Philosophy & Religious Studies

‘The Big Picture’  

The PRS curriculum is exciting and engaging and inspires students from the off.  It is taught:

• 1 hour a week in Year 7 & 8
• 3 hours a fortnight for Year 9
• 4 hours a fortnight at Year 10
• 3 hours a fortnight for Year 11
• 8 hours across the fortnight Year 12 & 13

PRS Curriculum Map

Our Year 7 provision starts off with a unit called ‘introduction to world views’.  The reason for this is that students come from a variety of feeder primary schools and so knowledge is not consistent from KS2. This unit aims to get all students on the same page with knowledge and skills so that they can progress swiftly and confidently through the rest of KS3 and beyond.  We then move onto a unit studying Islam.  Islam is currently the world’s second largest religion and it is therefore important that students can explain and interpret the connections between Islam and other world religions and worldviews that impact on the beliefs and practices of individuals and communities.  This SOW explores what it means to be a Muslim, the core beliefs of Islam, how Islam is portrayed and how Islam, Judaism and Chrisitianity are linked.              

We then move onto a scheme of work (SOW) called ‘Ultimate Questions’.  This is a knowledge rich approach to philosophy where students grapple with concepts such as: Is there a God?  What is Truth?  What makes us Human?  Why do people suffer?  What is a world-view?   What is my world-view?  This provides students with the ability to critically evaluate a variety of views and to compare and contrast ideas whilst providing the foundational knowledge for GCSE study, as all of the listed topics above are part, in some way, of the GCSE syllabus but also part of the required SACRE.   We then move onto our final SOW focusing on Understanding Christianity  – to allow for exposure to one of the six major faiths, as well as providing cultural capital to broaden the minds of all students. Understanding Christianity is a SOW which is taught in over 6500 schools across the UK and the key purpose of this project is to help all teachers support pupils in developing their own thinking and their understanding of Christianity, as a contribution to their understanding of the world and their own experience within it. This SOW is also central to our identity as a CofE school and is bought into as a SOW by students. 

The Year 8 provision starts off with a scheme of work focusing on Buddhism, the world's 4th largest religion. This SOW will eventually support students' GCSE knowledge as Buddhism is one of 2 faiths which we study specifically at GCSE.  This SOW will delve into the history and core beliefs and practices of Buddhists and will demonstrate how Buddhists today live their lives as closely as possible to the teachings of the Buddha.  We will also be exploring key activities and practices which Buddhists do, such as meditation, and will be providing students an opportunity to try meditation for themselves guided by their teachers should they wish to take part - providing plenty of awe and wonder opportunities.  The next SOW focuses on Non-Religious Worldviews.  This scheme of learning is based on questions such as:  Has religion passed its sell-by date?  Why did Marx compare religion to a drug?  What are humanists?  Are the New Atheists right about religion?  Is sports like a religion?   This scheme of work really gets students thinking, analysing and evaluating and provides lots of opportunities for debates and discussion and allows for students to access a variety of world views, as outlined in the Hertfordshire SACRE.  We then move onto a SOW focusing on the Problem of Evil and Suffering, looking at how evil might pose a challenge for those who believe in God and the traditional quality of him being omnibenevolent (all-loving).  As part of this topic, students will look into the Holocaust to learn and appreciate the tragedy and to understand the wide scale devastation this event had.  This topic will blend in elements of history and literature, to give students a chance to understand this tragedy in-depth, and also look at the ethical issues behind it, leading to analyses of the actions, motivations and results of The Holocaust.  There is potentially an opportunity to visit The Imperial War Museum during this time of study, but this is dependent on a number of factors and will be considered closer to the time.  This unit shares several cross-curricular links here with Drama, English and History - really supporting students' knowledge and understanding.  From this SOW, students move onto an extended learning opportunity where students will be directed to complete a project based on the Holocaust.  The projects will have a variety of themes for students to look into and choose one to base their work on.  Themes could include:  Did the Holocaust lessen or strengthen people’s faith in God?  Can the Holocaust ever happen again?  How should we best remember the Holocaust?  We will be using the Holocaust Educational trust as a leading resource.  Students will also have the opportunity to use the library through this project to tap into the wealth of resources we have there.  From here, students move onto their final SOW - Old Testament foundations.  Old Testament (OT) Foundations really looks at the connection between the stories and the practices associated with Judaism, Christianity and Islam.  We focus on how all these aforementioned religions (and denominations) share similarities but also, recognising the differences for how each practises their religion based on differing interpretations of Old Testament stories.  Some of the stories that we focus on are, Abraham and Isacac, Moses and the burning bush and David and Goliath - all culminating in figuring out if the OT paves the way for Jesus as the new Messiah.   

In Year 9, more foundational work starts to support the GCSE course – yet we do not study pure GCSE content at this stage! GCSE content will be specifically studied towards the end of Year 9.  Students cover a range of topics which again link to the GCSE specification whilst allowing students to explore each unit of work in depth.  We start off with an exploration into Religion and Science - looking if the two can ever be fully compatible.  We compare religious teachings to those of science and see if there are links between the two.  We focus on ‘The Cosmological Argument’, ‘The Teleological Argument’, ‘The Big Bang Theory’ and ‘Evolution’ to name a few.  This topic allows for students to evaluate and analyse beliefs and theories and decide upon the most suitable answer for how life began and how the earth has been created.  This is a really interesting SOW and students really buy into the course.  We then move on to a scheme of learning called ‘Who is Jesus?’ .  This scheme of learning focuses on the many miracles Jesus performed and what this shows about the nature of Jesus.  We also delve into the idea of Jesus being a rebel - something which students really find interesting.  This SOW in particular (although all SOW recall knowledge in some capacity), allows for students to recall knowledge from Understanding Christianity which strengthens and deepens knowledge. We then move on to focus on ‘ethical decision making and values and ethics.’ This scheme of work allows students to put themselves into moral dilemmas and justify how they would behave.  It then looks at how people believe we should behave in certain situations.  We further this by looking at ethics with animals - looking at the use of animals for testing and food and develop this even further by looking at the impact on the environment.  We additionally look at ethics within humanity and the concept of the sanctity of life.  This is a brilliant scheme of work which links real world issues into students' learning - and these real life issues will be presented in lessons by using as many current affairs and news links as possible.  We then briefly link this ethical learning to issues of human rights and social justice, furthering the current affairs aspect of this scheme of work.  Our final SOW is where we start the GCSE specification (the GCSE for PRS is the AQA Specification with the code of 8062BA). We delve into the interesting topic of Crime and Punishment. Within this SOW students look at; why we have laws, compare the laws of the UK to countries around the world, the aims of punishment and discuss why we punish criminals and also consider the reasons for crime - with students becoming criminal psychologists and looking into a number of crimes with them having to identify the possible causes of crimes.  We end this SOW with looking into the death penalty and the ethical issues surrounding this.  This SOW pulls religious views from Christianity and Buddhism throughout to help support moral and ethical knowledge. 

Overall rationale for KS3 – all topics and subjects are interleaved together and there is a lot of knowledge recall, making the subjects knowledge rich.  The topics chosen at KS3 allow students to work on the thinking skills needed to achieve well at GCSE and A-Level – allowing students to focus on the depth of content whilst really remaining engaged and passionate about the provision.  The topics listed also link very well to the Hertfodshire SACRE. 

PRS KS4 Revision Website - please click here

PRS CURRICULUM MAP

At KS4, students follow the AQA A (8062BA) route studying Christianity and Buddhism as the main religions, and 4 themes: religion and life, peace and conflict, crime and punishment and the existence of God.  It has been designed to specifically build upon the knowledge taught at KS3 so that students have a familiar schema to return to and develop further.  The GCSE units and religions have been selected because they provide the breadth of study whilst also focusing on current affairs and ethical issues that will always be debated e.g. abortion, euthanasia, pollution, death penalty, miracles… to name a few!  Students have a keen interest in these areas and are excited to find out more about global and national responses to the issues covered.   Christianity and Buddhism were chosen to be the core religions of study as they provide clear and interesting contrasts and similarities between faiths and allow for students to really understand both an Abrahamic faith and an Eastern religion.  In addition, there is a large Christian demographic at Tring School, meaning that students are more invested in their learning and can confidently contribute to lesson discussion – allowing students to learn from one another.  Christianity has also been selected to support the school’s Christian ethos. The GCSE curriculum enables students to see the ‘bigger picture’ and make links between different religions and ethical dilemmas which makes for interesting and topical learning.

KS3:

• St Peter and St Paul’s Church, Tring
• Year 7 ‘Diversity’ Extended Learning Day event
• Spirited Arts - NATRE national competition
• Trip to a Hindu Mandir
• Human rights and modern-day slavery workshop (A21)
• Possible trip to a mosque and a synagogue

KS4: 

• Trip to Coventry Cathedral
• Possible trip to a Buddhist temple