<aside> 💭 This is a scheme-of-work I planned a few years ago to teach to Year 7. It is designed as an introduction to Non-Religious Worldviews in light of the CoRE Report and Reforming RE book. Please feel free to use the resources, edit and share them but do link back to this blog if you do.
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<aside> ⬇️ Download the resources here
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This lesson introduces students to the key terminology behind NRWVs and gives them a brief explainer of three arguments in favour of, and three arguments against, the existence of God. These reoccur in the AQA GCSE Existence of God and Revelation module so I felt it was good to embed them early on even if the concepts are only touched on briefly. The worksheet introduces three quotes from Stephen Fry, Richard Dawkins and Isaac Newton.
Students move into a philosophical bent here exploring the idea of the ‘good life’ and finding purpose without God. It begins with a brief explanation of Humanist beliefs followed by an introduction to the concepts of eudaimonia and hedonism. Students then use these concepts to do a piece of extended writing. There is a quote sheet included so students have reference to the quotes in their notes.
This lesson asks students how Humanist beliefs about God and the purpose of life link in to their beliefs on death and Humanist funeral services. There is an opportunity for guided discussion on this as well as a reading and summarising task of a Telegraph article about Humanist funeral services.
This is quite a numeracy-heavy lesson focusing on the current state of religion and non-religion in the UK. It features the comparison of data, interpreting infographics and making conclusions from news articles. After this students write a short report on the question of whether Britain has demographically become an atheist country.
This lesson looks at the ongoing place of religious imagery even within the secular art of someone like Grayson Perry. It then goes on to look at how Perry uses symbols, imagery and text to capture different identities focusing on vases he made for the Remain and Leave campaigns. The final task is getting students to design their own identity vase, you could ask older students to do something a bit more in-depth but given that this lesson will fall on the last week of term for us it seemed like a good activity.
I have included a dual-coded knowledge organiser with full details of the key words and key ideas covered in the topic. I have also included an A5 key word test to be used either in the last lesson or in the next term to embed recall. I have not included an assessment as I am sure each school has their own requirements in that department. We will likely assess with a few written questions on the topics covered.