world faiths.

This subject provides students with the key skills necessary to be successful at school and in life, encouraging students to give their views and opinions whilst developing the skills of reasoning, enquiry and evaluation. When students make sense of religion, students can do so from a positions including:

  • Assumptions
  • Perspectives
  • Viewpoints
  • Personal world view

Assessment: Students are assessed formally each term with a combination of short factual recall questions that can include low-stake quizzes and tasks that build on prior learning together with longer evaluative questions. Regular knowledge recall questions are also included at the start of each lesson to develop confidence in using the key terminology when they speak and when they write. Teachers routinely give students the opportunity to apply their prior RE knowledge to new contexts, topics and areas of study which can include comparing the differences between diverse religious approaches. In doing so, students continue to build upon what they already know and work towards greater complexity over time. Teachers can adapt their teaching and responds to and challenging pupils’ misconceptions.

  • Assessment checks that the curriculum is remembered long term.
  • Increasingly deep knowledge of specific religious and non-religious traditions.
  • Greater knowledge of the complexity of how the concept of religion plays out across history and across places and communities.
  • Greater, and increasingly secure, grasp of particular RE concepts.
  • Increased disciplinary knowledge about the bases on which claims about religion are made, for example greater knowledge about the ways and methods that scholars use to form ideas about religion

We believe that effective assessment in RE uses the sequenced building of substantive knowledge as the way by which disciplinary knowledge is built.

Our Principal Aim:

  • Promote pupils spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. 
  • Prepare pupils for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of life. 
  • Establish the principles for distinguishing the difference between right and wrong. 
  • Develop knowledge, understanding and appreciation of pupil’s own and other’s beliefs and cultures.
  • Promote equality and empower pupils with the opportunity to challenge discrimination and stereotyping.

"The principal aim of RE is to engage pupils in systematic enquiry into significant human questions which religion and world views address, so that they can develop the understanding and skills needed to appreciate and appraise varied responses to these questions, as well as develop responses of their own" - SACRE Thurrock

This characterisation of RE draws upon:
▪ The Law (Section 375(3) of the Education Act 1996) which outlines a basic brief for curriculum content

At Gable Hall school we build upon the RE foundations that have been set at your primary school. Click here to see Corringham Primary RE subject intent and to ensure that pupils learn and build on their subject knowledge from Reception to Year 6 Corringham devised their curriculum progression map. 

Trips and Visits

Throughout KS3-KS5 we arrange and participate in a variety of trips and visits that promote RE across the curriculum. These can also include arranging outside visitors which include our local Priest. 

These include Jewish Museum, Enlightenment Gallery, An RE day trip to London, Crawley Hindu Temple and Buddhapadipa Temple, London. 

These opportunities are linked to what students are studying in the classroom students are prepared with the prior knowledge to make sense of these activities.  Before any trip students are prepared with the relevant vocabulary and knowledge to make sense of their experience.

Key Stage 3

The PRE curriculum has been designed so that students are able to build upon prior knowledge and skills. The curriculum has been sequenced to underpin, strengthen and develop and understand new concepts and ideas. This will ensure that students make progress in a meaningful way. 

KS3  Learning Journey

  • YEAR 7 - Year 7 students study modules in Christianity, Charity and Challenges to Religious Commitment’
  • YEAR 8 - Students study modules in Interpretations of Christianity, Living a good life, Life and death.
  • YEAR 9 - Year 9 students study modules in The Purpose of Life, Suffering, and Peace and Conflict.

Key Stage 4

Subject content

This specification covers the content laid down by the Department for Education (DfE) subject content for GCSE Religious Studies: short course. Click Here for further information. 

Students should consider different beliefs and attitudes to the issues studied, both religious and non-religious issues, in contemporary British society. They should be aware that the religious traditions of Great Britain are, in the main, Christian, and that religious traditions in Great Britain are diverse. They include the following: Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism and Sikhism, as well as other religious and non-religious beliefs such as atheism and humanism. This knowledge may be applied throughout the assessment of the subject content.

Section A: The study of religions: beliefs and teachings: Students should study two of the following:

  • Christianity
  • Judaism

3.2 Section B: Thematic studies: religious, philosophical and ethical studies

Students should study both Theme A: Relationships and families and Theme B: Religion, peace and conflict.

Students should study religious and non-religious beliefs, such as atheism and humanism, in contemporary British society about the issues raised.

In addition, students must also study religious, philosophical and ethical arguments related to the issues raised, and their impact and influence on the modern world.

Students will be expected to show their understanding of religion through the application of teachings from religion and beliefs. They will also be expected to make specific references to sources of wisdom and authority including scripture and/or sacred texts. They may refer to any relevant religious text such as the Pali Canon, the sermons of the Buddha, the Bible, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the Vedas and Upanishads, the Qur’an and Hadith, the Torah and Talmud, and the Guru Granth Sahib.

As part of the supporting material for this specification, AQA will publish a list of appropriate texts. These will not be required for study, alternatives may be used and no questions will be set on them.

Students should be able to demonstrate the knowledge that and understanding that:

  • the religious traditions of Great Britain are, in the main, Christian
  • the religious traditions in Great Britain are diverse.

Key Stage 5

All students have the opportunity at Ortu Sixth Form Centre to extend and deepen their knowledge and understanding of religions and world views (including non-religious world views), explaining local, national and global contexts. Building on their prior learning at KS4, students appreciate and appraise the nature of different religions and world views in systematic ways.

At Ortu Sixth Form Centre students use a wide range of concepts in the field of Religious Studies confidently and flexibly to contextualise and analyse the expressions of religions and world views students encounter. Students have the opportunity to research and investigate the influence and impact of religions and world views on the values and lives of both individuals and groups, evaluating their impact on current affairs. Students are able to appreciate and appraise the beliefs and practices of different religions and world views with an increasing level of discernment based on interpretation, evaluation and analysis, developing and articulating well-reasoned positions. 

Specifically students are taught to:

  • Investigate and analyse the beliefs and practices of religions and world views using a range of arguments and evidence to evaluate issues and draw balanced conclusions

  • Synthesise their own and others’ ideas and arguments about sources of wisdom and authority using coherent reasoning, making clear and appropriate references to their historical, cultural and social contexts

  • Develop coherent and well-informed analysis of diversity in the forms of expression and ways of life found in different religions and world views

  • Use, independently, different disciplines and methods by which religions and world views are to analyse their influence on individuals and societies

  • Account for varied interpretations of commitment to religions and world views and for responses to profound questions about the expression of identity, diversity, meaning and value

  • Argue for and justify their own positions with regard to key questions about the nature of religion, providing a detailed evaluation of the perspectives of others

  • Enquire into and develop insightful evaluations of ultimate questions about the purposes and commitments of human life, especially as expressed in the arts, media and philosophy

  • Use a range of research methods to examine and critically evaluate varied perspectives and approaches to issues of community cohesion, respect for all and mutual understanding, locally, nationally and globally

  • Research and skilfully present a wide range of well-informed and reasonable arguments which engage profoundly with moral, religious and spiritual issues.

  • The minimum requirement is 15 hours of core RE across Y12-Y13.

Outline of activities:

Year 12- Term 3

Year 13- Term 1

During the summer term, all year 12 take part in a cultural visit to London to visit a number of museums, (The Imperial War Museum, The Jewish Museum, The Natural History Museum), exploring two themes; 

  • The Holocaust and religious persecution,
  • Creationism vs evolution.

This is then followed up in our Ethics, Transition and Citizenship sessions back in school throughout the remainder of the term.

In the autumn term, all year 13 students take part in a one day religious studies workshop covering a range of topics from Ethics Matters through to Religion and Life.

Ethics Matters is a face-to-face bespoke event designed to support general Religious Education in the Sixth Form. Combining pacy, engaging lectures with activities, discussions and debates, Ethics Matters helps students to understand and think through their responses to some of the hottest hot-button issues confronting our society. Click Here for more information. 

Click here for a complete list of video clip resources with URL links to aid independent learning

SMSC in Religious Education

SMSC, BV and Protected Characteristic development in Religious Education at Gable Hall School:

Spiritual Development in Religious Education:

  • At Gable Hall School, we place a strong emphasis on spiritual development within the framework of Religious Education. Students embark on a meaningful exploration to discover the purpose of life and the values that guide us. By delving into various religions and understanding the reasons behind people's beliefs, students are encouraged to draw wisdom from their own experiences. They engage in deep reflection, interpreting their spirituality and its relevance to their lives, while engaging in thoughtful discussions on profound existential questions.

Moral Development in Religious Education:

  • Moral development is a cornerstone of our Religious Education program. Students delve into the exploration of shared and differing moral values, engaging in thought-provoking debates on matters of right and wrong, good and bad. This extends to discussions about their responsibilities to the world and future generations. At Gable Hall School, students are empowered to form their own ethical compass, differentiating between right and wrong. This understanding is applied practically when they study subjects like 'British Law,' 'Rights and Responsibilities,' 'Crime and Punishment,' and more, equipping them to comprehend the consequences of their actions.

Social Development in Religious Education:

  • In the context of Religious Education, we foster social development by encouraging students to explore the similarities and differences across religions and cultures. This exploration extends beyond the classroom, influencing their relationships and cooperation with peers. By studying different religions, students gain awareness of both commonalities and distinctions within their class, promoting harmonious relations and an enhanced sense of empathy.

Cultural Development in Religious Education:

  • Cultural development plays a vital role in our Religious Education curriculum. Students learn about diverse religions, fostering a sense of belonging and self-confidence. This knowledge empowers them to respond positively to the multicultural and evolving society in which we live. Furthermore, students gain a deep appreciation for the rich tapestry of cultural influences that have shaped both their heritage and that of others. Specific coursework, such as 'Multicultural Britain' in Year 8 and 'Community Cohesion' in the GCSE, amplifies their understanding and appreciation of this cultural diversity.

In summary, Gable Hall School's approach to SMSC in Religious Education encompasses a holistic journey of spiritual, moral, social, and cultural development, preparing students to navigate a diverse and interconnected world with wisdom, empathy, and a strong ethical foundation.

How we build on prior learning

In year 7 we find out what religions the students have already studied but in addition to this, each time a new topic is introduced, we find out what prior knowledge the students already have. To do this we have an activity where students create a mind-map of their knowledge of the new topic. We then share their ideas and they add more detail to their mind maps from the collective knowledge of the class. This is then used this as a starting point and, where the class do have a good basic knowledge, teaching is adapted accordingly. 

In each year there is an element of Christianity as that is the religion they need to understand in the most detail and they can then apply their knowledge of the Christian beliefs to ethical issues.

All Key Stage 3 topics are a good foundation for the GCSE. Some of the same beliefs and issues are introduced in Key Stage 3 but then developed in more depth at GCSE. In Key Stage 4 students are expected to understand the sources of belief and quote from texts; they think more critically and develop a deeper understanding of the beliefs. They will also be more confident about analysing the arguments to state whether they find them convincing or not. 

Secular and Humanist views are built on and developed. These are first introduced in year 7 when looking at whether miracles happen. They are also included when looking at philosophical and ethical arguments in year 7.

The key skills in PRE are introduced in year 7. These include COMPARE AND CONTRAST, CONTEXTUAL UNDERSTANDING, COMMUNICATION OF KNOWLEDGE, ETHICAL DECISION MAKING, EXPLANATION OF INFLUENCE USING EVIDENCE. 

How we prepare students for the future

RE encourages critical thinking, so students are developing their ability to think for themselves about different beliefs and ideas. They will also develop a respect and understanding that people come from different backgrounds and believe different things. They will learn to disagree respectfully and so be more prepared in the future to live and work with people that come from different cultures or backgrounds to themselves and who might have very different views on a range of issues.

Students will also have had time to consider issues that they might face in the future or see on the news. These issues might include suffering, divorce, homophobia, and assisted suicide, for example. RE helps develop a greater awareness of what is happening in the wider world for example the issues of climate change and animal experimentation.  Students will also understand the religious beliefs in some depth and so will be able to look beyond how the media presents issues and have a more comprehensive understanding of religious beliefs and practices. 

RE is a subject that can prepare students to enter a wide variety of professions. Developing empathy and an understanding of beliefs and cultures might prepares them for any of the caring professions or for work in the travel industry. It would also help students understand work colleagues who come from a different culture or religion in the future. Critical thinking skills might be relevant for a career in law. The religious beliefs prepare students who might want a career within the Church or as a hospital or prison chaplain. An understanding of many social aspects of the course might lead them to consider teaching, politics, social work, prison work or the police or fire service or a wide range of environmental jobs.

Additional provision to support learning:

There is a challenge box available with additional reading for students who want to develop their understanding beyond the curriculum. There are also writing frames and sentence starters provided to those who need support with their writing as well as one to one support during the lesson where needed.

We have invited local religious speakers to come into Religious Studies lessons and assemblies at Key Stage 3 and 4 to explain their beliefs. 

Staff

Mr Purcell – Subject Lead

Mr Strickland – Teacher of RE

Mr Decruz – Teacher of RE

Miss Pawsey – Teacher of RE

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