• Cultural Understanding - exploring religious practices of people of world religions.
• Spiritual Awareness - exploring and responding to the key questions that arise through discussions on the purpose of life.

Cross Curricular Skills:

Communication

• Listen to and take part in discussions, explanations, role plays and presentations.
• Develop, express and present ideas in a variety of forms and formats, using traditional and digital resources, for different audiences and purposes.

Thinking Skills and Personal Capabilities:

Working with Others

• Listen actively and share opinions;
• Develop routines of turn-taking, sharing and cooperation;
• Take personal responsibility for work with others and evaluate their own contribution to the group;
• Respect the views and opinions of others and reach agreement using negotiation and compromise.

• work effectively with others;
• show deeper understanding by thinking critically and flexibly, solving problems and making informed decisions, demonstrating Using Mathematics and Using ICT where appropriate;
• communicate effectively in oral, visual, written and ICT formats, showing clear awareness of audience and purpose.

Introductory Activity: Discuss with the class what happens in families when a baby is born.

Core Activity: Teaching Activity 1

Teacher preparation:

• Produce a worksheet that contains questions about the birth ceremonies and the reasons behind what happens in the birth ceremony of the religion being studied. Ensure that the number of questions on the sheet are roughly the same as half the amount of pupils that are in a class e.g. 22 pupils = 11 questions. 
• On individual pieces of card print each answer to the questions. Place these into envelopes.

Class is divided into two.  One half the class is given a worksheet which contains questions relating to the birth celebrations of the religion.  Every other pupil is given an envelope containing an answer to one of the questions on the worksheet. 

Pupils who have the worksheets go to the pupils with the answer cards and ask for their answer.  They then look at their worksheet and decide what question it answers and write it in.  They continue to do this until they have found all the answers or time is up.  Collect in the completed worksheets. 

Roles can then be reversed and the task repeated. 

After a certain amount of time the pupils return to their seats, the answer cards are collected and all completed worksheets are returned to pupils. 

Pupils swap their sheets for peer marking and the teacher discusses the correct answers and clarifies any questions or queries that the pupils might have.

Core Activity: Teaching Activity 1

Teacher preparation:

• Produce individual statements about the coming of age celebration including reasons why it is done.  Ensure that there are enough statements for each pupil in the class.  Alternatively pupils can be split into groups – each person within a group is given a different statement.

Group and Individual work - each one teach one activity Each one Teach one ‘Active Learning and Teaching Methods’ (page 25)

Each pupil is given one piece of information about the coming of age ceremony.  The pupils then ask each other what their statement is and will try to remember it.  After a certain amount of time the pupils will return to their desks and write down as many statements as they can. 

Paired work - share their list with a partner and add to their list any statements their partner has.  These are then shared with another pair and lists are added to.

Reinforcing Activity: Teaching Activity 2

Group work - pupils try and put the statements into what they think would be the correct chorological order.  The pupils swap their sheets for peer marking and the teacher discusses the statements in their correct order. 

Pupils could discuss (pairs/group or class) why a coming of age ceremony is important within religion.

Introductory Activity: Teaching Activity 1

Teacher preparation:

• Produce a KWL grid and a PMI grid (if needed)
• Produce a fact sheet on choosing marriage partners and preparation for marriage within the religion being studied. 

Individual work - complete the first two parts of a KWL grid about marriage within the religion being studied.  KWL - ‘Active Learning and Teaching Methods’ (page 44).  The last part can be completed following the activities below.

Core Activity: Teaching Activity 2

Pupils are given a fact sheet on choosing a marriage partner within the religion being studied and the preparation for the marriage.  If arranged marriages are part of the religion the pupils could discuss in groups the role of arranged marriages and complete PMI in order to examine all sides of the tradition. PMI - ‘Active Learning and Teaching Methods’ (page 57.)  This could lead to a class discussion on the different attitudes that religions have to marriage and relationships.

Reinforcing Activity: Teaching Activity 3

In groups pupils complete the following activity - Jeopardy ‘Active Learning and Teaching Methods’ (page 40).

Group work - using the fact sheet each group will devise 5 answers to questions.  The fact sheets and answers will be collect in. The teacher will select a few answers from each group and relay them to the class one by one. 

Each group will think of the question needed to form the answer.  The questions are discussed and any queries that the pupils have.

Core Activity: Teaching Activity 4

Teacher preparation:

• Produce a set of 6-8 cards that contain photographs of a marriage ceremony within the religion being studied.  Ensure that there are enough sets of cards for each group. 
• Put the photographs on to a worksheet with space beside each one to write down what is happening.

Pupils could watch a DVD/video of a marriage ceremony within the religion being studied.  Alternatively teacher could prepare a power-point presentation on what happens at a wedding.

Individual work - pupils are asked to write down the key points in a manner they find most appropriate – could be a mind map, note taking etc. 

Check notes to ensure that pupils have recorded the key points.

Core Activity: Teaching Activity 5

Group work - pupils are given out the photo cards and asked to put them into the correct order showing what happens in the ceremony. 

Individual work - beside each picture on the worksheet write what is happening using the information from their notes.  After a certain amount of time the teacher will discuss the photographs with the class and any queries that the pupils have. 

The pupils will complete the KWL grid.

Introductory Activity: Teaching Activity 1

Discuss with the pupils what happened at any funeral they have been to ensuring sensitivity towards pupils who may have lost someone very close to them.  Discuss why it is important to remember the life of a person through a special ceremony.

Core Activity: Teaching Activity 2

The pupils will complete the following activity to convey the information about how the religion they are studying commemorate a persons life. 

Group work – split the class into groups of 4 and ask them to number themselves 1-4.

Teacher explains what happens when a person dies in the religion being studied to those in the groups numbered 1 (This could be done outside the room or in a section of the room if possible. The rest of the pupils could be completing another activity at this point).

• Number 1 pupils retell the information to number 2 (give time limit throughout task);
• Number 2 retell the information to number 3;
• Number 3 retells the information to number 4;
• Number 4 returns to the group and retells the information to all the group.

To ensure clarity of information pupils could be asked to complete a worksheet on the information.

Group discussion could centre round the following questions:

• How well was the information retold each time?
• What skills did you have to use to be able to retell the information?
• What would have helped you when you were retelling the information?
• What could the group have done to improve the quality of the information being relayed?

Core Activity: Teaching Activity 1

Group work - come up with three suggested answers to this question.  The answers can be collated and the class can discuss the suggestions given deciding on 3 answers.  These could form part of the end activity.

End Activity: Teaching Activity 2

As an end activity the pupils could make up the game taboo - ‘Active Learning and Teaching Methods’ (page 68).
Each group is given 4-6 key words from the unit.  They then write a card for each word.  Each card should have the key word at the top and 4-6 words that a person is not allowed to say when trying to explain the word to their group.  The cards are collected in and the game is played.

Or

Design and create a collage on the rites of passage in the world religion being studied
This could be done in a number of ways – Pupils could be place in groups focusing on one particular rite of passage or on all the rites of passage.  Pupils could be given specific information that they should use in their collage.

Success criteria could be negotiated with pupils and time limits set for completion of the activity.  Self and peer assessment could be used at the end of the activity to review learning and aspects that might be improved.