• Cultural Understanding – exploring how religious practices have influenced the development of various cultural traditions.
• Spiritual Awareness – exploring and responding to the key questions that arise through discussions on the purpose of life.

Cross Curricular Skills:

Communication

• Develop, express and present ideas in a variety of forms and formats, using traditional and digital resources, for different audiences and purposes.

Using ICT

• Communicate using a range of contemporary methods and tools.

Thinking Skills and Personal Capabilities:

Working with Others

• Listen actively and share opinions;
• Respect the views and opinions of others and reach agreements using negotiation and compromise.

• work effectively with others;
• communicate effectively in oral, visual, written and ICT formats, showing clear awareness of audience and purpose.

Reinforcing Activity: Teaching Activity 1

Teacher preparation:

• Pupils should be encouraged to think about how they show their feelings in terms of body language, facial expressions etc.

Paired work - pupils should be given time to discuss with a partner two things which make them happy, sad, angry, or excited.  (Think, Pair, Share - page 70 ‘Active Learning and Teaching Methods’).  

Allow time for feedback on this discussion and ask the pupils to report to the class on their partners answers.

Reinforcing Activity: Teaching Activity 1

Teacher preparation:

• Develop scenarios printed out onto card and distributed to groups.
  
  For example:
  • a friend’s party;
  • a visit to your Grandparent’s house;
  • being called to the Principal’s office;v
  • going to a pop concert;
  • going to a football match;
  • going to a place of worship.

Group work – each group receives a card outlining one of the situations. Teachers can add to the situation to give a few more details.   The group must then prepare a short mime which enacts the scene and the others in the class must guess what the situation is. There should be actions, facial expressions, body language etc. without verbal communication.

Feedback discussion should focus on how people react to different situations and how they express themselves in those situations.  How do people express themselves in worship?

Core Activity: Teaching Activity 1

Teacher preparation:

Group work - each group is given a flip chart sheet or A3 sized piece of paper with one of the following questions:

• What is worship?
• What/who do people worship?
• What do people do during worship?
• When do people worship?
• Where do people worship?
• Why do people worship?

Pupils will write their responses or use images to convey their thoughts.  Each group will use a different colour of pen and after an allocated period of time will rotate to another sheet to answer a different question. 

The groups are invited to read the responses of the other groups and if they agree, they will put tick beside the comment they agree with. If they disagree they could place an X beside the comment, they could justify this by writing an explanation.

(Carousel Activity – ‘Active Learning and Teaching Methods’ page 12)

Pupils should be given an opportunity to discuss the findings and try to reach an agreed answer for each question. The teacher may want to use this as an evaluation tool. 

• What have you learned today? 
• What was the most surprising/shocking/interesting/useful thing for you today?

Class discussion - Why do you think some people benefit from spending time during a busy week worshipping?

Introductory Activity: Teaching Activity 1

Teacher Preparation:

• Teacher should put together a series of images of famous people or characters from the religion being studied

Pupils shown images of different famous people or characters from the same religion.  They should be able to identify them and work out what the common link is between them.  The answer is they all Muslims/Jews/Hindus/Sikhs etc.

Core Activity: Teaching Activity 2

• KWL grid - ‘Active Learning and Teaching Methods’ (page 44).
• K – what they already know about worship in the religion being studied?
• W – what they want to know (pupils may be reminded of carousel activity)?
• L – what they have learned (this can be added later)?

Core Activity: Teaching Activity 3

Teacher Preparation:

• There are several possibilities available to help deliver this section. One has been outlined in detail with other suggestions given at the end. 
• Time will be needed to develop the resources necessary.  (See relevant web-sites).

Prepare for, receive and evaluate a visit from a representative of the world religion being studied to discuss worship and prayer.

Group work to prepare of the visit – think of questions specifically about worship.  Each group could be given a different category to focus their questions on:

• place of worship;
• actions during worship;
• preparation before worship;
• why worship is important;
• worship at home.

During the visit pupils are encouraged to ask prepared questions and to collate answers given by the visiting speaker. 

Worksheets could be designed to accompany the visit from the member of the religious community. 

Group work - after the visit pupils could be encouraged to discuss in groups what they have learnt about worship and prayer from the visit and to produce a poster/information sheet that will be useful to other pupils – this could be done in groups or individually.

Key words associated with the place of worship could be displayed and religious artefacts from that particular religious group passed around and discussed.

Other suggested activities for this area:

• Virtual Tours (see relevant web sites);
• Class visit to a local place of worship with prepared questions for member of the faith community/worksheets;
• DVDs/Videos with prepared questions/worksheets;
• Diagrams of places of worship (maps from memory is a good technique to use here) Memory Game – ‘Active Learning and Teaching Methods’ ( page 46).

Introductory Activity: Teaching Activity 1

Teacher preparation:

Statements about prayer.  For example:

• prayer helps people to sort out problems;
• prayer is a waste of time;
• prayer brings people closer to God;
• praying for others is very important;
• prayer helps people through difficult points in their lives;
• prayer stops people from dealing with issues themselves;
• prayer is important in all religions;
• it’s important to pray with others;
• prayer gives people a sense of peace.

Group work – pupils given a statement to read and asked to discuss the statement and to choose one person from the group who is going to defend the statement for 1 minute in front of the class.  Pupils given a time limit to work on the defence of the statement in their group.  Spokesperson for the group is then hot seated and asked to defend the statement they have been given.

Class can discuss each statement after it has been defended.

Core Activity: Teaching Activity 2

Teacher preparation:

Set up stations around the room with the following:

• A prayer from world religion being studied;
• Prayer aids used in world religion being studied (these could be artefacts or pictures);
• Information about when and where people pray in the world religion being studied;
• Information about how people prepare before prayer in the world religion being studied;
• Information about how people pray in the world religion being studied;
• Worksheet on prayer and its importance in the world religion being studied – from the information above

Group work - each group given a station to go to and a limited amount of time to look at the information at the station and complete the questions on the worksheet provided by the teacher.  They then move onto the next station.  After pupils have been to all stations and completed the worksheet they could discuss the role that prayer plays in the religion being studied.

Introductory Activity: Teaching Activity 1

Teacher preparation:

• Before this lesson the teacher could ask the pupils to bring in postcards of somewhere they have been on holiday or photographs of special places.

Individual work - think about some of the journeys they have made in the last year. Make a list of the places they have visited and explain the reasons for the visit.  Share this with a partner.

Group work – discuss one special journey they have made by answering the following questions:

• Where did you go? 
• What special preparations did you make?
• Describe your feelings before, during and after the journey.

Discuss important places of pilgrimage that pupils may know of – eg. Israel (Jerusalem), Lourdes, Lough Derg. 

• Why are these places important to people? 

How would someone feel visiting them for the first time?

Core Activity: Teaching Activity 1

Teacher Preparation:

• Teacher should prepare a PowerPoint or slide show to illustrate different places of pilgrimage in the religion being studied.
• Could also provide a case study of a teenager who has been on pilgrimage explaining why it is important to them. (See relevant web-sites.)

Introduce the word pilgrimage/pilgrim.  Ask pupils to look up the word in the dictionary.  Discuss definition with pupils.

Show a series of photographs/images/slides of different believers on pilgrimage.  Identify the place of pilgrimage and discuss why people would go there. 

Read through case studies of believers from that particular religion explaining why they go on pilgrimage.

Pupils could produce a pilgrim’s passport giving the following details:

• Name:
• Religion:
• Place of pilgrimage:
• Why do people visit the place of pilgrimage?
• What happens during the pilgrimage?
• How do people feel before, during and after the pilgrimage?

Reinforcing Activity: Teaching Activity 2

Pupils could imagine that they are a pilgrim and write a letter or an e-mail home telling their family about their experience.  This could include annotated photographs about the experience.

End Activity: Teaching Activity 1

Create an information board for younger pupils to explain the importance of worship within a world religion and present it to the class.

Or

Work in pairs to produce a six slide PowerPoint presentation to explain the importance of worship within a world religion and present it to the class.