Project Description

Religion, Ethics & Philosophy

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  • An inlcusive curriculum providing every student with the opportunity to experience all 3 strands of the subject; religion, ethics and philosophy, which forms the basis for further study. REP supports the personal development of students, enabling them to be curious, intellectually challenged, grapple with challenging personal and social moralities (Lundie’s models 3&4). The curriculum has been designed to allow for the development of skills, to support natural developmental stages (Piaget), prepare students for life in modern multifaith Britain, to be mindful global citizens. The blend of thematic and systematic units allow for depth of study alongside comparative work and application of beliefs. Links are made with students’ own lives, global events and the local community so that students appreciate the positive impact of faith. This subject area is named to reflect the academic nature of the subject at University, and study units & assessment skills have been chosen to best support GCSE and A-level. The spiralling curriculum allows students to reflect upon earlier learning, build learning and move from factual to complex evaluation of the subject. For example: year 7 Hindu beliefs about God & the use of physical images including female and animal, year 8 Hindu beliefs about the soul and ahimsa, starting to put beliefs into practice, to year 9 Hindu perspectives on suffering and stewardship. This development of learning sets the foundation for the detailed study of Hinduism at GCSE, but for those who do not choose this option, they have an overview of this local faith.
  • Curriculum is structured into 3 topics per year group (ideally one per term) and assessment of both skills is completed for each topic. At KS3 each year has a theme for which the topics feed into and links are made between topics. The skills being assessed get more complex each year preparing for GCSE & beyond. This is especially the case for AO2 evaluation – students have copies of the criteria in books, showing ‘challenge’ goals which are the criteria for the year ahead, so that student can see progression of their work.SOW’s are designed to blend consistency with diversity; the idea is to have a familiar look to the lessons to build confidence with tasks, but with sufficient variety to capture curiosity and enthusiasm. Every lesson for every topic has been planned and resourced by the HoD and is review annually, using student voice.The outcome of assessments is used to inform learning progression and understanding. Time is flexible so that lessons can pause to go over topics or alter the sequence of lessons. For example; the new Sikhism was updated as a planned documentary to use disappeared from you tube, but additional lessons on seva and the langar was introduced to develop learning and link with the new school value of stewardship. From 2019/20, quizzes, word matches and ‘starter for 5’ were introduced for starters to embed knowledge and key words. Lessons are expected to be challenging, so that students are encouraged to question, explore, be curious, evaluate; with an emphasis on high literacy levels and with students encouraged to develop perr answers or challenge their responses.

    • Data is reviewed after each assessment, comparing across groups and checking that individual students are working in line with their ability. This enables personalised goals and 1-1 conversations. Data is recorded and analysed by skill and topic.

      At GCSE a detailed reflection and discussions with students takes place after formal exams. For 2019/20, timed tests were introduced from October of year 10, mixing planned topics with unplanned topics. Final GCSE data is analysed in August, after results, by target group, gender, and results drilled down by question using ERA. This informs planning for the forthcoming year.

      It is important to note that for REP progress may not be evidenced in writing but may be a personal development for a student. To reflect this at KS4 Ethics we use Progress Records for students to track their own personal reflections from lessons linked to skills which are used post 16/in work place.