Harlington School · Religious Education
Every lesson of 2026–27 in one place: the deck, the worksheets, the assessment and its DIT lesson, plus the unit booklet. 38 teaching weeks across six units, dated to the school calendar.
Sets the ground rules for RE and opens the year's first big idea: what prejudice and discrimination actually mean. Students separate a thought from an action, define key terms and agree how the class will handle sensitive discussion.
Why we judge people on how they look, and how often those snap judgements are wrong. Students test their own first impressions against evidence, then examine where appearance-based assumptions come from and what they cost.
Builds a working definition of racism, distinguishing individual prejudice from wider structures. Students look at historical and present-day examples and practise explaining why racism is both a moral and a legal issue.
First formative assessment of the year. Students write under timed conditions on prejudice, appearance and racism, then use the DIT lesson to read the mark scheme, correct their own work and set a target.
Moves from describing racism to challenging it. Students study bystander behaviour and real campaigns, then plan a practical response for their own school setting, judging which approaches actually change minds.
Xenophobia — fear and hostility towards people seen as foreign. Students trace how migration is described in the media, separate fact from rhetoric, and compare xenophobia with the racism studied earlier.
Gender prejudice and stereotyping. Students examine expectations placed on boys and girls, how those expectations narrow choices, and what equal treatment looks like in school, work and religious communities.
Unit 1 summative assessment. Students answer extended questions across prejudice, racism, xenophobia and gender, then work through the DIT deck to improve a response using the revision question sheet.
Opens Judaism: one God, one covenant people, and a faith lived through practice as much as belief. Students place Judaism among the Abrahamic religions and learn the vocabulary the unit will use throughout.
Abraham as the founding figure of the covenant. Students follow the call, the promise and the test, and consider what the story is teaching about trust and obedience rather than simply what happens in it.
Moses, the Exodus and the giving of the Law. Students track the journey from slavery to Sinai and explain why liberation sits at the centre of Jewish identity and worship.
Formative task set as homework: a Holocaust remembrance poster. Students select what matters most from their study of Jewish history and communicate it for an audience — assessed on understanding and sensitivity, not artistic skill.
Formative is a poster homework task — there is no written paper for this one.
Passover — the festival that retells the Exodus every year. Students work through the ten plagues and the Seder plate, explaining how each symbol carries a piece of the story into the present.
The Torah as sacred text and kosher food law as daily practice. Students see how a written scripture becomes a way of living, and consider why some Jews keep kosher strictly and others do not.
The synagogue as a house of prayer, study and assembly. Through a virtual tour students identify the key features, explain their function in worship, and compare a synagogue with places of worship they already know.
Unit 2 summative assessment on Judaism. Students answer across covenant, festivals, text and practice, then use the revision sheet and DIT deck to redraft their weakest response.
Opens Christianity: the largest world religion and one divided into many denominations. Students map Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant branches and identify the beliefs held in common across them.
The Bible as library, not single book. Students distinguish Old from New Testament, explore different genres inside it, and consider how Christians disagree about reading scripture literally or symbolically.
Formative assessment on Christian beliefs and the Bible. Students write under timed conditions, then use the DIT lesson to compare their answer with the mark scheme and rewrite one paragraph.
The church as building and as community. A virtual tour introduces the features of Christian worship spaces, and students explain how architecture reflects what a congregation believes about God.
Christian beliefs about life after death — resurrection, judgement, heaven and hell. Students compare literal and symbolic readings and explain how belief about the afterlife shapes how Christians live now.
Christianity and the natural world. Students examine stewardship and dominion in Genesis, then judge how far Christian teaching supports action on the environment today.
Unit 3 summative assessment on Christianity. Students write across denominations, scripture, worship, afterlife and nature, then improve a response using the DIT deck and revision questions.
Opens Islam: submission to one God, the role of the Prophet Muhammad, and the shape of a Muslim's life of faith. Students build the core vocabulary and place Islam alongside Judaism and Christianity.
The Five Pillars as the framework of Muslim practice. Students explain each pillar's purpose and consider how daily, annual and once-in-a-lifetime duties together form a whole way of living.
The mosque and the Qur'an. A virtual tour covers the features of the mosque, while students examine how the Qur'an is treated, memorised and recited as the direct word of God.
Muslim beliefs about death, judgement and the afterlife. Students compare these with the Christian beliefs studied in Unit 3, identifying genuine common ground as well as real differences.
Formative assessment on Islamic beliefs and practice. Students write under timed conditions, then use the DIT lesson to correct misconceptions and set a specific target for the summative.
Bank holiday Monday 3 May — short week.
Islam and the natural world. Students examine khalifah — humanity as guardian of creation — and weigh how far this teaching commits Muslims to environmental responsibility.
Unit 4 summative assessment on Islam. Students answer across beliefs, the Pillars, the mosque, the Qur'an, afterlife and nature, then redraft using the revision sheet and DIT deck.
Opens Humanism: living well without belief in God. Students learn how Humanists ground morality in reason, evidence and human welfare, and test that approach against real moral situations.
Humanist ceremonies — namings, weddings and funerals. Students examine what a non-religious ceremony keeps, what it drops, and what that reveals about why humans mark life's turning points at all.
Humanism and family life. Students explore Humanist views on relationships, parenting and commitment, comparing them with the religious positions met earlier in the year.
Humanism and the natural world. Using the London Zoo material, students build a case for conservation grounded in human responsibility rather than divine command, and present it in a modern format.
Opens the final unit: what different traditions and individuals believe happens when we die. Students gather the religious and non-religious positions studied this year and set them side by side.
Near-death experiences as evidence. Students examine reported cases, consider scientific explanations alongside religious ones, and practise weighing evidence rather than simply accepting or dismissing it.
Hope of a future — the year's closing question. Students judge whether belief in life after death makes a difference to how a person lives, and write their own reasoned answer.
End of Year exam week, with revision materials and a DIT lesson to follow. Also carries the Equality Week resources — Alan Turing and the Lego Batman activities — which return to the prejudice themes the year opened with.