Religion & Philosophy — Year 7

 

Religion & Philosophy Overview
Curriculum

Term 1: Judaism

Students find out about one of the most influential and ancient religions on earth. This lays the foundations for further study of the Abrahamic faiths in year 7.

Short Answer Test (AO1)

Ark of the Covenant
The box that shoused the two tablets of stone on which the original Ten Commandments were written

Kashrut
Jewish food laws

Kosher
Food that is acceptable for Jews to eat

Messiah
Anointed one

Monotheist
Someone who believes in only one God

Pilgrimage
A journey taken to a place of religious importance

Polytheist
Someone who believes in more than one god

Promised Land
An area of land in the Middle East given to Jews by God

Trefah
Foods that jews are forbidden to eat

Yad
A pointer used to read the Torah in the synagogue

  • Spiritual
  • Moral
  • Social
  • Cultural

Develop the individual:
The academic study of religions provides students with an opportunity to discuss their own beliefs and to challenge their thinking through considering the views of others.

Create a supportive community:
Studying religions encourages tolerance and respect of people's religious beliefs and helps to prepare students for life in a multicultural society.

Term 2: Christianity

In this unit students learn about how Christianity started, spread and split. Students explore how Christianity grew from a small group of people living in the Middle East 2000 years ago, to become a global religion followed by more than two billion people.

Five Mark Question (AO1)

Catacombs
Tunnels full of tombs underneath Rome.

Creed
A statement of belief.

Disciple
The 12 followers of Jesus who helped him to spread his message.

Early Church
Christians in the first three centuries CE.

Gentiles
A name given to the non-Jews in the Bible.

Martyred
When someone is killed for their beliefs.

Persecution
Discrimination against a group of people.

Protestant
A form of Christianity that began in the sixteenth century as a protest against the Catholic Church.

Reformation
A sixteenth-century movement to reform the Church, resuting in the division of the Western Church into Catholicism and Protestantism.

Transubstantiation
The belief that the bread and wine become the actual body and blood of Jesus during the Eucharist.

  • Spiritual
  • Moral
  • Social
  • Cultural

Develop the individual:
The academic study of religions provides students with an opportunity to discuss their own beliefs and to challenge their thinking through considering the views of others.

Create a supportive community:
Studying religions encourages tolerance and respect of people's religious beliefs and helps to prepare students for life in a multicultural society.

Term 3: Islam

In this unit students will learn about the dramatic events that led to the beginnings of Islam and will discover how it spread through Arabia and beyond at an astonishing speed. Students also explore the events that caused Islam to split into two groups, which still exist today.

Evaluative Essay (AO2)

Allah
The one and only God in Islam.

Caliph
The chief Muslim civil and religious ruler, regarded as the successor of Muhammad.

Hijrah
The Prophet Muhammad's migration (622 ce) from Mecca to Yathrib (Medina) upon invitation in order to escape persecution

Ka'aba
A small stone building in the court of the Great Mosque at Mecca that contains a sacred black stone and is the goal of Islamic pilgrimage and the point toward which Muslims turn in praying.

Monotheism
The doctrine or belief that there is only one God.

Polytheism
The belief in or worship of more than one god.

Prophet
A person regarded as an inspired teacher or proclaimer of the will of God.

Revelation
The divine or supernatural disclosure to humans of something relating to human existence.

Shirk
Ascribing a partner or rival to Allah in Lordship (rububiyyah), worship or in His names and attributes.

Tawhid
Tawhid in Arabic means attributing Oneness to Allah and describing Him as being One and Unique, with no partner or peer in His essence and attributes.

  • Spiritual
  • Moral
  • Social
  • Cultural

Develop the individual:
The academic study of religions provides students with an opportunity to discuss their own beliefs and to challenge their thinking through considering the views of others.

Create a supportive community:
Studying religions encourages tolerance and respect of people's religious beliefs and helps to prepare students for life in a multicultural society.

Term 4: Ancient Greeks

This unit introduces students to the fundamentals of philosophical thought by considering the ideas of some of the greatest thinkers from ancient Greece, including Plato and Aristotle. Ultimately students will be considering how we gain knowledge, whether we can trust our senses or whether it is best gained through using our ability to reason.

Four mark question (AO1)

Materialist
A belief that reality is based in things that are physical

Dualist
A belief that the mind and physical things are separate

Empirical
Evidence that has been experienced with the senses

Immanent
The idea that god works within the earth

Transcendent
The idea that god works outside of the earth

Existentialism
The belief that human beings give meaning to their own lives

Metaphysics
A type of philosophy concerned with the world and being

Teleological
A design argument

Cosmological
The first cause argument

Idealism
The belief that things exist only in the mind

  • Spiritual
  • Moral
  • Social
  • Cultural

Develop the individual:
Personal beliefs about truth and knowledge.

Create a supportive community:
How humans can establish and agree on knowledge.

Term 5: Epistemology

This unit explores the challenge of skepticism and whether it is possible for us to gain knowledge. Students consider the difficulties associated with perception as a source of knowledge and some of the theories that have been put forward to overcome these difficulties.

Evaluative essay (AO2)

Atman
Inner self or soul

Samsara
The repeating cycle of birth, life and death

Moksha
Escape from samsara

Trimurti
The three main gods that make Brahman (Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma)

Reincarnation
The belief that after death you can return in a new body

Karma
Where your actions can influence what happens in the future

Brahman
The greatest reality in Hinduism

Puja
To celebrate one of the gods

Mandir
The Hindu temple

Aum
The mystical sound of Hinduism

  • Spiritual
  • Moral
  • Social
  • Cultural

Develop the individual:
Developing beliefs about the nature of reality.

Create a supportive community:
Understanding the historical development of philosophical thought and the impact this has had on a range of disciplines.

Term 6: Ethics

This unit challenges students to answer the question, is it ever acceptable to tell a lie? They do so by considering what some of the most famous philosophers have had to say regarding the issue of telling lies, from Plato's 'noble lie' to Kant's categorical imperative.

End of year examination (AO1 & AO2).

Buddha
The enlightened one, Siddhartha Gautama

Dukkha
Suffering

Four Noble Truths
1. There is suffering. 2. Suffering is caused mainly by craving. 3. Suffering comes to an end when you overcome craving and achieve Nibbana 4. The Eightfold Path is the path to Nibbana

Eightforld Path
The path Buddhists follow to achieve Nibbana or Enlightenment.

Anicca
The idea that life is impermanent

Anatta
The idea that there is no fixed self or soul

Nibbana
Getting out of the cycle of life and death (Enlightenment)

Sangha
Community

Dhamma
Teachings

Tanha
Wanting

Categorical Imperative
Imanuelle Kant's moral principle which states that you should “act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law”, meaning that you should act a certain way only if you’re willing to have everyone else act the same way too.

Consequentialism
A theory that says whether something is good or bad depends on its outcomes.

Deontology
An ethical theory that uses rules to distinguish right from wrong.

Doctrine of the Mean
A strategy devised by Aristotle to enable the indivicual to make choices disciplined by a state of character, which is cultiaveted by good habits.

Ethics
The philosophical study of right and wrong.

Hedonic Calculus
Jeremy Bentham's way of calculating which actions are right and wrong.

Higher and Lower Pleasures
John Stuart Mill's distinction between pleasures of the body (lower) and pleasure of the might (higher).

Noble Lie
A lie proposed by Plato which was intenddd to maintain social harmony.

Thought Experiment
An imaginary scenario invented to examine the consequences of a philosophical idea.

Utilitarianism
The theory that the best action in any situation is the one which creates the greates amount of good for the greatest number.






  • Spiritual
  • Moral
  • Social
  • Cultural

Develop the individual:
Develop personal ideas about the morality of telling lies.

Create a supportive community:
Consider the the morality of telling lies and consider the impact that lies can have on individuals and communities.