BACKGROUND Judaism, Christianity and Islam share certain stories and traditions. The story of Abraham’s sacrifice of his son is one of the most well-known. Because it is a story common to the three religions it is often taught in RE. However, it is a bloodthirsty and cruel tale – on the surface of it – and the killing of a c...

Main idea: What is Christmas? What are the things that make it Christmas and what would it still be Christmas if certain things were missing Main strategy: What’s needed and what’s enough? (The If Machine, p33) Examination of the essential properties of a thing can be conducted with two questions e.g: What is needed for a...

BACKGROUND Cultural Relativism is the idea that what seems right and good to any individual depends on their culture. Whatever we have grown up with, and are surrounded by, seems normal, right and good. We may disagree with some of the things that are believed in our society, but overall we should not be surprised if people from different cul...

STIMULUS This is the story of a goddess called Parvati and her elephant-headed son, Ganesha. Parvati was alone in the house and feeling sad. Her husband, the mighty god Shiva, was away from home. For a long time she had been hoping to have another child but no baby ever came. To cure her loneliness, she used mud and dirt on the ground to buil...

Stimulus There was once, in an old city in Afghanistan, a very rich merchant called Dara. He made his money from selling beautiful clothes and jewellery. The clothes were made of silk sewn with gold thread; the jewellery had precious stones like diamonds and emeralds set in gold and silver. After many years of success in business, he rode h...

Stimulus Hundreds of years ago, there was a thing called the Hundred Years War. It was a struggle between two countries: England and France. The English had land in France that they wanted to keep, and they wanted to take more land, maybe even the whole of France. The French fought to win back the land that the English. Over the hundred ...

Stimulus Once upon at time, there was a traveller. She rode to far distant lands in her carriage and had reached the Northern deserts of India. One day she was looking for a place to rest and saw a farm by the side of the road, where a woman was feeding animals. The traveller asked the woman on the farm if she could buy something to eat fr...

Stimulus Four hundred years ago, there was a town in Germany called Munster. In it, a new group of men were elected leaders. These men were very different from the ones who had governed the town before. They had been talking and planning amongst themselves and decided they would do things in a new way. One of the things they decided was tha...

BACKGROUND I have noticed that children get to a stage where they are, basically, learning to lie. This seems to happen around 8 or 9 years old. Of course, much younger children will tell lies when confronted with evidence of their misdeeds, but they can’t usually maintain the lie when asked more questions, whereas when they approach ad...