Gloucestershire Agreed Syllabus 2011-2016 Units of work
Exemplar Unit of Work: KS1 / KS2
This unit of work contributes towards the principal aim of RE in Gloucestershire:
To engage pupils with questions arising from the study ofreligion and beliefs, so as to promote their spiritual, moral, social andcultural development.
This unit follows the 5-step planning process to devising a unit of work based on the key questions in the syllabus, found in the 2011 Agreed Syllabus supplement, pages14-16.
Step 1.Select key question
Look at page 62 or 74-75 to choose a question that suits the age of your pupils and fits in with whole school planning. / How do the values justice and compassion influence the lives of local Christians and impact community life?
Where does this fit into our Key Stage planning?
This unit is designed to be taught as part of our whole school focus on the values justice and compassion in terms 5 and 6. We will identify opportunities for teaching these values across the curriculum.
In Collective Worship we will use Values for Life as our core resource, children will be learning about: the work of Christian Aid;
the Jubilee Debt Campaign;
the story of Jonah (Jonah 1-4);
the Feeding of the 5,000 (Matthew 14);
the story of Ruth and Naomi from Ruth 1;
the Good Samaritan (Luke 10);
the story of Dorcas (Acts 9).
Step 2.
Selectlearning outcomes
Look at the learning outcomes for your key question (“So that they can...” pages 63-63 or 76-85). Select the outcomes appropriateto the age of your pupils, balancing learning about and learning from religion and beliefs. / This unit looks at the impact of the values justice and compassion in the lives of Christians and through them in the local context. We will focus on one young Christian, Matt Brydon, and his local church’s response to the problem of debt in the area.
We are therefore focusing on the following outcomes, applying the learning to Christianity.
- Identify personal, family, school values which influence chidren’s own behaviour
- Explainwhy justice and compassion are important values for Christians (making reference to relevant stories from the Bible).
- Explorewhy the values justice and compassion inform Christians’ sense of duty, and why they seek to serve their community.
- Ask and respond to questions about having a set of values to guide choices and decisions in daily life.
Step 3.
Select specific content
Look at the suggested content for your key question (“Children/Pupils will learn...” pages 63-69 or 76-85). Select the best content to helpyou to deliver the learning outcomes in an engaging
way. /
- Teachings which act as guides for living within Christianity, e.g. the parables of the Unforgiving Debtor (Matthew 18: 21-35) (justice) and the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) (compassion).
- The importance of values as guides for making choices and decisions in daily life.
- The value and challenge for believers of following a code for living.
- What guides pupils’ own moral choices?
- Reflection on our school values and how they influence our behaviour
- The values of a local Christian teenager, and how these led him to support a debt counselling charity by running the Bristol half-marathon
- The values of church members in establishing a debt counselling centre in their community
Step 4.
Assessment: levelled pupil outcomes
Turn the RE learning outcomes into pupil-friendly “I can” statements. Do this by using the levels of attainment (page 30-31) and work out just what it is that you want your pupils to be able to do as a result of their learning. Be clear about the skills they will develop. This process allows assessment to be integrated throughout the teaching unit, so that there is no need for an end of unit assessment activity. / These learning outcomes are turned into levelled “I can...” statements in the teaching and learning activities below.
Level 3
I canidentify which values are important in our school community, and explain how they influence our behaviour.
I canmake links between the teachings of Jesus, and why justice and compassion are important for Christians.
I canmake links between the values held by local Christians and their service to the community.
I candescribe the impact of a local project run by Christians on the lives of individuals within our community.
I canidentify values that are important to me, and say how they influence the way I behave.
Level 4
I can identify which values are important in our school community, giving examples of how they have informed school policy and decision-making, e.g. our Behaviour Policy and the charities we support as a school.
I can give modern day interpretations of some of Jesus’ parables about justice and compassion.
I can recognise that people of different faiths, and no religious faith, share the values justice and compassion, but have a variety of reasons for holding these values.
I can explain the impact of a local project run by Christians on the lives of individuals, and the broader impact of this within our community.
I can identify values that are important to me, and recognise ways in which these are sometimes counter-cultural.
5. Learning opportunities
Use some engaging stimuli and imaginative activities to enable your pupils to achieve the RE levelled outcomes. /
- Devise a questionnaire to use with children in other classes to establish whether they can identify the school values and how far they have made a difference to behaviour in the school.
- Dramatise the two key parables for the unit, i.e. The Unforgiving Debtor and the Good Samaritan, and hot-seat characters to explore the values that motivated Jesus to tell these stories.
- Create contemporaryinterpretations to the parables, which illustrate the underlying values.
- Interview Matt Brydon to find out why his core values motivated him to undertake training for the Bristol half-marathon to raise funds for his church’s debt counselling centre.
- What motivated the founder of the debt counselling charity Christians Against Poverty (CAP) to establish this organisation?
- How does CAP help people out of debt?
- How does it work in partnership with churches to serve local communities?
- What impact does the local CAP Centre have on the lives of individual families?
- Interview a CAP client to find out how CAP has helped them to manage debt and reflect on how their values have changed through their experience.
- Use a Diamond 9 activity to explore whether the children think a ‘values hierarchy’ exists (children arrange the values according to their opinion of their importance, giving their reasons e.g. wisdom at the top, courage and friendship underneath etc.).
Gloucestershire Agreed Syllabus 2011-2016 Units of work
Key question:Learning outcomes
Teaching should enable pupils to... / Teaching and Learning
Teachers can select from the following and adapt as appropriate, making sure that the learning outcomes are met and that pupils’ learning needs are addressed. / Levelled pupil outcomes:
so that pupils can say “I can...” to one or more of the statements below. / Notes
Key question:
Learning outcomes
Teaching should enable pupils to... / Teaching and Learning
Teachers can select from the following and adapt as appropriate, making sure that the learning outcomes are met and that pupils’ learning needs are addressed. / Levelled pupil outcomes:
so that pupils can say “I can...” to one or more of the statements below. / Notes
Resources
Teachers might use:
books
web
Audiovisual and other resources