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Teacher guide

AQA GCSE Religious Studies A revision

These activities are mapped to AQA GCSE Religious Studies A 8062. Seventeen of them, sixteen to twenty-four minutes each, covering Christianity and Islam. **They are all Component 1.** AQA builds this GCSE from two equal halves: the study of two religions, and four thematic studies chosen from six. The themes are fifty per cent of the marks and there is nothing here for them. So this page is useful for half your course and no use at all for the other half. That is an uncomfortable thing to put in the second paragraph, and it is better than a teacher discovering it after building a revision plan around the list below. What is here is done properly: beliefs, teachings and practices for both religions, with the Islam activities the stronger of the two.

This page lists what we actually have for AQA GCSE Religious Studies A 8062. It is built from the live activities, so it is accurate on the day you read it.

Half a qualification

AQA 8062 has two components of equal weight. Component 1 is the study of two religions, beliefs and teachings and practices for each. Component 2 is thematic studies: four themes chosen from six, covering relationships and families, religion and life, the existence of God and revelation, peace and conflict, crime and punishment, and human rights and social justice.

All seventeen activities on this page are Component 1.

Nothing here touches the themes. Our curriculum map for this specification names the four themes the content is meant to grow into, and none of them has been built.

That matters more than a numerical gap usually would, because Component 2 is where the twelve-mark evaluative questions do most of their damage and where students arrive with opinions rather than arguments. It is the half most departments would want help with.

If your revision plan needs the themes covered, this page cannot do it, and OCR GCSE Religious Studies covers three of its four themes for a differently structured course, which is not the same thing but is at least adjacent.

The two religions

Christianity, seven activities: the nature of God, creation beliefs, Jesus and salvation, the afterlife, worship and prayer, the sacraments, pilgrimage and festivals, and the church in the community.

Islam, ten activities: tawhid and the nature of God, the Sunni and Shi'a difference, risalah and the holy books, akhirah, angels and predestination within those, the Five Pillars, salah, hajj, jihad, and festivals.

Both are covered across beliefs and practices, which is how AQA examines them, and the comparative element the specification requires is inside the activities rather than in a separate contrast activity.

The two halves are not equally good, and here is why

The Islam activities are the better ones. They run twenty-two to twenty-four minutes against Christianity's sixteen, and they use more of the interactions that make a student produce something: building a sentence in the right order, a timed recall round.

There is no religious or pedagogical reason for that. The Islam material was authored later, to a standard that had moved on, and the Christianity activities have not been rebuilt since.

For a teacher the practical consequence is small but real. If you are setting one activity from each religion for balance, expect the Islam one to take a class a third longer and to demand more.

Using them

The three activities embedded further down are playable here without an account.

The lists below group by classroom use, worked out from what each activity contains. For how each is meant to be run, see ready-to-run revision activities. To put several in front of one class in order, build a sprint and share one link. Everything else, by subject and board, is on the revision pages.

AQA's own papers in our past paper archive are free and unaltered, and Component 2 questions from them are the nearest thing to theme revision this site can point you at.

What this page does not do

Nothing for Component 2, which is half the qualification. Said first and repeated here.

Nothing for five of AQA's seven religions.

It does not mark the written answers. The tasks run thirty to a hundred and fifty words with a structure to follow, and a human still reads what comes out.

It does not track anything, so there is no completion list to check.

Every live Religious Studies activity for AQA

17 activities, all mapped to AQA GCSE Religious Studies A (8062).

See all 17, by topic

Try it with your class

AQA Religious Studies 24 minutes

The Five Pillars

14 steps, 9 interactive, 10 activity types.

Best used for
Independent study Mock preparation Cover lesson
  • Independent study: Explains before it asks, so a student can work alone.
  • Mock preparation: Asks students to build an answer, not just recognise one.
  • Cover lesson: Teaches and tests in one go, so a non-specialist can run it.

Try one question

A revision guide is headed "The Five Pillars of Islam". What should be added for the heading to be accurate?

AQA Religious Studies 24 minutes

The Church in the Community

14 steps, 9 interactive, 10 activity types.

Best used for
Independent study Mock preparation Cover lesson
  • Independent study: Explains before it asks, so a student can work alone.
  • Mock preparation: Asks students to build an answer, not just recognise one.
  • Cover lesson: Teaches and tests in one go, so a non-specialist can run it.

Try one question

A student writes that mission and evangelism mean the same thing. What is the more precise account?

AQA Religious Studies 24 minutes

Hajj: Pilgrimage

14 steps, 9 interactive, 10 activity types.

Best used for
Independent study Mock preparation Cover lesson
  • Independent study: Explains before it asks, so a student can work alone.
  • Mock preparation: Asks students to build an answer, not just recognise one.
  • Cover lesson: Teaches and tests in one go, so a non-specialist can run it.

Try one question

Hajj differs from the other duties in a way that shapes everything else about it. What is it?

Common questions

Does this cover the thematic studies?

No. Every one of the seventeen activities is Component 1, the study of religions. Component 2, the four themes chosen from six, is half the qualification and has nothing here yet.

Which religions are covered?

Christianity and Islam, both beliefs and teachings and practices. Seven activities on Christianity, ten on Islam. AQA lets a school choose two religions from seven, so a department teaching Judaism or Sikhism will find only the Christianity half relevant.

Why is Islam better covered than Christianity?

Authoring order rather than a judgement. The Islam activities were built later and run longer, twenty-two to twenty-four minutes against sixteen, and they carry more of the interactions that make a student produce an answer rather than recognise one.

What can I use it for as it stands?

Component 1 revision, which is half the marks, and the half that rests on recall of teachings, sources of wisdom and the details of practice. That is the part these do properly.

When will the themes be added?

There is no date to give. Our curriculum map for this specification names the intended themes, relationships and families, religion and life, peace and conflict, and crime and punishment, but no activities have been built for them.

Will I see who has completed them?

No. Following a shared link records nothing about who followed it, which is a deliberate choice about children's data.

Put one in front of a class

Tell us the subject and how long you have. You get a link to hand out, and it marks itself.

Create a free teacher account

Written by David Wright, Co-Founder, DoRevision.

David builds DoRevision with his son Noah (15). David has spent his career building EdTech products, and Noah has grown up watching lines of code being written. As a student at an important stage of his education, together they are building the revision platform that Noah is using to help revise for his GCSE exams and hopes his friends will find useful too.

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