Year 7 RE homework

[mrsglowglow]

I'm trying to help my yr 7 child who is quickly turning off RE and says he Hates it and the teacher. Part of his h/w is This question - Is Gods full nature revealed in the Bible or is only part of God shown? Give biblical examples to support your points. He's expected to spend an hour doing this! Is it me or is this expecting too much of an 11 year old who in primary would have been given more structure to start from? I asked him if they had been discussing the question in lesson and he says no (possible he was away with the fairies at the time). Any ideas gratefully received.

Dangerous dangerous stuff to be indoctrinating children into religions in school (never mind the fundamentalist religions of the old testament).

Not really. Dd is doing A level RS and your answers would be perfectly acceptable.

Not really. Dd is doing A level RS

This is for a Y7 child not a 17 yo.

The question would be acceptable if it was something like, "investigate what Christians believe the old testament reveals about their god", etc.

As it stands the questions are bias and coming from a teacher puts an unjustifiable weight of truth behind their assumptions. Which is dangerous as it can indoctrinate vulnerable children.

Thank you all for your thoughts and input. Well he had a go at it and answered in what I would imagine a typical 11 year old with little experience of bible reading would, so will see what the teacher comments come back like. I don't know what to make of the way RE is being taught here. My daughter in year 8 and at a different school followed a completely different syllabus in year 7. From memory she studied the basics of Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, Sikhism and I've noticed this year she is again starting off with Judaism as she was doing a kosher menu for one of her homeworks. I thought all schools now would follow a broadly similar curriculum and certainly in history, science, geography he is doing very much the same as she did last year. But the RE is completely different. This is his latest homework and I've noticed now that part 2 is shown as being an extension. It could be that the previous homework was meant to be as an extention but it wasn't stated as such. He'll just do the first part in this case as he has hours of other subjects to get on with. I've held off from making any comment to the school at this stage as I'm looking at the school info pages to see what the program of study for year 7 covers. I stupidly should have looked at this before now but I just assumed it would be the standard ks3 curriculum.

That new question is even worse. Its blatantly asking every child if they are a Christian and believe in the divine relevance of the bible. WTF that's not open to abuse, is it

In Y7 RS is supposed to be teaching about different religions, what people who follow those religions believe and how they act out those beliefs.

What if your Muslim, any other religion, unsure or even an atheist. What pressure will you be under to conform, will other children treat you differently if you dont believe the same as them. I despair of that RE teacher, god knows what they are indoctrinating teaching them in class.

How simple would it be to ask, "Give an example of how some Christians believe the bible is relevant to them and an example of how some Christians believe it isn't".

I stupidly should have looked at this before now but I just assumed it would be the standard ks3 curriculum.

There is no national curriculum for RE. There are locally agreed syllabuses. However they are not usually prescriptive over what should be covered each year. Rather there is suggested stuff for each key stage.

That new question is even worse. Its blatantly asking every child if they are a Christian and believe in the divine relevance of the bible. WTF that's not open to abuse, is it In Y7 RS is supposed to be teaching about different religions, what people who follow those religions believe and how they act out those beliefs.

@Fresh8008 I have discussed questions like this in year 7. As well as teaching beliefs and the impacts of those beliefs we critically evaluate them and ask if they are relevant.

That's an ok question- for a year 10/11 group. I don't see where he's supposed to get the background knowledge to answer this at 11?

Tw1nsetAndPearls thank you for clarifying. There must be such huge variations in RE lessons nationally. So is it at ks4 when following the GCSE syllabus that all schools teach the same material?

@Tw1nset, I have discussed questions like this in year 7. As well as teaching beliefs and the impacts of those beliefs we critically evaluate them and ask if they are relevant

That's different from asking children who have just joined a school, "are you a christian and do you believe in the bible?", Would it be racist to ask new children, "are you a Muslim, do you believe in the Koran?"

What if your the only child in the class who is different, why are you forcing that child to say in a homework that they are different?

I would email the teacher and copy in the Head of Department and Head of Year just politely querying the task and the it's length.
I think you'll find this is a teacher who has gone rogue and who is doing their own thing, outside of what the Dept do.

This question is not Yr 7 material and the lack of structure isn't Yr 7 style work either. This would be hard for an A Level student without any kind of advice about a way into it.

The question about religious texts is inappropriate too.

You do need to contact the school in a no -confrontational way to query it so that this can be stopped.

It is fine to have discussions about some of these questions. Producing a detailed written response is quite a different matter.

Lots of schools start Yr7 RS with some discussion about what God is, what they believe individually. I do t think there is anything inappropriate in this. It is helping the pupils to engage with the subject and think for themselves. There will be recognition that people think lots of different things and it sets the scene for looking at lots of different beliefs. One aspect of RS is thinking about what we as individuals think about different scenarios, moral issues, beliefs - by recognising our own beliefs and ideas, even if they aren't concrete and are changing, we can have empathy for others and their beliefs - it is a core skill to gain for studying RS and lots of other subjects too.

The way these questions are framed is important and often these kind of questions lend themselves to lots of discussion. Long, analytical essays are not the right approach for these issues in Yr 7.

Your right ChocolateWombat, a generalized discussion is fair play, individualizing it and asking 11 yo's to write about their specific beliefs of specific religious texts has crossed a line.

There will be recognition that people think lots of different things and it sets the scene for looking at lots of different beliefs Of course we have not seen this with regards to this Y7 teacher yet.

IT would be unusual to ask about specific beliefs about certain religious texts.
It wouldn't be unusual to ask a student after several lessons of engaging in thinking and discussing the issue of belief and exploring different ideas, to write a summary of what they believe/think about God. This would be very individualised. The important thing is that there is no sense of judgement about the answers.

And no, this teacher has not shown themselves setting the scene for looking at lots of beliefs. I would be more concerned that they were setting tasks of an inappropriate length, intellectual challenge and without any real guidance on approach.

Personally I'm not that interested in whether it is over stepping the line in terms of what individuals are being asked to express a view on, rather the appropriateness of the teaching and tasks themesleves. It's simply not Yr 7 work.

Agree with above posters that those seem quite advanced questions to be setting at year 7. However I think my yr 8 son would have been able to have a decent go at them last year - but not necessarily at the beginning of the year!! He's a chorister and they've had a solid RE curriculum all the way through. Having said that, their year 7-8 RE is much more general and heavily into ethics and philosophy. His essay topics so far this year are jaw dropping - but he's enjoying it! (he is in a scholarship preparation group though hence they are really pushing them)

Flipping Heck OP - Yr7 RE homework (GS) here has thus far been 1. decorate your book, 2. Write a biography.

He is plodding on with RE and 'pulling teeth' is how it seems to me. Please could I ask if any of you lovely knowledgeable people could have a look at this practice assessment he has to do and if you have time give me an example of how a year 7 would be expected to answer it. I'm trying to help but I just feel I'm making it more complex than he can handle at this stage. I am very grateful to everyone's input. He does actually seem to enjoy the discussions and has some great ideas but the difficulty is getting in down in writing.

Should have said his opinion is the bible is a book written by man with messages from God. The OT is not to be read literally as no way could the world be made in 7 days!

Oops here it is

Bump

Send it back and point out that Catholics is a plural and so no apostrophe is required.

RE is my subject, and I would have trouble with Year 7 answering that, especially as we can't know that what is in the Bible is true.

There should be somewhere with that assessment a set of guidelines to show what they need to do to hit the various levels. I would be asking the teacher if she means the Bible in total, or an OT/NT split?

As for the 7 days bit, my view is that time is a man made construct, not applicable to God, and there is nothing to say that God's day is 24 hours, as God exists outside time, as He/She is eternal. Furthermore, if God is omnipotent (all powerful), omniscient (all knowing), then yes, He/She could do it in a human 7 days. You can't measure what an omnipotent being could achieve by what a human can do.

scary - I have a major inferiority complex when it comes to teachers so could never do that. I frowned when I saw that apostrophe but then doubted myself. Story of my life!

He wasn't given any guidelines and is assuming it's The Bible including Old and New T.

I just find these questions so huge and difficult to give short but to the point answers. He could focus on one area of the Bible - say Genisis (and i think this is what she's expecting) but that is just a small part of a very big book!

I think, but again not really very clear, they are expecting the students to explain and understand that different types of Christians interpret the Bible in different ways but why can't they just ask this in a clear way like: What do Creationists believe? What do Catholics believe? What do you think about it? He knows he has to include evidence in his answers along the lines of a bible reference but he struggles with this as only one quote does not a bible make and seems to open up more questions.

Thanks for your ideas and assistance.

On a positive he says he loves all his other subjects as he says they are all straightforward 😁

The wording is odd. Surely the first para should be more like: some people, including creationists would agree with this statement. Not 'I agree with this...' Then, Others, including some Catholics would say that some of the bible such as the creation of the world in seven days and the fall from grace of Adam and Eve is symbolic to illustrate that God is responsible for creation and that no human is free from sin examples of symbolism that some christians don't take literally. (I'm not even sure that's true, I think some Catholics may also be creationists..again the question should differentiate between the Catholic Church's teachings and Catholic's personal views.) In giving his actual own opinion I think he just needs to illustrate he knows some stories from the bible whether that's creation, Adam and Eve (Genesis) or Moses parting the Red Sea, God in a burning bush, Jesus' miracles from the New Testament etc. HTH!

A quick google of Catholics and Creationists helps bring up
Some useful stuff which might be helpful for you but gets quite deeply theological for a Y7!

Thanks Llama and I agree totally re the odd wording. Yes, he most definitely is nowhere near the higher level of thinking that his RE teacher is pushing. Maybe once these assessments have been done they'll differentiate the work?

I know this has moved on but first first question..
Jesus said anyone who has seen me has seen the Father so by studying the life of Jesus we learn the nature of God..with examples.
But it is horrendous homework