Our KS3 curriculum aims to ensure that all pupils acquire and build upon a culture of determination, active learning, reflection and enquiry through:
RE is a popular and valued subject in our school, studied by all pupils at GCSE. Our Key Stage Three Programme of Study has been designed to prepare our pupils for the challenge of GCSE RE, and to enrich their academic and cultural capital. Through the study of religion in modern society, we encourage pupils to develop independent thought and social responsibility through discussion and debate. We also encourage pupils to become reflective learners and collaborative learners to help them to develop personal resilience and an inner sense of accomplishment through learning. RE offers pupils extensive opportunities to develop high-level literacy and transferable learning skills.
At Hyde KS3 pupils are taught RE twice every two weeks. We have a three-step approach to our academic content and development of skills at key stage three: ‘foundation’, ‘development’ and ‘expertise’. We consider Year 7 to be in our ‘foundation’ phase, where they will cover the basics of six world religions within an over-arching social or religious theme. Lessons in this foundation phase are designed to enable Year 7 pupils to learn the processes of skill application we expect them to regularly use in RE, and to gain confidence and independence in lessons. We begin Year 7 chronologically studying the more culturally familiar Abrahamic religions before moving to more unfamiliar and therefore culturally challenging ‘Eastern’ religions. Studying in this way allows our pupils to identify patterns of belief between the related religious traditions in the world today. In Year 8 through to early Year 9 we consider our pupils to be working within the ‘development’ stage. At this point, they will focus on the religions of Islam and Christianity (although not exclusively), as reflected in our local community, and explore ethical issues such as capital punishment and forms of expression, as are age appropriate. The development stage is one of stretch, challenge and improvement - we expect our pupils to be able to apply relevant academic skills, and so focus on the refinement of this through reflection and collaboration. At the end of Year 9 we consider our pupils to have entered our ‘expertise’ phase – the expectation is that they will have mastered our academic skills ready for GCSE, and that they will be ready to be taught more sophisticated and emotionally challenging issues, such as the content of our medical ethics unit, as they mature.