RE at key stage 3

The following guidance may be helpful for teachers who want to develop or create their own scheme of work.

When developing or reviewing an existing RE scheme of work, departments may wish to consider whether it:

• shows how the knowledge, skills and understanding in the agreed syllabus requirements form a basis for work at key stage 3;
• balances knowledge and understanding (learning about religions) and opportunities for developing the skills of asking and responding to questions (learning from religion);
• shows the expected progression across key stage 3 and in individual units;
• is challenging for pupils of different abilities and aptitudes in each year of the key stage;
• motivates pupils, enabling them to understand and review their own learning and set targets for improvement;
• indicates opportunities for day-to-day assessment for learning and for summative assessment;
• shows how learning objectives and activities can be tailored to meet the needs of different pupils;
• provides for progression into key stage 4;
• highlights where literacy, mathematics, ICT and key skills can be developed.

Evaluating RE schemes of work and units

It is important to ask how far the school's scheme of work and units:

• provide long- and medium-term plans that are clearly linked to the locally agreed syllabus;
• provide a secure basis from which teachers can plan lessons on a daily or weekly basis to meet the needs of all pupils in the class;
• show how RE ideas and skills are built up in an organised, systematic and rigorous way based on learning that has already taken place;
• link teaching activities to the learning they are intended to promote;
• identify what pupils are expected to learn, both within a unit and by the end of a specified period, and how pupils' learning might be assessed;
• provide opportunities, where appropriate, for the development of literacy, mathematics, ICT, PSHE and citizenship, thinking skills and links to other subjects;
• give indications of the time needed to teach each unit.

Evaluating the extent to which a scheme of work encourages progression in pupils' learning

• What is known about what pupils have already achieved when they enter the key stage and how does this affect the pitch of the early units?
• Which ideas in RE depend on secure understanding of other ideas?
• How can units be sequenced so that earlier work lays the foundations for later work?
• Are there opportunities for revisiting and reinforcing the ideas pupils need to understand and which some will find difficult?
• When ideas are revisited and reinforced, is it in a different context or using different activities?
• How are pupils who have some competence or expertise beyond the levels expected in particular years challenged?