GCSE RS in One Lesson a Week – Frances Lane

Tackling full or short course GCSE in one lesson per week, whilst also doing justice to the themes and skills afforded by thought-provoking RS, can be a real challenge for RS teachers.  The tendency towards rote learning and teaching simply for the exam can sometimes seem unavoidable. However, the use of ‘risky’ strategies can improve results through active engagement with the material. The following strategies can help to improve the skills and techniques needed for GCSE RS:

Learning key words

Active engagement with key words can be gained through creating ‘top trumps’ cards for key words (the categories on them could include potential themes and questions to which the word could be used or linked). Laminated key word cards can provide a basis for revision or learning games including snap (requiring students to justify the link between words) or Pictionary/ Charades which would allow students to test each other’s knowledge through group work. Guessing a key word through role-play, acting or mime can also be a useful and engaging means of revision.

Philosophy for Children can also be used for creating a ‘philosophical enquiry’ from a particular picture, poem or piece of music, allowing students to link the source to key words or themes and explore these through interactive debate.

Developing empathy and considering impact

Within many exam boards, students must examine the effects of a particular feature of religion on believers of a particular faith. This could be demonstrated in the form of a diary (perhaps of the experience at a place or worship or pilgrimage) or radio interview where students can elucidate a point of view from another’s perspective (perhaps regarding religious dress or a relevant issue in the news which may prompt debate). Interrogation of newspapers for issues in which key themes or teachings are borne out make for an interesting elaboration of those themes, recent examples of which could include the anti-capitalist demonstrations at St. Paul’s or any Human Rights topics from Amnesty. Reuters has its own ‘Faith World’ section (http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/), which provides the most up-to-date news stories, most of which would be relevant to key examination topics.

Students can also approach a certain ethical scenario, for example, an unwanted pregnancy, person on life-support machine or couple considering IVF, from different characters .e.g. an Imam, friend, parent or priest. As a class, students could then consider potential advice and guidance from different points of view.  This will help to illuminate teachings and bring them to life. Similarly, placing teachings in simple speech bubbles on the board without prompts or categories would encourage students to think freely about the ways in which believers might follow or interpret a teaching or concept differently.

Evaluating both sides of the argument

Instead of spoon-feeding students with reasons they can place into the discussion questions, students can draw around their two hands and physically write the reasons ‘on one hand’ and ‘on the other hand’ to evaluate a statement. Alternatively, creating class ‘hands’ where the entire group can generate reasons ‘for’ and ‘against’ can be an equally engaging strategy to use in evaluation questions. Creating an ‘opinion line’ in the classroom where students must justify their opinion can also help to give reasons for points of view. This may be enhanced by presenting students with various sources e.g. pictures or videos which might stimulate alternative viewpoints and by asking students to re-examine their points of view in the light of new information.

Perceiving diversity within and between religions

Students achieving an A* will need to know that not all members of a religious faith believe or act in the same way. Diversity can be demonstrated through the use of a table, pie chart or diagram, the most interesting of which has been a family tree or species diagram (used in science for showing different characteristics of animals). The branches in the diagram can represent different branches of religion and breaks or separations in the diagram show differences whereas links show similarities. Lastly, you might also set up a question-and-answer session between two religious believers or indeed ask the religious believers in the class how they differ to beliefs shown in a textbook/video.  If a visitor or conference call can be set up, this can be another useful way of discussing diversity within and between traditions.

Frances Lane

Spring 2012