Investigate – this includes:
- asking relevant questions;
- knowing how to use different types of sources as a way of gathering information;
- knowing what may constitute evidence for understanding religions.
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- ask increasingly deep and complex questions about religion and what it means to be human;
- use a widening range of sources to pursue answers;
- focus on selecting and understanding relevant sources to deal with religious and spiritual questions with increasing insight and sensitivity;
- evaluate a range of responses to the questions and issues raised.
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Express – this includes:
- the ability to explain concepts, rituals and practices;
- the ability to identify and articulate matters of deep conviction and concern;
- the ability to respond to religious issues through a variety of media.
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- explain what words and actions might mean to believers;
- articulate their own reactions and ideas about religious questions and practices;
- clarify and analyse with growing confidence aspects of religion that they find valuable or interesting or negative;
- explain in words and other ways their own responses to matters of deep conviction.
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Interpret – this includes:
- the ability to draw meaning from artefacts, music, works of art, poetry and symbolism;
- the ability to suggest meanings of religious texts.
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- say what an object or a symbol means;
- use figures of speech or metaphors to speak creatively about religious ideas;
- understand different ways in which religious and spiritual experience can be interpreted;
- explain the role of interpretation in religion and life.
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Interpret – this includes:
- the ability to draw meaning from artefacts, music, works of art, poetry and symbolism;
- the ability to suggest meanings of religious texts.
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- say what an object or a symbol means;
- use figures of speech or metaphors to speak creatively about religious ideas;
- understand different ways in which religious and spiritual experience can be interpreted;
- explain the role of interpretation in religion and life.
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Reflect – this includes:
- the ability to reflect on feelings, relationships, experience, ultimate questions, beliefs and practices;
- the ability to use stillness, mental and physical, to think with clarity and care about significant events, emotions and atmospheres.
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- identify some places and experiences that help them to think deeply;
- describe how actions and atmospheres makes them feel;
- experience the use of silence and thoughtfulness in religion and in their own lives;
- respond with insight to religious and spiritual issues.
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Empathise – this includes:
- the ability to consider the thoughts, feelings, experiences, attitudes, beliefs and values of others;
- developing the power of imagination to identify feelings such as love, wonder, forgiveness and sorrow;
- the ability to see the world through the eyes of others and to see issues from their point of view.
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- see with sensitivity how others respond to their actions, words or behaviour;
- connect their feelings, both positive and negative, with those of others, including those in religious stories and contexts;
- imagine with growing awareness how they would feel in a different situation from their own;
- identify thoughtfully with other people from a range of communities and stances for life.
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Apply – this includes:
- making the association between religions and individual community, national and international life;
- identifying key religious values and their interplay with secular ones.
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- see links and simple connections between aspects of religions;
- make increasingly subtle and complex links between religious material and their own ideas;
- apply learning from one religious context to new contexts with growing awareness and clarity;
- apply their learning from different religious sources to the development of their own ideas.
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Discern – this includes:
- explaining the significance of aspects of religious belief and practice;
- developing insight into people, motives, actions and consequences;
- seeing clearly how individuals might learn from the religions they study for themselves
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- experience the awe and wonder of the natural world and of human relations;
- be willing to look beyond the surface at underlying ideas and questions;
- weigh up the value religious believers find in their faith with insight, relating it to their own experience;
- discern with clarity, respect and thoughtfulness the impact (positive and negative) of religious and secular ways of living.
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Analyse – this includes:
- distinguishing between opinion, belief and fact;
- distinguishing between the features of different religions.
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- see what kinds of reasons are given to explain religious aspects of life;
- join in discussion about issues arising from the study of religion;
- use reasons, facts, opinions, examples, arguments and experience to justify or question a view of a religious issue;
- analyse the religious views encountered with fairness, balance, empathy and critical rigour.
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Synthesise – this includes:
- linking significant features of religion together in coherent ways;
- trying to connect different aspects of life into a meaningful whole.
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- notice similarities between stories and practices from religions;
- use general words (e.g. sacred book, festival) to describe a range of religious practices from different faiths;
- make links between different aspects of one religion, or similar and contrasting aspects of two or more religions;
- explain clearly the relationships, similarities and differences between a range of religious arguments, ideas, views and teachings.
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Evaluate – this includes:
- the ability to debate issues of religious significance with reference to evidence and argument;
- weighing the respective claims of self-interest, consideration for others, religious teaching and individual conscience.
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- talk about what makes people choose religious ways of life and the reasons they give for these choices;
- describe how and why religious people show the importance of symbols, key figures, texts or stories;
- weigh up with fairness and balance the value they see in a range of religious practices;
- evaluate skilfully some religious responses to moral issues and their own responses.
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