Junior Cycle Key Skills

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Junior Cycle Key Skills

Welcome to this interactive resource on activating the Key Skills of Junior Cycle in the Religious Education classroom.

Please spend approximately 25 minutes on your chosen key skill.

Start

Spend approximately 25 minutes on your chosen key skill.

To select the Key Skill that you would like to explore, click on one of the interactive icons.

• Teachers to pick one key skill, element will be provided from the specification.
• Good question to be provided for them to reflect on. Some type of resource, voice audio as to how this key skill is already activated and has been.
• How have you activated this key skill?
• How do you see this tying into the unit of learning we have provided earlier.
• They have a unit of learning and they reflect on the key skill and why it is important.
• Using the key skills we engage with the elements to further understand how these come to life.
• We ask the question Enquiry question
• we explore the elements closer
• we use a strategy to reflect and act on how this will engage our learners

Please follow the steps by clicking on each icon. When you are finished you may click the home icon.

Reflect

Explore

Enquire

Staying Well

NCCA Religious Education Specification (2019), Page 8

Key skill: Staying well Example of key skill element: Being Spiritual Examples of associated student learning activities: As the students explore some of life's big questions they will grow in awareness, grounded in a sense of purpose, meaning and connectedness.

How have you implemented the key skill of staying well in your classroom?

Disclaimer All movement breaks should be carried out under the close supervision of a teacher. The teacher is responsible for ensuring that movement breaks are implemented safely an in line with COVID-19 public health guidelines for schools. It is important that the teacher is aware of the student’s ability levels and any injuries so that movements selected are appropriate and accessible for all. The teacher is responsible for carrying out an assessment of risk prior to using movements in the classroom. Where relevant, it is advised to consult with a student’s medical professional teams prior to engaging in these activities.

Movement Quiz

Consider the learning outcome 3.8 that you have explored. What strategies do you feel may best complement this learning outcome?

Reflection and action: Stop and Jot

• How you might use this task with your students to engage with learning outcomes 3.8 from the Religious Education specification?

• How do I encourage students to engage and persist with increasingly challenging topics?

• What other ways do you encourage or provide opportunities for students to activate the Key Skill of Staying Well in the classroom?

Suggested time: 8-10 mins

Reflect

Explore

Enquire

Managing Information & Thinking

Graphic Organizer: To display the pros and cons of an argument

NCCA Religious Education Specification (2019), Page 8

Through classroom activities and research, students will learn how to ask questions and probe more deeply in order to gain knowledge and insights about religion and beliefs.

Key skill: Managing Information and Thinking Example of key skill element: Being curious Examples of associated student learning activities:

Please choose a learning outcome and discuss how it links to the key skill of Managing Information and Thinking in your classroom.

How have you implemented the key skill of Managing information and thinking in your classroom?

Please choose a learning outcome and discuss how it links to the key skill of Managing Information and Thinking in your classroom.

How have you implemented the key skill of Managing information and thinking in your classroom?

Think Pair Share

How can we best implement these useful prompts to give our students the best start to the reflective process?

Reflection: Useful Prompts

Reflect

Explore

Enquire

Being Numerate

Dotmocracy

NCCA Religious Education Specification (2019), Page 8

Students will examine patterns and trends that influence beliefs and values and engage with data to find out about the diversity of religious beliefs in Ireland today

Seeing patterns, trends and relationships

Key skill: Being numerate Example of key skill element: Examples of associated student learning activities:

How have you implemented the key skill of Being Numerate in your classroom?

How can we implement Dotmocracy as a strategy in the RE classroom?

Exploration

Reflection

Reflect

Explore

Enquire

Being Creative

Inverted Thinking: to challenge students own thinking

NCCA Religious Education Specification (2019), Page 8

Students will imagine ways that they can be a force for good in the world and take inspiration from sharing stories of people of courage, conviction and imagination.

Imagining

Key skill: Being creative Example of key skill element: Examples of associated student learning activities:

This strategy gives students a structure to summarise and represent visually what they have learned. It improves long-term memory of factual information. After teaching a topic coggle could be used to summarise, organise and visualise the topic. It could also be used as a brainstorming exercise to summarise prior knowledge at the beginning of a topic.

Reflect

Explore

Enquire

Working With Others

Placemat

NCCA Religious Education Specification (2019), Page 8

Through discussion and group work, students will consider different experiences and points of view and learn to appreciate diversity as a source of enrichment and learning.

Respecting difference

Key skill: Working with others Example of key skill element: Examples of associated student learning activities:

Discuss how the placemat strategy could be used to explore the Thinglink activity of "Europe Day".

Between what I think, what I want to say, what I believe I say, what I say, what you want to hear, what you believe to hear, what you hear, what you want to understand, what you think you understand, what you understand…They are ten possibilities that we might have some problem communicating. But let’s try anyway... Bernard Werber

Reflect & Act

Explore

Enquire

Communicating

Walking Debate

NCCA Religious Education Specification (2019), Page 8

Students will learn how to listen actively and respectfully to different perspectives and beliefs and express opinions, feelings and beliefs appropriately.

Key skill: Communicating Example of key skill element: Listening and expressing myself Examples of associated student learning activities:

Why are we reading if not in hope that the writer will magnify and dramatize our days, will illuminate and inspire us with wisdom, courage, and the possibility of meaningfulness, and will press upon our minds the deepest mysteries, so that we may feel again their majesty and power? Annie Dillard

Reflect

Explore

Enquire

Being Literate

Visual Verbal Square

NCCA Religious Education Specification (2019), Page 8

Students will access and engage with oral, written and multi-modal texts to explore a variety of religious beliefs and traditions and develop religious literacy

Exploring and creating a variety of texts, including multi-modal texts

Key skill: Being literate Example of key skill element: Examples of associated student learning activities:

A useful strategy for being literate is peer feedback. It provides students with an opportunity to learn from each other and improve their own work. This strategy compliments peer assessment by using success criteria.

Reflect

Explore

Enquire

Managing Myself

NCCA Religious Education Specification (2019), Page 8

Through participation in classroom activities, students will gain awareness of the influences shaping their beliefs, assumptions, values and decisions.

Key skill: Managing myself Example of key skill element: Knowing myself Examples of associated student learning activities: