How I… Taught a religion at A Level without a textbook

In spring we had the same meeting that many departments had before the A Level reforms came in to play.  Which religion were we going to teach? Should we teach Buddhism- being so close to the London Buddhist Centre and with staff expertise in the area? Should we teach Christianity- which was guaranteed to have a textbook? Or should we teach the religion that the majority of our students adhere to- Islam?

We had some year 13 A Level students in a room nearby working late, so we asked them for their opinion. “Oh no, you can’t do Islam at A Level- It’s too challenging to study your own religion… It makes you think way too hard!” As their Year 13 teacher, I took it as a compliment that my teaching had made them think.  Their comments tipped the balance for us to go with Islam.

That summer we got hold of as many sources as possible and went back to studying like undergraduates. We knew it would be tough, but we had until the Spring term the following year to prepare. The summer holidays were spent reading, and the autumn term planning lessons and resources.

As a department we were still getting to grips with the GCSE reforms, there were times I wished we had gone with Christianity- so that I could pull a text-book of the shelf, and use my own subject knowledge to teach it. But having taught the Fundamentalism A2 course, which came with very little guidance and no specific resources, I had already been through something similar. It went from being the scariest thing I taught to my favourite lesson each week, as it was something I knew from the original sources and I had created all my teaching resources from scratch.

By the end of the year, Developments in Islamic Thought was my new favourite- and in that first round of exams it was the unit our students achieved most highly in.  It transformed how I taught the subject at GCSE, and whilst I was annoyed initially with the timing so close to the GCSE reforms, I have to admit I’m glad they both came in at a similar time. The year was intense, but I loved having debates on Islamic Theology across the office table at lunch with my colleagues and having mind-blown moments myself when I was expecting only the students to.

If your department is facing a similar choice at the moment, and you’re concerned about not having a textbook for your chosen religion here are my tips and reassurances, having been in that same position myself.

Collaborate with your colleagues– although we taught separate parts of the course, planning with my colleagues was an absolute game changer. If you are teaching and planning it alone- reach out on social media, you will find someone else in the same boat as you to bounce ideas off of. I made a Facebook group for Islam at A Level teachers so that I could find other people to share ideas with.

Teach each other what you are learning– in our fortnightly key stage 5 meetings we taught each other 15 Minute sessions on what we were planning and teaching- this helped us all to see the bigger picture of the unit, and helped our students with making those synoptic links across the religion topics as well as the Philosophy and Ethics units we taught.

Connect with faith members, ex-faith members, representatives and communities– either in person, or online- see how the theory matches up to the lived experience of what you are teaching. This helped me to bring the wordy sources to life as well as give points for debate and evaluation to my students.

Communicate with your exam board– let them know that you are teaching the religion- it will encourage them to offer more training, more resources and more support for others too. We found our exam board really helpful in answering questions and directing us to more clarification for tricky content matters.

Have confidence in your ability as a learner– as teachers we hope to foster a lifelong love of learning in our students, and this was a great opportunity for me to return to learning. Except this time round I learned in a far more focused and fine-tuned way than I ever managed as an undergraduate.

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