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Religious Studies

Curriculum intent:

At Highlands, Religious studies aims to

  1. provide a knowledge rich,  rigorous and stimulating learning experience to prepare pupils to pursue the subject, and enable them to engage in a multi-religious and multi-secular world.
  2. engage students in the study of other people’s beliefs as well as appreciate the rich contribution both religions and non religions have made to our own worldviews.
  3. promote mutual respect, tolerance and understanding across different cultures and communities by preparing students to think in critical and scholarly ways about the representation of religion and non religions
  4. Deepen students understanding of the development of religious/ non religious worldviews through the explicit teaching of religious literacy 

Exam board: GCSE: AQA GCSE 8062/1A and 8062/2A with emphasis on Christianity and Buddhism,

A Level: AQA specification - 7062

Key Stage 3

 

Autumn Term 1

Autumn Term 2

Year 7

Are humans and animals different?

Why do Buddhists believe in anatta (‘no soul’)?

Year 8

Was Jesus a rebel? religious/ political context at the time of Jesus

Does Jesus inspire activism today? Black Jesus/ Liberation theology/ antiracism

Year 9

Is there one truth or many? The blind men and the elephant

Is the Christian and Islamic God the same?

Key Stage 3

 

Spring Term 1

Spring Term 2

Year 7

Are humans doomed? The Fall

What would you do for someone you love? Sacrifice in Judaism

Year 8

Christianity: What does it mean to be saved?

Christianity: What does it mean to be saved?

Year 9

How do we know about God? General revelation (arguments for/against)

How do we know God? Special revelation (texts/ religious experience)

Key Stage 3

 

Summer Term 1

Summer Term 2

Year 7

What would you do for someone you love? The story of Exodus

Assessments

Year 8

Islam: How does being a Muslim affect someone’s life?

Assessments

Year 9

’God is a man. Get over it’ Language, anthropomorphism, feminist perspectives of God

Assessments

 

Key Stage 4

 

Autumn Term 1

Autumn Term 2

Year 10

Christianity: Beliefs and Teachings

Christianity: Beliefs and Teachings

Year 11

Theme B: Religion and Life

Theme C: God and Revelation

Key Stage 4

 

Spring Term 1

Spring Term 2

Year 10

Christianity: Practices

Buddhism: Beliefs and Teachings

Year 11

Theme D: Religion, War and Peace

Theme E: Crime and Punishment

Key Stage 4

 

Summer Term 1

Summer Term 2

Year 10

Buddhism: Beliefs and Teachings

Buddhism: Practices

Year 11

Revision and Exam preparations

 

Key Stage 5 

 

Autumn Term 1

Autumn Term 2

Year 12

  • Arguments for the existence of God: the Design Argument
  • Arguments for the existence of God: the Ontological Argument
  • Normative ethics theories: Natural Moral Law
  • Arguments for the existence of God: the Cosmological Argument
  • Normative ethics theories: Situation Ethics
  • Normative ethics theories: Aristotle’s Virtue ethics

Year 13

  • Miracles
  • Self, death and the afterlife
  • Meta-ethics
  • Free will and moral responsibility

Key Stage 5

 

Spring Term 1

Spring Term 2

Year 12

  • Evil and Suffering
  • Application of Ethical theories

  • Religious Experience
  • Christianity: Source of wisdom and authority
  • Christianity: God

Year 13

  • Conscience
  • Bentham and Kant
  • Christianity, gender and sexuality
  • Christianity and science
  • Christianity and the challenge of secularisation

Key Stage 5

 

Summer Term 1

Summer Term 2

Year 12

  • Christianity: Self, death and the afterlife
  • Christianity: Good conduct and key moral principles
  • Christianity: Expressions of religious identity
  • Revision and mock exam preparations

Year 13

  • Christianity, migration and religious pluralism
  • Revision and exam preparations