Religious Education
RE at Peckham equips pupils with the knowledge and skills to answer deep and challenging questions around religion, philosophy and ethics. In particular, we focus on the capacity to evaluate philosophical and ethical matters with empathy and rigour. By empathy, we mean understanding in detail the views one disagrees with. By rigour, we mean content-rich answers, reflecting on the faith in the modern world as it is today, with a mastery of philosophical argument.
Reflecting on faith in the modern world is illustrated by a grasp of the reasoning and impact of different religious traditions, beliefs and practices in our multi-cultural society via reference to case studies and scripture.
A mastery of philosophical argument is illustrated by one’s capacity to run a line of argument, based on a solid premise that explains the perspective of one’s opponent and purports justified reasons for disagreement. Through this, the teacher will bequeath students with the critical thinking and communication skills required to justify their statements of opinion and belief amongst wider society.
Additionally we intend to nurture real holistic growth and development for all our students, through a sufficient embedding of SMSC within the context of life in Peckham and the wider world.
Implementation
Throughout the RE course HAP students will develop themselves as both theologians and philosophers. Throughout KS3, students will be able to recall the bedrock ideas of religion with a particular focus on scripture and its impact on modern society. KS3 will cover:
- Abraham’s covenant and its impact on the holocaust and Israel/Palestine conflict
- Jesus’ role in salvation history and the impact this has on the way that we look at forgiveness of citizens in modern society via the case study of Gee Walker
- The impact of the Islamic idea of Aslama, Tawhid and Risalah in the Shahadah and how they have impact the five pillars of Islam and philosophical approaches to free will and determinism today.
Based on a critical realism pedagogy, HAP philosophers will consistently engage in philosophical dialogue with a focus on the skills of Socratic talk and analytic debate. At KS4 and KS3 students are given model extended-writing answers so that they can be directed toward specific skills to emulate for evaluative writing.
At GCSE we have chosen the AQA specification as enlists the expectation for students to garner an in-depth theological knowledge of Muslim and Christian beliefs and practices as well as a thematic section on human rights, war, family and criminal justice. Religious knowledge is at the foundation of the Thematic dialogue and students are expected to base arguments on theological principles of studied previously.
Impact
Detailed knowledge of religious beliefs will be evident through informally assessed practice of interleaving from lesson to lesson and use of content (in particular use of scripture, theological and philosophical vocabulary) in class debates, classwork and termly extended writing homework assignments (this is bi-weekly at KS4). This work is self, peer or teacher assessed. Also in 2019-20 students voice will also be used to gather qualitative data about students' holistic personal development in RE.
Students in KS4 will use the AQA specification assessment structure at the end of units to review understanding of topics at a quantitive level. Students at KS3 will complete two assessed tasks. One multiple choice content-orientated piece to review accumulation of subject knowledge and one extended writing task to review capacity to write evaluatively. At the end of the year and spring term there will be whole academy assessments which will use the AQA exam structure and content covered across the specification taught.
Further details of the curriculum can be downloaded below.
