This story is one of a collection of stories from RE Today. Each story is available as a one-page pdf downloadable at the point of sale, free of charge. Each story is accompanied by Key Questions for pupils, or Activities for working with the story in the classroom; main themes covered by each story are identified. THEMES: revelation; prophet; Qur’an; Lailat al Qadr

This investigation implements the principal aim of RE, which is to engage pupils in systematic enquiry into significant human questions which religion and worldviews address, so that they can develop the understanding and skills needed to appreciate and appraise varied responses to these questions, as well as develop responses of their own. We know that planning schemes of work is a laborious and time-consuming job for busy teachers, which is why we have created ready-to-use schemes made up of 31 units for Primary. Units provide 10+ fully planned lessons, and include lots of teaching and learning ideas, links to useful resources, learning outcomes and assessment guidance and suggestions. Each unit offers on average eight hours of classroom ideas. The units offer a resource to support you in teaching RE wherever you are in the country, even if your syllabus is not an RE Today model. Our Schemes of Work are a resource offering a range of ideas for your classroom. They do not supersede your agreed syllabus. Check out our FREE handy guide to planning with RE Today units of work to support you in deciding whether these schemes will work for you and your school at http://www.retoday.org.uk/school-support/schemes-of-work/ See page 28 on our interactive digital catalogue for the full list of units, and the option to buy individual units. *Please note: Our Schemes of Work contain links to external websites where useful resources can be found. From time to time this links will move, redirect, or break. As these are external third-party websites, we are unable to remedy this. RE Today is not responsible for content on external websites. Links were active and correct at time of publication, but they do not always last. Please do check content etc before passing on to students/using in the classroom. Enough information is provided with links for teachers to search for a suitable alternative should links break

This book focuses on what it means to be one of the approximately 280,000 Jewish people in Britain today. We have tried to provide a small insight into the diversity within this community by including information on the attitudes to the Torah held by Orthodox, Reform and secular Jewish people. Many schools study Jewish people, and this book has tried to encompass key Jewish beliefs and ideas on the importance of belief in one God, the Torah, the community and the land. We open with ‘Ready Steady RE’, offering starter ideas encouraging pupils to explore diversity using a variety of sources, including music, food and art. It includes a signpost to other units in our publications that might be of use. The units in this book begin with concrete learning regarding artefacts and their use in Jewish homes, featuring the mezuzah, a charity box and a ketubah (marriage certificate). Being in the community and remembering significant events are incredibly important to many Jewish people, which is one of the reasons that there are multiple festivals celebrated by them. We focus on festivals through two different lenses: a historical lens helps pupils study the ‘foot’ or ‘pilgrimage’ festivals, and for younger pupils we also study the importance of food and its significance in festivals. We see lived religion as we follow how Beth, Evie and Charlie share Shabbat. Finally, we look at the significance of the Torah and how it is treated, with material for 9–11s. The book ends with one of our ever-popular progression grids. Please note that members can now download a digital copy of each unit, allowing you to save it in year-group or module files on your school’s internal electronic storage system. On the NATRE website you can now access many more resources from earlier curriculum publications using your membership log-in. Do let us know which of these activities you use in your school, as we love to see examples of pupil work

This investigation implements the principal aim of RE, which is to engage pupils in systematic enquiry into significant human questions which religion and worldviews address, so that they can develop the understanding and skills needed to appreciate and appraise varied responses to these questions, as well as develop responses of their own. We know that planning schemes of work is a laborious and time-consuming job for busy teachers, which is why we have created ready-to-use schemes made up of 31 units for Primary. Units provide 10+ fully planned lessons, and include lots of teaching and learning ideas, links to useful resources, learning outcomes and assessment guidance and suggestions. Each unit offers on average eight hours of classroom ideas. The units offer a resource to support you in teaching RE wherever you are in the country, even if your syllabus is not an RE Today model. Our Schemes of Work are a resource offering a range of ideas for your classroom. They do not supersede your agreed syllabus. Check out our FREE handy guide to planning with RE Today units of work to support you in deciding whether these schemes will work for you and your school at http://www.retoday.org.uk/school-support/schemes-of-work/ See page 28 on our interactive digital catalogue for the full list of units, and the option to buy individual units. *Please note: Our Schemes of Work contain links to external websites where useful resources can be found. From time to time this links will move, redirect, or break. As these are external third-party websites, we are unable to remedy this. RE Today is not responsible for content on external websites. Links were active and correct at time of publication, but they do not always last. Please do check content etc before passing on to students/using in the classroom. Enough information is provided with links for teachers to search for a suitable alternative should links break

This story is one of a collection of stories from RE Today. Each story is available as a one-page pdf downloadable at the point of sale, free of charge. Each story is accompanied by Key Questions for pupils, or Activities for working with the story in the classroom; main themes covered by each story are identified. THEMES: good overcoming evil; Divali

Inspirational people can be named as such because of their actions, the effects they have had on their locality, people or the wider world, or just because of who they are. They are often motivated by beliefs, religious or otherwise. The people featured in this book are many and varied, religious and non-religious, contemporary and from long ago. When studying inspirational people we often look at three categories. We have included people from each of these categories in our book: Religious figures (leaders, messengers or prophets) connected with the origin of the religion, such as Jesus, Guru Nanak and the Prophet Muhammad. A religious leader – past or present, local, national or international, such as a local vicar, the Queen or Rabbi Julia Neuberger. People who put their beliefs into action in the way they live, from small things such as thanking God for sporting talent to letting those beliefs affect the direction their whole life has taken. In this category we have included vignettes of contemporary people such as Jo Cox, Christine Ohuruogu and Malala Yousafzai, and longer units on others such as Dr Hany El Banna, who began the British charity Islamic Aid. The units in this book provide resources for studying people from a range of religions and non-religious worldviews, with substantial teaching suggestions for work in teaching about Christians, Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims and Jewish people. In our new section ‘Ready Steady RE’ we offer some starters for teaching about inspirational people, and vignettes of a variety of people you may want to share with your pupils. At the end of the book we also suggest dos and don’ts when teaching about inspirational people. In putting together this book we have tried hard to show diversity in the people we have featured. Inevitably we have not managed to represent all groups, but it is important to look at the people you are suggesting who some find to be inspirational to ensure that they are not only old, white, male and dead! Please note that members can now download an electronic copy of each unit, allowing you to save it in year group or module files on your school’s internal electronic storage system

Welcome to the second book in our new curriculum series, Big Questions, Big Answers. This book focuses on worldviews. I first became aware of this term about five years ago and, a bit like when you buy a different car you suddenly see lots of people driving the same make, I now feel I hear the word more and more often. But what does this word mean and why might we use it with our pupils? The RE community is beginning to respond to the idea that the subject should examine worldviews, but already substantial reports from Theos and the RE Council point out the complexity of the concept. In this book we try to introduce some ways of thinking about worldviews as part of your RE or for some Religion and Worldviews lessons. We hope that the units and resources will prove practical and engaging in the classroom, increasing students’ knowledge and awareness of their own and others’ worldviews. Simple strategies have been used to increase pupil understanding of diversity within a worldview looking at celebration of Diwali, Eid-ulFitr and, later in the book, Christmas. We also look at how worldviews affect how you see things and, for many, how they choose to live their lives. Our two multidisciplinary units introduce sociology and religious studies, and relevant questions and methods, with our disciplinary experts Dr Rachael Shillitoe and Dr Chris Cotter. In these units pupils study the diversity of celebrations of Christmas and then what affects how people from different groups dress. We are really grateful to the teachers and pupils who trialled the disciplinary units in the book, and we have adapted these resources as a result of these classroom trials. We continue to expand the digital offerings for our books – do go to the website and look for the many extras.Finally, we would love to see examples of pupil work to share with others – do send us some examples

It is always both exciting and daunting when starting to plan one of these books. It gives us an opportunity to help teachers and students examine some fascinating content, but even with extensive online support resources one publication cannot cover everything. The RE community is beginning to respond to the idea that the subject should examine worldviews, but substantial reports from Theos and the RE Council have already pointed out the complexity of the concept (see p. 3 for details). As such, we recognise our limitations. We can only introduce some ways of thinking about worldviews, but we hope that these will prove practical and engaging in the classroom, increasing students’ knowledge and awareness of their own and others’ worldviews We spend some time on examining and applying James W. Sire’s model of worldview questions (pp. 4–11). This is a good starting point, as the questions are close to the kinds of things we often address in our subject. As always, we include voices from religious and non-religious perspectives (pp. 12–13), which indicate something of the complexity and fluidity of worldviews in people’s lives. As well as starting by asking people questions, we also start at the other end: we present case studies that look at people’s actions, and ask students to discern what these reveal about these activists’ worldviews (pp. 14–15) Our multidisciplinary approach introduces sociology and its questions and methods, with our disciplinary experts, Dr Rachael Shillitoe and Dr Chris Cotter. We have set it up so you can take students through different processes, including gathering data, analysing it and drawing conclusions. Having examined it though the sociological lens, there is an opportunity to apply a religious studies lens as well. There are opportunities to reflect on the potential of these disciplines for enriching an understanding of worldviews

This investigation implements the principal aim of RE, which is to engage pupils in systematic enquiry into significant human questions which religion and worldviews address, so that they can develop the understanding and skills needed to appreciate and appraise varied responses to these questions, as well as develop responses of their own. We know that planning schemes of work is a laborious and time-consuming job for busy teachers, which is why we have created ready-to-use schemes made up of 31 units for Primary. Units provide 10+ fully planned lessons, and include lots of teaching and learning ideas, links to useful resources, learning outcomes and assessment guidance and suggestions. Each unit offers on average eight hours of classroom ideas. The units offer a resource to support you in teaching RE wherever you are in the country, even if your syllabus is not an RE Today model. Our Schemes of Work are a resource offering a range of ideas for your classroom. They do not supersede your agreed syllabus. Check out our FREE handy guide to planning with RE Today units of work to support you in deciding whether these schemes will work for you and your school at http://www.retoday.org.uk/school-support/schemes-of-work/ See page 28 on our interactive digital catalogue for the full list of units, and the option to buy individual units. *Please note: Our Schemes of Work contain links to external websites where useful resources can be found. From time to time this links will move, redirect, or break. As these are external third-party websites, we are unable to remedy this. RE Today is not responsible for content on external websites. Links were active and correct at time of publication, but they do not always last. Please do check content etc before passing on to students/using in the classroom. Enough information is provided with links for teachers to search for a suitable alternative should links break

This opening book in the series focuses on Muslims, looking at what being a Muslim really means to some of the approximately 2.8 million Muslims living in Britain today. Our new section ‘Ready Steady RE’ suggests some starters for teaching about Muslims and the religion of Islam. For our youngest children we look at prayer mats and the key celebration of Eid-ul-Fitr. The key concept of Ibadah - both worship and any action that is performed with the intention of obeying Allah - is the focus for 9 - 11s. Our final units focus on different aspects of sacred text, including the amazing story of the ‘Birmingham Qur’an’. Discovered in 2013, it is a manuscript of four truly ancient pages of the Qur’an, dating from the earliest decades of the Muslim religion and now given pride of place in Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. For 9 - 11s there is a focus on Hadith related to both women and education, and they can also find out about the lives of certain Muslim women. The unit provides a mystery strategy on the life of educational activist Malala Yousafzai. This new series of nine curriculum books, Inspiring RE, was planned by a group of primary RE subject leaders. It is designed to be a series for classroom teachers and subject leaders to help them improve the teaching of RE in their classroom and across the school, and to improve pupils’ subject knowledge as well as their own. The publication aims to be considered, insightful, practical as well as engaging and encouraging.

This story is one of a collection of stories from RE Today. Each story is available as a one-page pdf downloadable at the point of sale, free of charge. Each story is accompanied by Key Questions for pupils, or Activities for working with the story in the classroom; main themes covered by each story are identified. THEMES: Allah’s wisdom; creation

This investigation enables pupils to think about what might be found in a Jewish home and how these objects link to the Jewish way of life. There is a focus on the mezuzah, the belief in one God, Shabbat and Chanukah. Other festivals are mentioned on the planning page, but this unit chooses to focus on Chanukah. This unit also has strong links with Torah, Synagogue and Pesach which pupils look at in units 1.4 and 1. 5 We know that planning schemes of work is a laborious and time-consuming job for busy teachers, which is why we have created ready-to-use schemes made up of 31 units for Primary. Units provide 10+ fully planned lessons, and include lots of teaching and learning ideas, links to useful resources, learning outcomes and assessment guidance and suggestions. Each unit offers on average eight hours of classroom ideas. The units offer a resource to support you in teaching RE wherever you are in the country, even if your syllabus is not an RE Today model. Our Schemes of Work are a resource offering a range of ideas for your classroom. They do not supersede your agreed syllabus. Check out our FREE handy guide to planning with RE Today units of work to support you in deciding whether these schemes will work for you and your school at http://www.retoday.org.uk/school-support/schemes-of-work/ See page 28 on our interactive digital catalogue for the full list of units, and the option to buy individual units. *Please note: Our Schemes of Work contain links to external websites where useful resources can be found. From time to time this links will move, redirect, or break. As these are external third-party websites, we are unable to remedy this. RE Today is not responsible for content on external websites. Links were active and correct at time of publication, but they do not always last. Please do check content etc before passing on to students/using in the classroom. Enough information is provided with links for teachers to search for a suitable alternative should links break

This investigation implements the principal aim of RE, which is to engage pupils in systematic enquiry into significant human questions which religion and worldviews address, so that they can develop the understanding and skills needed to appreciate and appraise varied responses to these questions, as well as develop responses of their own. We know that planning schemes of work is a laborious and time-consuming job for busy teachers, which is why we have created ready-to-use schemes made up of 31 units for Primary. Units provide 10+ fully planned lessons, and include lots of teaching and learning ideas, links to useful resources, learning outcomes and assessment guidance and suggestions. Each unit offers on average eight hours of classroom ideas. The units offer a resource to support you in teaching RE wherever you are in the country, even if your syllabus is not an RE Today model. Our Schemes of Work are a resource offering a range of ideas for your classroom. They do not supersede your agreed syllabus. Check out our FREE handy guide to planning with RE Today units of work to support you in deciding whether these schemes will work for you and your school at http://www.retoday.org.uk/school-support/schemes-of-work/ See page 28 on our interactive digital catalogue for the full list of units, and the option to buy individual units. *Please note: Our Schemes of Work contain links to external websites where useful resources can be found. From time to time this links will move, redirect, or break. As these are external third-party websites, we are unable to remedy this. RE Today is not responsible for content on external websites. Links were active and correct at time of publication, but they do not always last. Please do check content etc before passing on to students/using in the classroom. Enough information is provided with links for teachers to search for a suitable alternative should links break

As you read this book you will already have made lots of (hopefully small) decisions about what is right and wrong. Which bin should you place your recycling in? Should use your colleague’s mug in the staffroom as yours is still dirty? Everyone, whatever religion or worldview they hold – even if they choose not to identify themselves in this way – has to regularly decide what the right course of action is. For those who follow a religion or worldview there is guidance to help them make their decisions. Whilst these differ (see p. 33 for an overview), most people would say they follow the ‘golden rule’ (see p. 3 for some examples). For our youngest children we focus on three values: being grateful, compassion and caring for the world, exploring them through a series of teacher-led and continuous-provision activities. A secular story, a story from Islam and a story from Christianity explore whether people can be redeemed after bad behaviour; the good news is that all religions and worldviews think the answer is yes! There is a ‘journey of life’ board game for 7–9s that explores the beliefs of Hindu and Muslim people about right and wrong. Our unit for 7–11s uses body sculpture, thinking about dilemmas and interpreting scriptural texts from Christianity and Judaism to explore how religious people might go about solving different dilemmas. Our oldest pupils explore ideas around prejudice, discrimination, and direct and indirect violence, thinking deeply about situations – including some areas of controversy – regarding religion and belief in today’s world. Finally, there is a handy page looking at different sources of ethical guidance. Please let us know which of these activities you use in your school; we love to see examples of pupil work. Please note that members can now download a digital copy of each unit, allowing you to save it in year group or module files on your school’s internal electronic storage system

This book contains a wide range of teaching ideas that will develop pupils’ knowledge and understanding about Sikhs and Sikhism, the world’s fifth largest religion. ‘Sikhism’ is a Western word that is being used less frequently by British Sikhs, many of whom prefer the word ‘Sikhi’; you will find both terms used in this book. For our younger pupils there are plenty of opportunities for learning interactively about the gurdwara and finding out about the significance of the Guru Granth Sahib. Three stories about Guru Nanak are introduced with activities to help pupils focus on their meaning to Sikh people and the impact of these stories on the lives of Sikhs. Whilst most Sikhs live in India, approximately three million live in other countries, with the UK being home to the third-highest population of Sikhs in the world. In this book we have collected and shared the voices of a number of Sikh youngsters to enable pupils to think about what it means to be a Sikh in Britain today. We are aware that many teachers focus on the concept of sewa (selfless service) when teaching about Sikhs, but it can be hard to find lesson ideas above and beyond sewa in the langar (community kitchen), so we have provided you with a variety of other examples to use with older pupils. There is also a focus on what it means to become a member of the Khalsa. Our double-page spread ‘Ready Steady RE’ gives you a variety of additional ideas for teaching about Sikhs, and you will find some extra handy ‘dos and don’ts’ on the final page. This book is supported by some great eResources, so please do check them out at www.natre.org.uk/ inspiring-re/ whilst you are planning your RE lessons. We hope that this book inspires you and your class to do some great teaching and learning about Sikhs. Please do share any examples of pupils’ work with us as we always love to see them.

This is the third systematic book in this series, and it looks at what being a Christian really means to some of the approximately 33 million self-identified Christians* living in Britain today (59 per cent of Britons) and 2.3 billion Christians** around the world (31 per cent of the global population). The section ‘Ready Steady RE’ suggests an amazing variety of starters, resources and short ideas for teaching about Christians, involving everything from Christian diversity and the Reformation to spirited play. For our youngest children we look at the birth of Jesus and incarnation. The Lord’s Prayer is explored interactively through art, music, discussion and writing using one of our everpopular double-page pictures for 5–7s. The topic of Easter across the globe, focusing on the meaning of celebrations on three continents, provides teaching across the age range, but we come back to the UK to consider how Christians Dorothy, 10, and Jack, 8, decide how to live their lives. They focus on the Beatitudes and we see photos and snippets of their daily lives, looking at things that are important to them, such as prayer; actions that they have taken while looking after their friend; and decisions they have made, and why. For 9–11s we focus on kingdom parables, using strategies to explore three aspects of them: the world behind the stories, their text, and how they affect readers. We finish the book with a page of particular benefit for those at the beginning of their teaching about Christians: dos and don’ts. Please let us know which of these activities you use in your school; we love to see examples of pupil work. Please note that members can now download an electronic copy of each unit, allowing you to save it in year group or module files on your school’s internal electronic storage system

For many years, RE teachers have included non-religious voices within the classroom, not least because many of the students we teach have no particular religious background or affiliation. More recently, the need to see non-religious beliefs as a focus of study has increased. The wider context includes a significant increase of ‘nones’ (those identifying with no religion); the ‘spiritual but not religious’; those signing up as humanists; and those who are indifferent to religion. This book offers ways of examining non-religious beliefs in the classroom. The book reflects on ways in which atheism is delineated by things in which atheists do not believe (see pp. 18–29). While there have probably been sceptical, naturalistic attitudes to religious beliefs throughout history, this ‘negative atheism’ has largely arisen as a reaction against traditional Western theism. However, the book also explores some of the positive ways of living that are embraced by people living ‘post-Christian’ or post-religious lives, such as those who are active humanists (pp. 12–15). The borders between different voices are not clear, however (pp. 2–3 and 4–5). There are religious people who would see themselves as both secular (not wishing to see religious beliefs privileged in the public sphere) and humanist (valuing humanity, reason and making this life count). As research shows, there are many who identify themselves as atheists or non-religious who maintain beliefs that would usually be regarded as religious (e.g. in heaven or the soul). Doctor Lois Lee’s research project (see pp. 6–7) talks about ‘hybrid configurations’, where an individual holds a mixture of materialist, agnostic and religious views. Original source material and contemporary voices are accompanied by thoughtful and creative ways of using the material, in order to enable students to extend their knowledge and understanding and to reflect deeply on their own ideas and responses

The start of this unit encourages pupils to think about people who are special, including themselves, their peers, and members of the wider community. They move onto finding out about people who are special in religious communities today. Many religious stories focus on specific people and pupils are given an opportunity to learn some of these, thinking about how particular characters can be described as special. There is an emphasis on how some characters show the qualities of friendship. We know that planning schemes of work is a laborious and time-consuming job for busy teachers, which is why we have created ready-to-use schemes made up of 31 units for Primary. Units provide 10+ fully planned lessons, and include lots of teaching and learning ideas, links to useful resources, learning outcomes and assessment guidance and suggestions. Each unit offers on average eight hours of classroom ideas. The units offer a resource to support you in teaching RE wherever you are in the country, even if your syllabus is not an RE Today model. Our Schemes of Work are a resource offering a range of ideas for your classroom. They do not supersede your agreed syllabus. Check out our FREE handy guide to planning with RE Today units of work to support you in deciding whether these schemes will work for you and your school at http://www.retoday.org.uk/school-support/schemes-of-work/ See page 28 on our interactive digital catalogue for the full list of units, and the option to buy individual units. *Please note: Our Schemes of Work contain links to external websites where useful resources can be found. From time to time this links will move, redirect or break. As these are external third-party websites, we are unable to remedy this. RE Today is not responsible for content on external websites. Links were active and correct at time of publication, but they do not always last. Please do check content etc before passing on to students/using in the classroom. Enough information is provided with links for teachers to search for a suitable alternative should links break

It’s always a privilege to look a little more deeply into a tradition. As always, the more you look, the more you realise there is to know. Religious education is a multidisciplinary subject, with scope for looking at social, psychological, philosophical, theological, historical, ethical dimensions (just for starters). To begin to do that with the richness of ‘Sanatan Dharma’ is absorbing but also a huge challenge. To an extent, we are constrained in a brief publication like this: we have to ask what teachers are teaching and how we can help to support that with authentic, accurate, engaging sources and resources. Our emphasis on texts and philosophy, therefore, reflects the current syllabus and examination specification demands teachers face. We do approach these from the perspective of Hindu living and thinking, however. We hear from teenage Hindus from various traditions (pp. 4—7) and from young ISKCON devotees running a café in Cardiff (pp. 18—23). We outline key Hindu texts (pp. 8—9) before going more deeply into two that are important in the lives of many Hindus – the Ramayana (pp. 10—13) and chapter 2 of the Bhagavad Gita (pp. 14—15). We have included progressively detailed explorations of Hindu philosophy – examining ideas of rita (cosmic order), karma and samsara (pp. 18—23), before connecting these philosophies to two major schools of thought about the nature of God – Advaita and Dvaita Vedanta (pp. 24—29). We then dig a little deeper into this with case studies on Shankara and Ramanuja (pp. 30—31). As always, we look to engage students with a deeper encounter with Hindus and Hindu ideas, and to offer opportunities for them to use this encounter to reflect on their own ways of thinking and being

This investigation enables pupils to learn in depth from Islam, finding out about Muslim ways of life and beliefs, so that pupils can develop thoughtful ideas and viewpoints of their own about some religious and spiritual questions. We know that planning schemes of work is a laborious and time-consuming job for busy teachers, which is why we have created ready-to-use schemes made up of 31 units for Primary. Units provide 10+ fully planned lessons, and include lots of teaching and learning ideas, links to useful resources, learning outcomes and assessment guidance and suggestions. Each unit offers on average eight hours of classroom ideas. The units offer a resource to support you in teaching RE wherever you are in the country, even if your syllabus is not an RE Today model. Our Schemes of Work are a resource offering a range of ideas for your classroom. They do not supersede your agreed syllabus. Check out our FREE handy guide to planning with RE Today units of work to support you in deciding whether these schemes will work for you and your school at http://www.retoday.org.uk/school-support/schemes-of-work/ See page 28 on our interactive digital catalogue for the full list of units, and the option to buy individual units. *Please note: Our Schemes of Work contain links to external websites where useful resources can be found. From time to time this links will move, redirect, or break. As these are external third-party websites, we are unable to remedy this. RE Today is not responsible for content on external websites. Links were active and correct at time of publication, but they do not always last. Please do check content etc before passing on to students/using in the classroom. Enough information is provided with links for teachers to search for a suitable alternative should links break