Curriculum intent – Religious Studies
At Colmers, Religious Studies is a deeply academic subject which is aimed towards the development of the key qualities of a RS scholar: individuals who are open minded, analytical, respectful, reflective and critical. Through studying religion from this academic perspective, students gain an understanding of the complex history of religious and non-religious traditions and how these worldviews impact the world today, including in the local community.
In turn, Religious Studies is a multi-disciplinary subject, comprising of a range of disciplinary perspectives including theology, philosophy, history and the social sciences. These different disciplines help students understand the world around them and enable them to turn inwards and reflect upon themselves.
At Key Stage 3, we follow the Birmingham Agreed Syllabus (2022). Through studying RS, students gain substantive, disciplinary and develop their own personal knowledge of religious and non-religious worldviews through the study of big questions and dispositions. These big questions are studied every half term and at the end of that half term students are assessed to see what they have learnt. Reflecting the multi-disciplinary nature of the subject, Year 7 focuses on the study of religious and non-religious worldviews with a particular emphasis on disciplinary knowledge. Year 8 focuses on ethics (otherwise known as moral philosophy) and Year 9 focusing on the study of the philosophy of religion.
Key Stage 3: RS Skills
In Religious Studies, we explicitly teach knowledge and skills. To reduce cognitive load, we have tried to devise a shared language across the subject and, where relevant, with other humanities subjects.
Through teacher explanation, developing understanding and deliberate practice, students will be explicitly taught key phrases in order that they can demonstrate these key skills in both their discussions and writing. In each year of their RS journey, students will develop all of these skills with some topics naturally lending themselves to the teaching of some skills more than others.
On the curriculum overview, the letter next to the lesson indicates the skill or skills taught in that lesson. This will be reflected in the deliberate practice at the end of each lesson.
One of these RS skills is tolerance and respect. This fundamental British value is introduced to students in RS from the first lesson of Year 7 and is revisited throughout their RS journey. The importance of tolerance and respect is woven throughout our curriculum, including our extra-curricular offering and assemblies.
Year 7
Students begin Year 7 from a range of starting points, including some with little experience of studying RS. As a result, the aim of Year 7 is to focus on building students’ foundational knowledge of the key religious and non-religious traditions of the United Kingdom with a particular focus on the Abrahamic religions.
Students begin Year 7 by exploring the question: “What is RS?”. Here students begin by learning about what RS is and what qualities comprise a good RS scholar. From this, students learn about the chronology of different religions which links to their learning about chronology in History. From this, students will then consider their own worldview and how everyone has a worldview which changes and evolves as they go through life. Following this, students will begin to understand that RS is a multidisciplinary subject comprising of theology, history, social science and philosophy. Students will then apply their previous knowledge about the different disciplines within RS by exploring religion in Birmingham and the UK through the lens of social science and census data.
With this foundational knowledge, Y7 students will then explore philosophy. Here they will consider what is real and this will lead them to evaluate the extent to which revelation can support religious beliefs about the divine.
Following this, will study their first religion in depth: Judaism. Here is they will evaluate how important covenants are to the Jewish worldview. Students will study both the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants and consider how these covenants influence Jewish identity today.
In the previous topics student will have gained an understanding of Judaism, in the next topic, students will study the history of Christianity. The focus of this topic is how Christianity goes from being a small, persecuted religious movement, to the biggest religion in the world.
Students then focus on religion in the UK again. This time they explore the contribution of Islam to UK culture. This combines both the disciplines of theology, history and social science which students have studied in previous topics.
Students end Year 7 by exploring Rastafariani and Baha’i, two minor religious traditions in the UK. They will evaluate the extent to which these religions could be considered Abrahamic and compare it to the Abrahamic religions they have studied previously.
Year 8
Students in Year 8 study religious ethics. Students are introduced to the study of ethics by considering their own moral compass (worldview) and comparing that to others. Then students explore a range of important debates within the study of ethics.
For the rest of Year 8, each topic follows a similar structure. Students will study each of the Dharmic religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. In each topic students will study a different world religion and begin by revising the key beliefs of each religion Following this, students will apply the religious teachings learnt in previous lessons to the following ethical issues that relate to that particular religion. These include the death penalty, war, and animal rights.
The aim here is to show that religious beliefs about all of the issues above are complex with variation within religious traditions for a number of reasons such as the history of the religious tradition and different interpretations of sacred writings. In particular, students will learn that whilst there is some variation between religious traditions, often this is shaped by a particular religion’s understanding of their own sacred text (e.g. believing it was divinely revealed compared to divinely inspired).
Year 9
Students in Year 9 will focus on the philosophy of religion. Students are introduced to the study of philosophy of religion by focusing on the key debates within the philosophy of religion which will support students later in the year. Following this, students will study in depth a key debate within the study of philosophy: the problem of evil, the existence of God, and afterlife. Here students will be introduced to both religious and non-religious worldviews and the diversity of views within these traditions.
Students will end Year 9 with two in depth studies of Muhammad and Jesus. The aim of both of these topics is for students to learn the peripheral knowledge which will support them in when studying Christianity and Islam at GCSE.
Year 10 and Year 11
All students will complete a full course in GCSE Religious Studies (Eduqas Route A) ensuring that their national entitlement to RS is exceeded and that they receive the best possible opportunity to achieve academically, morally and understand the complex religious landscape around them.
Students study Religious, Philosophical and Ethical studies in the modern world through Christianity; Christian beliefs & practices and, Muslim beliefs & Practices.
Aims of GCSE RS:
· Through studying GCSE RS students will be challenged with questions about belief, values, meaning, purpose and truth, enabling them to develop their own attitudes towards religious issues.
· Students will also gain an appreciation of how religion, philosophy and ethics form the basis of our culture. They will develop analytical and critical thinking skills, the ability to work with abstract ideas, leadership and research skills. All these skills will help prepare them for further study.
Key Stage 3 End points:
Year 7
Know more – Students will know that RS is a multi-disciplinary subject encompassing the study of theology, history, social sciences and philosophy. Throughout Year 7 students will study each of these disciplines.
Do more – Students will be able to reflect you on their own worldviews and consider how and why the worldviews of others might be similar or different to their own.
Year 8
Know more – about sources of authority in the major religious traditions and how these sources of authority influence religious beliefs about important ethical issues. With a particular focus on the dharmic religions.
Do more – Be able to compare the different reasons why and how religious traditions are diverse. This will be expressed through analytical essays and analysis of a range of academic scholarship.
Year 9
Know more – about the philosophical debates within Religious Studies, the existence of God and evidence for life after death.
Do more – Be able to evaluate key ethical and philosophical issues through the analysis of academic texts and increasing sophisticated essay writing.
