Support material for
The Year of Faith
EYFS Topic 6: A Virtuous Life
Second half of Summer Term 2012/2013
After discussion with EYFS teachers the format of this unit has changed so that activities link directly and explicitly to the EYFS goals. It is hoped that this formatting makes clear that Religious Education integrates with much of what occurs in an Early Years classroom. Teachers are encouraged to select from the activities suggested. Monitoring activities suitable for pupils’ profile or learning journal may also be identified on the grid.
The Diocesan Policy on Religious Education (2012) commits the Diocese to supporting schools implement the requirements of the Curriculum Directory and other norms of the Bishops’ Conference. In recent years this support has focussed on developing Religious Education which is suited explicitly to the development and learning style of children in the early years.
This unit serves two purposes. First, it models the application of these two important areas and so serves as continuing the professional development of Staff. Second, its content offers explicit support of Pope Benedict’s call for a Year of Faith during 2012-13.
This unit models:
- A Scripture process employing the principles described in the new Religious Education Curriculum Directory (RECD),
- Explicit links between the teaching of Religious Education and the new RECD as required by the Diocesan Inspection Framework.
- Opportunities by which pupils are invited, in line with the Archbishop’s proposed programme, to consider our nature as a people of Faith
- Clear and explicit links to the EYFS goals.
How to use this unit:
Schools may use this unit within the scheme of work they are currently using by selecting those activities they think are appropriate.
Alternatively, schools may choose to teach this unit as it stands. As this unit will not be taught next year it does not matter if children across the early years complete similar activities.
Overview /Topic Theme: From Easter to Pentecost
This unit is intended to complete the Year C cycle and the academic year. It follows on from the previous unit and the concept of caritas to explore more fully Church teaching on the cardinal virtues. This unit continues to present Luke’s Gospel as its source by teaching the story of the Good Samaritan as a model for a virtuous life.Content Areas from the Religious Education Curriculum Directory
Pupils will have the opportunity to:Revelation:
Come to know that God loves each one always and at all times
Church:
Begin to hear about God’s wonderful world
Celebration:
Come to know that Jesus helps us to choose the good
Life in Christ:
Respect each other, respect adults
Form, and experience good relationships with peers and with adults in the school community
Consider ways in which a Christian family and parish share and celebrate life, and show care for one another.
Key Teachings from the Catholic Tradition from the RECD
Taken from Section 4.3.5 and 4.4 and 4.6 of the Curriculum Directory4.3.5. Virtues (1804-1832)
A Virtue (1803)
a Definition of virtue (1803)
b Types of virtue (1804-1832)
c Theological virtues (1812-1829)
d Cardinal virtues (1804,1810-1811)
4.4 The life of the school community will reflect the truth that the human vocation to happiness is not simply personal but social and political. We find fulfillment in society, not in isolation. Concern for the Common Good, the wellbeing of all, is essential. The search for social justice is rooted in respect for the dignity of every human person.
4.6
Love of neighbour involves the whole of creation. It means working for a just society. It includes love for the poor which results in active support of our neighbours locally and globally. It requires us to love the weakest in society, especially the unborn. Love of neighbour means concern for truth and justice in this service of the Common Good. Love of neighbour means respecting the beliefs of Jewish people and other religions in the ways in which they worship and try to live good lives. Love of neighbour also extends even to our enemies who wish us harm.
The Year of Faith
Linking School, Parish and Home / Insert school
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Religious Education
Topic Theme: A Virtuous Life
This unit is intended to complete the Year C cycle and the academic year. It follows on from the previous unit and the concept of caritas to explore more fully Church teaching on the cardinal virtues. This unit continues to present Luke’s Gospel as its source by teaching the story of the Good Samaritan as a model for a virtuous life.
Learning opportunities include: / Monitoring opportunities:
- Coming to know that God loves each one always and at all times
- Hearing about God’s wonderful world
- Coming to know that Jesus helps us to choose the good
- Respecting each other, respecting adults
- Forming and experiencing good relationships with peers and with adults in the school community
- Considering ways in which a Christian family and parish share and celebrate life, and show care for one another.
Affective and Spiritual Dispositions
It is hoped that pupils will develop:
- A sense of a virtuous (good) person
- An openness to the virtues that are presented
- A willingness to try and live these virtues
Activities to try at home
You are the first educator of your child in faith. Your child’s learning in Religious Education will be much greater if you and the school are engaged in talking about the same ideas and beliefs. Help your child by trying one or more of these activities while this unit is being taught:
- Talk to your child/children about the story of the Good Samaritan. Encourage members of the family to care for your ‘neighbours’ as the Samaritan does.
- Celebrate your care of each other by making a point of noticing the action of others. Make cards to send to people you for whom you care.
An idea for prayer at home
/ Prayer Activity
Pray with your children at bedtime.
Loving God, you taught us to care for others as the Samaritan did. We pray for doctors and nurses and other people who care for those who are sick. Help us to take care of people we see who need our help and care. We ask this through Jesus who taught us in his stories.
Amen
Pre RE Attainment
EYFS Goals / PSE / Expressive Arts and Design / Communication
and Language / Physical Development / Literacy / Knowledge and Understanding / Maths
AT1(i)
Become immersed in the Beliefs, Teachings and Sources of faith
- The Good Samaritan (Lk 10:25-37)
Rehearse questions we could ask people to find out about them. Make a book of all the places the pupils come from (their ancestry). Celebrate difference! / Make a huge bandaid (adhesive plastic dressing) and have pupils draw or write ways they can care for people as the Good Samaritan did. / Print and laminate the figures (characters in the story) in Block 1, stick them onto ice-block sticks and have pupils retell the story.
Set up the play corner as the place where the Good Samaritan takes the injured man. Put out oil and a bed and blankets and bandages for the children to play caring for the injured man. / Make a ‘road’ from Jericho to Jerusalem outside. Play relays games running along the road from Jericho to Jerusalem collecting things the Samaritan might have used or had: bandages, oil, money, food, shoes etc / THEN:
Explain that Jesus told stories to show us how to be kind and how to care for others. Sometimes the stories were a surprise because the people everyone expected to be kind were not, and the people everyone thought would be mean were kind! Explain that in the story you are going to tell, the man nobody expected to be kind (but who was) was a Samaritan!
Tell the story. / START:
Jesus teaches us that we have to be kind to everyone – not just our friends.
Use the word Samaritan: explain that when Jesus was a boy no one liked the Samaritans because people thought they didn’t love God. / Set up the play corner as a shop where the Samaritan could buy the oil he used. Use play money to buy items.
Pre RE Attainment
EYFS Goals / PSE / Expressive Arts and Design / Communication
and Language / Physical Development / Literacy / Knowledge and Understanding / Maths
AT 1 (ii)
Play with the Signs and Symbols of faith / Develop prayerful ways of behaving during prayer: listening; thinking quietly.
In prayer time, place a little bit of oil onto the hands of each pupils saying, ‘We remember the Samaritan used his hands to help another person.’ / Ask the pupils to draw or colour the story with felt tip pens and then let them paint over the drawing with oil. Hang pictures on the window where they will give a stained glass effect.
Pictures of the story are available on Google.com. search the Good Samaritan colouring. / Bring in olives to the class: on the branch, ready to eat and in oil.
Explain how olives can be used for a range of things: eating, cooking and healing.
Use images of olives from Google.com if real olives are not available. / Play a game of picking olives from the tree: pick the ‘olive’ (bean bag) and throw it into a bucket. Count how many ‘olives’ the class can ‘catch’. / Use pictures of the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick (Google images) and talk about the priest anointing people with oil. Like the Samaritan he is showing that he cares for those who are sick and helping them to feel strong again. / START:
Explain that in Jesus’ time the people used to put oil on their scratches and cuts and so when the Samaritan found the man who was hurt he bathed his sores in oil.
Explain that we use oil in Church sometimes to give a special blessing to people who are sick. / Put a range of bottles, funnels and jugs into the water play and have pupils pour ‘oil’ into and out of the containers.
Set up scales and have pupils weigh green unripe olives to make varying weights. Use terminology: more, less, lighter, heavier, grams etc.
Pre RE Attainment
EYFS Goals / PSE / Expressive Arts and Design / Communication
and Language / Physical Development / Literacy / Knowledge and Understanding / Maths
AT 1 (iii)
Explore the way people live / Praise children when they act with caritas (kindness to others). Call pupils Caritas people. / Give pupils a stencil of an oil bottle shape in black cardboard. Ask pupils to cut out the centre of the bottle (at the base where the oil would be) and put cellophane over the gap so the cardboard makes a frame. Hang the bottles in the sun show the light shines through the ‘oil’. / Play the ‘Neighbour’ game: ask one person to stand in front of the class and say ‘My neighbour is/has …’ and describe a feature of one member of the class. They should not name them! The other members of the class put up their hands and guess who the neighbour is.
Read picture books such as Somebody’s House by Katrina Germein and Anthea Stead. / Draw/make a hopscotch outside with scenes of ‘neighbourliness’ in each square. Have the pupils play hopscotch recognising the ways we can live the virtues. / Take photographs of pupils living the virtues. Write the virtues into sentences:
We are fair when we….; we think before we …..; we are brave when we…..; we wait when/for…. / START:
Talk about how the Church has a list of the ways to behave. The church calls these virtues. Some of the virtues are; being fair, thinking before you do something; being brave and waiting for others to have a turn.
Talk about how the Samaritan showed these virtues. / Ask pupils to find pictures of people in magazines, trace around basic shapes (triangles, circles, squares) and cut them out. Use the ‘shape faces’ to make a mural of all those people we care for as our neighbours.
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