R.E.

Week 1

At The Gates, the children always begin their RE topics with an enquiry question. The children answer this question before they begin their unit to understand what they already know, and they revisit it at the end of every lesson to add what they have learnt.

This half term in KS1, the children are answering 'What makes places sacred to believers?'. The first lesson was about what makes places special. The children sent in images of places that are special to them and spoke about what made them so special. They learned the new vocabulary 'holy' and 'sacred'. Finally, they looked at images of different places of worship and asked questions about them.

LKS2's enquiry question is 'Why do some people think that life is a journey?'. The first lesson focused on their own lives. Each child used a tree template to record their own life journey: the roots were the people who give them strength and keep them safe, the trunk of the tree recorded all the milestones they're reached so far and finally the leaves were their ambitions and hopes for the future.

Our UKS2 children are answering the question 'How does faith help people when life gets hard?'.

In the lesson, they focused on the Christian beliefs of life after death and discussed how these beliefs may make a difference to Christian living.

Weeks 2 and 3

As part of their ongoing learning about sacred places, our KS1 children focused this week on identifying some of a mosque's key features. They had a virtual tour of a mosque using iPads, finding some of the features they had learnt about. They subsequently created a guide for visiting a mosque using this information and they were able to add another strand to thier enquiry question mind map.

The lesson for LKS2 focused on the significance of baptism in some people's lives. The children acted out and videoed some of the key events in a baptism. They then created a voiceover for the video, which featured some excellent vocabulary. 

Our UKS2 children have been studying the ways that the Hindu faith supports Hindus through difficult times. Children drew a diagram depicting good and bad karma. They were then asked to explain their diagram using the key vocabulary. 

Week 4

In KS1, the children enjoyed using iPads to go on a virtual tour of a church. They were set a challenge to find 7 Christian objects within the church. Then they looked at those items in more detail and learned about their purpose. Finally, children labelled a diagram and explained the purpose of some of those items.

Our LKS2 students resumed their exploration of life journeys this week, concentrating on Judaism. They gained knowledge of Bar and Bat Mitzvah, learning about the importance of marking this significant event and what actually happens during the ceremony.

Finally, children in UKS2 enjoyed a very interesting and thought provoking lesson which focused on non-religious views on life after death. This used the skill of synthesising to make similarities and differences between religious teachings and non-religious.

Week 5

In the final RE lesson in KS1, children sorted different objects and symbols into either Christianity or Islam. First, they used real objects and photographs to sort as a class and then they had a go independently. They then made comparisons, looking at similarities and differences between the two religions.

LKS2 also compared the different religious ceremonies from the 3 religions that they have been learning about this half term. They looked at why each ceremony is an important part of persons life journey and ways in which they are similar and different.

UKS2 created a piece of artwork which reflects what they had learnt about different beliefs about life, death and life after death. They then gave their artwork a title and explained what they had drawn.