Case studies

Developing thinking skills in RE

What we did

The religious education department was one of the two foundation subjects departments identified by the school. Training had been delivered by the LEA foundation subjects consultant on developing thinking skills and thinking skills strategies. Particular focus was given to developing debriefing skills to enable the plenary part of the lesson to be more successful and to creating cognitive conflict.

As a follow up to LEA training, the teacher developed the Odd One Out activity which is attached to this case study. (Click on the documents below to download this material.) The lesson was taught with the foundation subjects consultant observing and giving feedback to the teacher. The rest of the department then taught the lesson to all year 8 pupils and then added it to the religious education scheme of work.

Audit, planning and development

The audit of the subject identified a need to develop more challenging activities to extend pupils’ thinking. The action plan identified developing thinking skills as one of the department’s priorities.