Appendix 5 - Planning in RE

When planning pupils’ learning, think of developing an enquiry that can be divided into ‘chunks of learning’, which can last from 1 – 3 lessons. Over the course of the enquiry, pupils should consider their own experience/background/perspective, explore the religious/worldview content and reflect on how/whether this can apply universally to humanity. Finally, they should be given the opportunity to reflect on how, if at all, this has developed their own views and why.

1. Establish an aim for the learning – why should the pupils learn this? What is the purpose? This should be in the form of a ‘big question’ or enquiry and the learning is driven by the
2. Identify what you want pupils to learn (learning intentions).
3. Identify key concepts and key questions that will help pupils to achieve
4. Group concepts in relation to
   1. Pupils’ own experience (g. friendship);
   2. Specific religious concepts (e.g. agape);
   3. Universal human experience (e.g. relationship).
5. Establish what religious and other content you want pupils to learn or develop.
   1. Knowledge and understanding; e.g. parables, stories, beliefs, sacred texts
   2. Skills;
   3. Attitudes and personal development
6. Develop the outline of your Learning Structure (Scheme of Work)
7. Identify learning objectives for each ‘chunk of learning’ (this means that objectives carry over more than one lesson).
8. Plan appropriate activities and resources to enable pupils of different abilities and learning styles to achieve the appropriately challenging learning outcomes (the how of the learning structure).
9. Establish what you want to assess over the whole Learning Structure and plan how you will assess it through the learning activities (NB: you do not have to assess everything and most assessment will be formative – i.e. built into the learning and tasks set, rather than summative - i.e. end of unit).
10. Assess appropriately, using the frameworks in the AS applied in the context of your whole school policy and practice

It is good practice during all stages of the learning structure to allow opportunities for pupils to ask their own questions about the concepts and content. This is especially powerful at the start of the learning, with pupils’ questions arising from an appropriate stimulus.