RE at key stage 3 (Year 7)
Unit 7D: Who was Gotama Buddha?
Section 6: How did meditation help the Buddha?
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Objectives |
| Children should learn: |
- about Buddhist meditation practices
- to understand the reasons for and importance of meditation
- to experience the sensation of quiet and reflection
- to reflect on the importance of finding meaning and purpose in human life
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Activities |
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Outcomes |
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Children: |
- Complete the story of the Buddha's life and death.
- Ask pupils to identify when the Buddha meditated in his life and what this meditation led to. Then ask them to define meditation - discuss the definitions as a class. Give pupils the option of doing a breathing exercise with you, concentrating on slowing down their breathing. Ask for feedback on how being quiet made them feel. Go on to think about how meditation may help Buddhists.
- Ask pupils to write an article of not more than 250 words on meditation for a Buddhist magazine using the following process. Give them a selection of information on meditation. Pupils work first in pairs to highlight key points and then assemble these in a brief list or set of bullet points. Pairs then double up into fours and plan the article (200-250 words). The group plans should include:
- idea/text for a strong opening sentence
- reminder of agreed key points
- idea/text outline for an effective ending
- After checking with the teacher each member of the group works on a fuller draft of the article.
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- describe Buddhist meditation practices
- give reasons for the importance of meditation to Buddhists
- describe the sensation of quiet and reflection
- draft information text with effective and appropriate beginning and end
- develop group planning into an individual continuous text which shows understanding of the importance of meditation for Buddhists
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Points to note |
- Experiential religious education needs thoughtful preparation if the most is to be gained from it. Teachers must consider carefully their particular class and how to enable all pupils to have the option of taking part in the experience. It is always important to give an option of watching rather than participating at first.
- Language for learning: pupils will collaborate with others to share information and ideas, and solve problems. Group structuring, teacher support and additional support,
eg ideas for sentence stems, will be important to help some pupils achieve an effective outcome. Groups will need a scribe to record their decisions, etc. The key points will indicate paragraph structure.
- ICT: the article could be word processed.
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This unit is divided into sections. Each section contains a sequence of
activities with related objectives and outcomes. You can view this unit by
moving through the sections or print/download the whole unit.
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