22nd October 2025
Hindu
Govardhan Puja, also known as Annakut or Annakoot, is a Hindu festival celebrated on the first lunar day of the bright fortnight of the month of Kartika, on the fourth day of Diwali. Devotees worship Govardhan Hill and prepare and offer a large variety of vegetarian food to Krishna as a mark of gratitude.
30th September 2025
Hindu
Durgashtami, also known as Durga Ashtami or Maha Ashtami, is the eighth day of the Navratri festival celebrated by Hindus in honor of Goddess Durga. It holds significant religious and cultural importance, particularly in Eastern India, where it is a crucial part of the five-day Durga Puja festival
Over the last few years we have collated responses to questions about Religion and Worldviews from different perspectives. This resource provides personal answers to questions from lived experience and were written directly by believers. The links below take you to the individual resources:
This study-set is suited to various parts of GCSE Hinduism options, or to general upper key stage 3 work on Hinduism. It provides material relevant to exam questions about karma yoga, attitudes to sexuality and family life, ahimsa, satyagraha and the example of Gandhi, including attitudes to conflict. It should extend students’ knowledge and understanding beyond the standard text books.
An examination of the life and work of Daisaku Ikeda, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.
For 10-14 year olds. Originally written by Mary Myatt. Updated in April 2019.
Justice: the moral principle of fairness for all.
Freedom: the rights of individual to be able to take part in civil and political life without discrimination or repression.
Non-violence: the power of refusing to use violence; the restraint required not to descend to the violence used by oppressors. Gandhi and King used non-violent tactics, inspired by Jesus and other political activities for justice.
Ask your learners to think about ‘the price of justice’. To stimulate discussion show the Muppet Christmas Carol – Marley and Marley (find it on You Tube). Ask them why the characters are in chains. What is holding them captive? What could set them free?
Ask what sort of things people are usually sent to prison for. Write them up on a picture with some prison bars. Show pictures of Gandhi and King in prison and ask your students if they know or can guess what they were supposed to have done that is ‘wrong’. Add these comments to the bars.
Find two or three more examples of contemporary political prisoners or prisoners of conscious. Amnesty International’s website is a good place to look, especially their current letter-writing campaigns. Draw out as a class why these people have been imprisoned. Add the reasons and any quotes that sum up the issue to the bars.
King wrote a famous letter while he was in Birmingham jail, which was written on scraps of newspaper and smuggled out. One of the things he said was that ‘we have a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.’ Ask your students to work in pairs to work out what their message from prison would be and what the possible consequences of different messages might be. Encourage them to write it out for display on newspaper inside prison bars.
Ask students to investigate what Paul said about being in chains for the sake of the gospel. Read the whole passage in Philippians 1: 12-26, or cut up key passages and give to groups to explore. Discuss what the chains represent; what freedom has Paul found? What does he feel about the chains? Add these notes to the prison bars.
Search a quote website for Gandhi’s sayings on ‘freedom’, ‘courage’ and ‘strength’. Display 10- 20 or copy and paste onto sheets. Give groups one or two quotes, either of their own choice or randomly distributed, to discuss and explore. Share with the class. Add these thoughts to the prison bars.
Use the Buddhist Wheel of Life below (For an A4 version please see Appendix 1 of the download available at the end of this resource). Around the outer circle are the ’12 chains of causation’; the elements of human life that keep us trapped, such as craving, desire, sensation, and so on. Discuss whether this represents a different type of being ‘trapped’ to Gandhi’s, and Paul’s. What freedoms are being referred to? How do they differ?
Encourage students to make connections between the quotations. They might add some of their own comments about ‘the chains that bind us’ from these sources to the prison display.
“I stood by when ” Tell your students how, in 1961, seven black and six white young people known as the ‘Freedom Riders’, decided to travel by bus from Washington to New Orleans, crossing six southern states of America, to challenge local practices of racial segregation. In Birmingham, Alabama, police stood by when members of the Ku Klux Klan beat the Freedom Riders with lead pipes, baseball bats and bicycle chains. Ask students if they can think of other examples of people ‘standing by’ when wrong- doing was taking place. Explain that in 1945 Daisaku Ikeda was a teenager in Japan when the US dropped two nuclear bombs and that he decided then that he could not ‘stand by’ while the existence and threat of these weapons has remained. Ikeda is well-known today as a Buddhist philosopher and writer, and founder of the Soka Gakkai International (SGI), the world’s largest community of non-ordained Buddhists, or Buddhists who are not monks or nuns. Show students some ideas from the Soka Gakkai International (SGI) website campaigning against nuclear weapons and ask students if they know the reasons people give for keeping nuclear weapons.
Remind your group of the story Jesus told of the ‘Good Samaritan’ (Luke 10.25-37). Explain that Martin Luther King, as a Christian, was influenced by this story, and Gandhi and Ikeda also held Jesus in high regard and followed the teaching of this parable. Ask students to rewrite the story as a poem from the point of view of the priest, the Levite (I stood by when….) and the Samaritan (I didn’t stand by when …..).
Your students could write a similar poem thinking about instances when they might be tempted to just stand by, and instances when they have the courage to not stand by. Alternatively they could write a poem in the style of ‘First they came…’ by Martin Niemoller (find this poem online).
The poems could be written on paper chains. At the end of the poem they could make a record of two or three questions about such dilemmas and suggest how people might go about answering them.
Ask students to consider in pairs whether there are differences in the basic beliefs of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr and Daisaku Ikeda. Ask them to say what experiences each man had that helped form their views. Issue the pairs or small groups of students with pictures of Gandhi, King and Ikeda. They can stick these in the middle of large sheets of poster paper. Around each picture they should write a number of statements about the beliefs and the experiences of each man so far as they have been able to discover so far. Ask them to link up similar statements and encourage them to explain how some people use religious sources such as the parable of the Good Samaritan to help them understand how to act in difficult circumstances.
Find a clip online of blacksmiths making chains. Accompany this with some music such as Alexander Mosolov’s Zavod (The Iron Foundry) 19. Ask students about their reactions to the short film and the music and the idea of people being in chains. Ask them to reflect, on their own, on what they are making of their lives so far. What might they do in their future life to help ‘set people free’? Gather some views and then offer them Ikeda’s saying that, ‘true and lasting peace will be realised only by forging bonds of trust between people at the deepest level in the depths of their lives’. Ask students to talk to a partner about the difference between chains of despair and chains of strength that bind people together. Can they give examples of each? Gather views from the class.
Show images of Martin Luther King’s marches in 1960s America and Gandhi’s march for equal rights for Indians in South Africa. Ask students how different they think these marches were from the riots and protests that sometimes take place in Britain today (e.g., in London in 2011, or more recent example if appropriate). Ask if students can identify current stories in Britain or America that reflect concerns about exclusion, racism and freedom.
Ask students to work in pairs to consider problems in the world today and to draft some ideas on what (a) Martin Luther King; (b) Gandhi and (c) Ikeda might write on a protest placard. What would students write on a placard about injustices in today’s world? Ask them to create placards with a written explanation to display.
Remind students of the posters they produced around the pictures of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr and Daisaku Ikeda and offer them some further quotes, e.g., Gandhi’s, ‘You must be the change you want to see’; King’s ‘Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love’; and Ikeda’s ‘A great revolution of character in just a single individual will help achieve a change in the destiny of a nation and further will cause a change in the destiny of humankind’. Find and display more quotes along these lines, or ask groups to choose quotes online.
Some students might like to go further and make quotes into poems, raps, and songs. Search online for a rap based on Gandhi’s quote, ‘Be the change that you want to see’ and Martin Luther King’s ‘Free at last’ speech set to rhythm / percussion.
To challenge students to demonstrate their level of progress through this investigation, encourage them to refocus on the key question, ‘What price justice?’ Ask them to work in small groups to research and put together a presentation that could be written or filmed that has the following features:
An enquiry into an icon of Christ the Teacher.
For 3-5 year olds. Originally written by Emma McVittie. Updated in April 2019.
Icon: painting or mosaic of Jesus, Mary, a saint, or a Church feast. Used as an aid to devotion, usually in the Christian Orthodox tradition.
Devotion: (in a religious context) an act of worship which usually involves prayer.
Orthodox: (i) the Eastern Orthodox Church consisting of national Churches (mainly Greek or Slav), including the ancient Eastern Patriarchates. They hold the common Orthodox faith, and are in communion with the Patriarchate of Constantinople. (ii) Conforming to the creeds sanctioned by the ecumenical councils, e.g., Nicaea, Chalcedon.
Belonging: can be defined in a variety of ways including a sense of belonging through connections to: people, places, groups and communities. Belonging can enhance our sense of identity and aid the development of relationships within particular groups and communities.
Symbolism: the use of one object / picture to represent another object, idea, action or thought. Widely used in religion and can evoke a sense of emotion and an affinity with an individual’s faith.
Each activity is designed to have 10-15 minutes of teacher led input either as a whole class or in small groups, followed by children engaging in related activities.
Stage 1: Christ the Teacher:
Show the children icon of Christ the Teacher. There are many images online. This icon shows Jesus holding an open book, has hand raised and a halo around his head.
Ask the children some of the questions from the selection below, which can be tailored to specific age groups:
Would you change anything about it?
Invite and record children’s own questions. Keep them visible and answer them when you can.
Explain to the children that an ‘icon’ is a painting or mosaic of Jesus, Mary, a saint, or a Church feast. It is used as an aid to devotion (prayer and worship), usually in the Christian Orthodox tradition.
Ask if the children have any questions of their own about the icon.
Now ask the children where they think they might see a picture like this? You might want to display a selection of pictures for children to choose from, e.g. a church, a school, a house. Explain that you might see it in all of those places but especially in churches in the Orthodox tradition.
Find images of Orthodox churches and cathedrals online- show children a selection, showing icons and the richly painted walls and woodwork.
Explain to the children that icons are usually found in a Christian Orthodox place of worship but also in other Christian places too.
Give small groups a selection of icon pictures to look at, gathered from the internet. Look for icons of:
Give pupil five minutes to choose the one they like the best and to think of a reason why they like it.
Ask the children to show their picture to the class and take it in turns to share it and say why they like it.
Stage 2: Symbols
Show children some of the images of the stained glass windows, asking the same questions as in stage 1 with the additional ones below, if appropriate:
Explain the meaning of some of the windows and introduce the idea of symbolism being a way to say something but without words.
Can they think of ways to say things without using words? Ask children to mime: Hello, goodbye, I’m tired, I’m grumpy, thank you.
In small groups with an adult, can they think of a picture or a symbol to ‘say’ these things, e.g. draw round their hand to say hello or goodbye.
You can also use road signs, commercial symbols, charity symbols and mascots.
Work with the class to think about a picture for class stained glass window and the colours and symbols you might use and why. [The outline can be drawn for the children and then completed using a variety of media.] Throughout the activity, ask the children about what symbolism they want to use and why.
Stage 3: Symbolism from world religions
This can be split into 3 short sessions
Session A
Remind children about the icons and the stained-glass windows they have looked at and tell them that as well as symbols being used in religious worship and celebrations that actions and music are also used. All these things help people to feel part of their religious group/community.
Ask children to sit in a circle quietly and explain that they are going to close their eyes and listen to some special music.
Play The ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ from Handel’s Messiah and ask the children to think of one word to describe how it made them feel.
Explain that the words were taken from the Christian Bible by a composer named George Frideric Handel over 300 years ago.
Session B
Now ask the children to watch some dancing from the Hindu tradition. There are many clips online.
Ask the children to think about a question they would like to ask about what they have seen, share the questions with the class and display.
Session C
Explain to the children that Islamic art patterns have no beginning and no end – ask children to create their own using a variety of media such as pastels, paints, chalk, water and food colouring, drawing in sand. Along the lines of ‘taking a pencil for a walk’ rather than creating geometric patterns at this stage.
Bringing it all together
Ask the children to report back on what have seen and heard: what was their favourite and why?
Explain that these different ways of showing belonging are also about a person’s thoughts, feelings and ideas (their identity). Work with small groups to either compose some music, make up a special dance or design a pattern based on Islamic art. Ask them to relate their ideas to themselves and what kind of person they think they are.
Stage 4: Personal signs and symbols
Ask children if they belong to any groups e.g. football, dance, rainbows etc. Do they have to wear anything special when they go to the group? Do they follow special routines there?
Explain that sometimes people who belong to / follow a religious faith wear special symbols to show belonging. You could use pictures of such items as: a cross, a hijab, a kippah, a tilak mark, a turban.
It is useful to be able to have the objects available for the children to handle at this stage.
Encourage children to ask questions about the objects:
Ask the children to give their views on each item.
In small groups support children to think of a special symbol for themselves. This can then be made using a variety of media. When all the children have made their own identity symbol, they can be put together to create a symbol of the whole class.