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.

Your son must go to a bad school

OP I’ve just seen this post but my Yr 7 DD came home with an equally baffling RE HW
“Jesus was just a man” say why people of different faiths would agree or disagree using PEE, bible quotations and with reference to his roles as priest, prophet and king. It had to be 3 A4 pages long.

I thought it was some sort of mistake. But DD assured me it wasn’t and we managed to do it together (95%me) it took 2 hours.

When I enquired from a teacher friend if this was normal she told me that the new RE syllabus is so demanding that they have to get straight in to it in year 7 etc. I know this is true (my older DD is currently struggling with new syllabus in year 11) but it just seems beyond demanding into ludicrous?!!

Both questions are tough, probably too tough for a Yr 7. I quite like them as at
least they're thinking of something instead of copying and pasting material from a website.
It's a shame your son has that attitude towards the subject and teacher though. While I appreciate the difficulty of the questions, that seems to be pretty negative, half a term in...
Maybe clarify with the teacher and see what they've covered in class? If it's not really linked to material covered in class, fair enough, but as you've mentioned, maybe he needs to focus more

Charlie, bit of a weird assumption?
Belly, that's a GCSE question! I set it for Yr 10 several weeks ago.

It's harder but not that demanding...

Superpug, I suspected as much. Why would the teacher start year 7 with a GCSE question when the kids have come from primary where RE homework consisted of “make up a prayer” or “draw a poster” type things, it’s such a leap!
No wonder the students start to r sent the teachers when they feel completely out of their depth after only a couple of weeks at secondary.
I was going to email the RE teacher to raise my concerns but DH thought I should keep my head down!

Belly, you're right. RS is normally shoved into the primary curriculum, due to the focus on literacy and numeracy.
No need for GCSE qs at the beginning. As mentioned, the course is tougher but in no way requires starting at Yr 7.

Belly, that is exactly it! The leap from the RE that was taught at his primary is staggering. Your dd's h/w is very similar and very few year 7's ready or capable for it.

I agree superpug, it is a shame he has a negative attitude to RE but I can see why. He gets feedback saying 'you need to explain and expand' but he is not in year 10! He tackled it using the skills he currently has. I helped with pointers but i just don't see the point of telling him what to write. Hopefully in three years time he will have developed these skills. It's like asking a 6 month old baby to run before they've even learnt to sit up. Very demoralising to get an E for homework that was beyond his level to begin with.

That does seem a ridiculous homework for y7. My DD is in y7 and her RE homework has been things like explain what happened in religious stories.

I think it may be worth speaking to his teacher about the lack of clarity.
I'm aware that some schools are setting GCSE qs from Yr7 to get them used to the format but this seems far too early. As you've mentioned, you wouldn't expect the same answer from a yr 7 compared to a yr 10 or 11.