Thank you to everyone who supported and donated to the ‘Wrap up Warm Lancashire’ warm coats appeal. Thanks to your kindness, we collected over 40 coats to help keep people in our community warm this winter. Well done, everyone!
This half term, we will be collecting chocolate donations in form groups to create some chocolate hampers to win as raffle prizes. All money raised will go towards ‘Mary’s Meals’ who make sure school children around the world receive a meal. Just £19.15 can feed a child a school dinner for a whole year.
We meet every Monday at 1:40pm in room 30 and would love for you to come and join us if you would like to be involved with our next appeal!
On Tuesday 18th November, Y11 and Y10 GCSE RE students visited Preston Muslim Cultural Centre. We walked from school to the Mosque at Broadgate. On arrival at the Mosque, we were greeted by Ismail. Once in the mosque, we all took our shoes off. We then entered the Wudu – an area where Muslims wash before prayer. Next, we had a demonstration. Muslims wash their arms, feet, face, hands, head and nose 3 times. They even brush their teeth. This symbolises both spiritual and physical cleansing of sins/dirt before sitting before God. After that, we had a tour. Walking along the carpet, we were told it had come from Turkey and that the mosque had a Turkish theme to it. The carpet was lovely and soft and it was a turquoise colour with a yellow star imprinted in the middle. Along the ceiling and walls were the hand painted scripters from the Quran. After, we saw the ladies only prayer room, a space where ladies can come to pray without men. Walking down the stairs, we noticed how impeccably clean it was and the floor and walls were marble. Following on, we sat in the Musella- the main prayer room where everyone can sit side by side equally when praying. The Muslim practices were then explained to us. Muslims have the 5 pillars; one of which is called Zakat. This is when Muslims donate 2.5% of their wealth to charity. Additionally, many make the pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia (the birthplace of prophet Muhammed). Next, the times of prayer were spoken about. Muslims are very dedicated to their religion and to pleasing Allah. To end our fabulous visit, 2 girls demonstrated how they pray and recited the Quaran in Arabic.
Thank you very much to our host for such a lovely visit to Preston Mosque, Masjid – e – Saliheen. It was interesting, informative and a great opportunity to deepen our Islamic knowledge!
Since joining PGHS in September, I’ve heard so much about the wonderful work that students have done raising money for various causes through the Soroptimists. We meet every Monday at 12:45pm in room 30, and would love any volunteers to come and join us! Previously the Soroptimists have organised fundraising events to sponsor the education of Fisokuhle, a 14 year old girl from Eswatin. We are in the process of arranging a visit from the Soroptimists International and planning our fundraising events for this year. Look out for a Halloween hunt coming soon!
Curriculum Highlights
Year 7 have made a fabulous start to their RE lessons, looking at the theme of belonging. We have been investigating the question ‘What does it mean to belong to a religion?’ They have been exploring the key features that can be found in most religions including belief in God, guidance for living, symbols and worship. We have looked at how despite not believing in a God, Buddhists use prayer flags to promote strength, compassion and wisdom. Year 7 were given the task of creating their own prayer flag, which they could either write a prayer or meditation with some good wishes of their own. They have also designed some fabulous symbols to represent themselves.
This half term, Year 9 students have been investigating a Medical Ethics unit reflecting on some big questions about how we make moral decisions. They have been discussing different topics such as genetic engineering, abortion and whether or not all life is sacred. They have been very impressive so far in how they have articulated their own beliefs on these issues and listened to the views of others. This topic gives them an excellent insight into GCSE RE, where students who opt for the subject will study a unit on religion and life issues. Take a look at the link below where a Junior Doctor talks about how studying RE has helped him in his career:
One of the highlights of this term in RE has been the Year 7 Trinity artwork projects. Every student had to design a piece of art work to demonstrate their understanding of the Trinity.
The Trinity is the Christian concept of one God in three forms/roles. This is such a tricky concept to grasp and throughout history, people have used various analogies and symbolism to try to gain further insight into what it means for Christians. Many artists have tried to demonstrate this through their artwork like our Year 7s. We were so proud of the effort and artwork produced!
Many students achieved merits, Head’s commendations and Head’s breakfasts for their Trinity artwork. Here is a collection of the Trinity artwork from our budding artists…
The current Year 11 wanted to share their top RE revision tips with you ahead of your mock exams. The year 11s are currently doing brilliantly so I strongly recommend taking on board their great advice!
Messages from the year 11s past and present about why RE is a great GCSE to choose…
What do you get to study for GCSE RE?
The GCSE is split into 2 papers.
Paper 1 focuses on the beliefs and practices of religions.
Paper 2 applies the religious beliefs to different thematic issues.
Each exam is 1 hour 45 minutes long and made up of 20 questions.
The 20 questions are split evenly between the 4 topics on each paper. So for each topic you will do a 1 marker, 2 marker (give), 4 marker (explain), 5 markers (explain) and a 12 marker (evaluate).
Year 8 have just finished studying the Hinduism topic of ‘how do sacred texts guide Hindu’s today?’ As part of this topic, students learnt about the belief of Moksha. This is the freedom from the cycle of reincarnation.
Did you know that Snakes and Ladders is an ancient Indian game? The children in India played it to understand the effects of good deeds and bad deeds. The ladders represent values such as kindness and faith and the snakes represent bad deeds such as anger and murder. The aim of the game is to attain Moksha by performing good deeds and climbing the ladders to the top. If you perform bad deeds you will fall down the ladders. To help students understand the concept of Moksha, they created and played their own Snakes and Ladders games. Here are some excellent examples:
Year 10
One of the most wonderful things about taking RS at GCSE is all the fascinating careers the subject can lead to. Here at Penwortham Girls’, we think it’s crucial that students experience first-hand how their knowledge and skills is useful for real life careers. This term, Year 10 have enjoyed stepping into the shoes of journalists to investigate the miracle at Lourdes.
As part of their studies for their GCSE, students must know why Christians go on pilgrimage to Lourdes and what they do there. Before students wrote their final newspaper article, they spent one lesson looking at what pilgrims do in Lourdes today. They then spent a second lesson analysing blogs and news articles about the miracles which the Church claims have taken place at Lourdes.
Students made notes using the Cornell note-taking method and then pieced all their knowledge together into a newspaper article. Miss Buckle was very impressed with their depth, detail and evaluation skills. Here are some excellent examples:
As part of the Judaism module, Year 8 have been studying Anti-Semitism. As an example of Anti-Semitism, we have spent three lessons looking at the suffering of the Jews during the Holocaust. We used the Windermere Children as a case study. As a focus, we explored how Jews became ashamed of their religion as a result of their experiences. The year 8s were given the project of creating a Holocaust Memorial for Jewish people. They had to use their knowledge of the Jewish religion, combined with their knowledge of the Holocaust, to make a suitable memorial which would help them feel proud of their religion.
Their teachers were blown away with the careful thought and design which were put into their creations. We have some very talented, aspiring architects! We were so impressed with the memorials that we wanted everybody to have a chance to see the display of incredible work.
