Resource Type: Lesson plans
Doreen’s War: Keep Smiling Through – Doreen was only 8 years old when World War 2 began. While many children were evacuated from London’s east end, Doreen stayed with her family in Plaistow and was homeschooled – even during the deadly Blitz between 1940 and 1941. Her best friend Marjorie had been evacuated to a different part of the country, but their relationship stayed strong and they’re still friends 75 years later.
Just before VE Day in 2020, this interview with Doreen recounting her memories of WW2 was recorded during lockdown conditions due to the coronavirus. Doreen compares how the nation felt then to how it feels during the pandemic.
This film includes an accompanying worksheet that can be used by pupils.
The View from the Classroom – Abortion – What is an abortion? What does the law say about abortion? What are your opinions about it? Students from Key Stages 4 and 5 in schools all around the country give us the view from the classroom.
Advice about pregnancy and abortion can be found at the following sites:
NUPAS (National Unplanned Pregnancy Advisory Service)
Curriculum Mapping
TrueTube films are designed for use in a number of ways. Some ideas of where this film could link to your curriculum are below:
AQA
Component 2: Thematic studies:Theme B: Religion & Human Life - The origins and value of human life - Religious teachings, beliefs and attitudes about abortion, including situations when the mother’s life is at risk.
Edexcel
Area of Study 1 - Section 4: Matters of Life and Death - Implications of the religious teachings about the value and sanctity of life for the issue of abortion.
OCR
Religion, philosophy and ethics in the modern world:Freedom of expression • Freedom of practice • Equality in society • The value of human life •Self-determination - Potential clashes between religious teachings and scientific development in medical ethics, including: • abortion
WJEC
PART B -Theme 1: Issues of Life and Death - The origin and value of human life
Eduqas
Component 1 (Route A):Religious, Philosophical and Ethical Studies in the Modern World: Theme 2: Issues of Life and Death: The origin and value of human life.
Transcript
The View from the Classroom – Abortion
An abortion is a removal of a foetus.
A foetus is a developing unborn child.
So the law says about abortion that you have to have two doctors approval.
An abortion is only legal up to 24 weeks.
Personally, I believe it should be more like 5 to 10 weeks because, sort of at 24 weeks, the child's already started to properly develop into a person.
If a pregnancy is 40 weeks and then 24 weeks is just a bit over halfway, then a baby who's after that point will have developed most of the way and could be seen as a person.
I think it should be lengthened a bit because it's a really big decision. It's life changing and to me, 24 weeks in the grand scheme of things is nothing. So I think it should be lengthened to give people more time to think about what they really, really want and to consider different options.
But if it was longer, it might be more difficult for the person who is having the baby and it could hurt them more. The operation and stuff could be more difficult to do.
Well, at the core of it, just deciding that I don't want the child is essentially murder in a sense of that, you just deciding that you want to end the life of this child because it'd be an inconvenience to you.
I don't think abortion is murder as such. It's more like the baby hasn't been born, so if it can't survive out of the mother's womb, then you can't really be murdered, can it? Because the baby would die. Like anyway.
If you define as being life, I suppose you'd have to consider it being the same as a full a fully grown human. So I don't go as far as say it's murder, but it's, to me, you'd have to consider it to be the same thing.
I don't see it as killing personally, because it hasn't lived, it's not, it won't remember because the memory isn't developed then. So no, I don't see it as killing.
Well, but in the pregnancy, the baby is moving and you can kick and stuff, so it kind of is alive.
Is a foetus in the womb, a living thing, or is it, does it become alive when it's born?
Personally, I believe life starts when a baby is born.
I think life begins when, like the child is born, when it comes into the world.
That's when you can see the the child, hold the child, and then you can realise that that child is yours and then has its own rights.
I think really the life starts after you're born.
I think life begins when you have a heartbeat. Just because you're not born yet doesn't mean that you're not alive.
I think that life begins when, if, when the baby can survive without the mother's help, so it could, it could be born early and it could be like, maybe put in, like an incubator and it could survive.
I definitely don't think life starts right at conception where the sperm meets the egg. I think it's probably when the baby becomes self-aware and starts sucking its thumb.
If it can kick, that means it's alive.
To me, when that sperm touches the egg that is a baby, to me, that is a life to me already. Like, I believe in, like the body and the soul as two separate things, so that is a soul in there already, to me.
I believe life begins when the sperm meets the egg.
Even though it's not really breathing and everything on its own. It's still alive and it's still growing. And that's the living thing.
I think it's still life because you're still being created. You're in the process of becoming someone.
What makes the difference between a minute before it's born and a minute after it's born?
I would think a religious person would say that it's, it's a God's choice who's born and who's not. So, I can't just change God's decision.
Catholics believe sex is for procreation, and if you are to have sex, then you should allow whatever the outcome is. And have an abortion means that you're stopping, like, God's way.
Playing God is like someone does something and, like, it's like they're doing something that's not natural.
To me life comes from God, and he puts people on the Earth for reasons, to help other people, to make the world a better place.
We shouldn't get the choice to choose who lives and who dies, because ultimately it isn't up to us.
It's linked in with the sanctity of life. In essence, that life is so precious to us.
God created children like babies for a reason, and he created everyone for a reason.
What I believe is that life has a meaning behind it.
When we were growing up, we were taught that God is the one that gives us life, and God is the one that takes away life.
Islam thinks that abortions are murder most of the time. However, if it's for the greater good, for example, if the mother was to be ill, if she had the child, then it's allowed to have an abortion.
Usually Sikhs are pro-life and they would say to, go to not, um, abort.
Pro-Life is when someone believes that the woman should not have the choice to have an abortion because-
the foetus has the right to live.
Pro-Choice is when you think that a woman should have a decision in whether she has a child or not.
Abortion shouldn't be used as a form of contraception because there's already a living life form, whereas contraception is used to prevent a living life form from being created.
I feel like if you don't want to get pregnant, then try not to get pregnant. Don't just be like, oh, I'll have an abortion.
If a teenager or someone in a relationship get pregnant unplanned and they abort it, it's bad because they should have planned ahead instead of killing the, like, baby that's not even been born yet.
I think, like, abortion shouldn't be allowed. If you can't take care of your baby, then you should put them up for adoption.
I think it's a bit selfish for you to decide that you're going to abort a child just because you don't want it.
I think it's fundamentally wrong because it is killing a new life, and I don't think, I don't think that's okay, except in some cases you need to.
Such as in the cases of, um, incest, rape, or in the case of when the child will be born, it will either result in the death of the mother or the child.
I think it depends on the situation. Like if the, like, mother was too young or wasn't healthy to give birth, then it should be allowed to have an abortion.
I think that a woman should have the right to decide whether she wants to abort.
I think that abortion should be totally the woman's choice, because it's her that's going to have to carry it, her that is going to have to actually give birth to it.
I think most of the time, yeah, it should be the woman's choice because she's the one giving up her body and she's the one going through all these changes. And although a man might say that they can understand it, they really can't, and even other women can't understand it until they've been through it themselves.
I don't think anyone should be able to stop someone from doing it, because it's their decision and it's their body.
You shouldn't choose if other people should have an abortion. If you're against it, don't abort your own children. Simple as that.
The View from the Classroom – Intermarriage – What is intermarriage, and what do you think about it? Students from Key Stages 4 and 5 in schools all around the country give us the view from the classroom.
Curriculum Mapping
TrueTube films are designed for use in a number of ways. Some ideas of where this film could link to your curriculum are below:
AQA
Component 2: Thematic studies:Theme A: Relationships and families: Sex, marriage and divorce - The nature and purpose of marriage.
Edexcel
Area of Study 1 - Section 2 - Sex, marriage and divorce - the significance of marriage in religious life; religious teachings about marriage.
OCR
Component Group 2–Religion,philosophy and ethics in the modern world from a religious perspective - relationships and families - religious teachings about the nature and purpose of families in the 21st century, sex, marriage, cohabitation and divorce. Issues related to the nature and purpose of families; roles of men and women; equality; gender prejudice and discrimination.
WJEC
PART B- Theme 1: Issues of Relationships
Eduqas
Component 1 (Route A):Religious, Philosophical and Ethical Studies in the Modern World : Theme 1: Issues of Relationships:Relationships
Transcript
The View from the Classroom – Intermarriage
Intermarriage is when
two people of a different background, for example
different religions,
cultures,
races
or nationalities come together and
marry each other.
I think intermarriage is a good thing. I mean, I'm technically from intermarriage, so my mom is from Zambia and then my dad was British English.
My dad is Welsh, and he was born in Swansea. And he- my mum is Brazilian.
My mom's African and my dad's from Kent.
I think it's a good thing for me that I have parents of different nationalities, because I feel like I have an open mind because of it. I like that because, you know, leaves stuff for possibility.
Oh, I 100% think it's really healthy for society to have all of these different religions and ethnicities and all, like, mingling together because it's, it's it makes it more lively.
In some sense, intermarriage would be confusing on children, because if you had a child and you had two religions in that family, you can't really mix them together, because that's obviously then against your religion in some sense.
It might be confusing for the children because the child may need to pick like what type of religion, what type of path to follow. If he wants to follow the father, if he wants to follow the mother.
Problems that intermarriage might cause for the kids, maybe, uh, they're stuck between two cultures. But it also can be good, because it might bring in more opinions about different cultures and help them improve as a person as well, because it might be different ideas they might take in from different religions and put them all together and make a good person.
Some people might be against, um, intermarriage because they feel like they racially won't be pure.
It could be family influences.
Because of religion and culture.
I think that some people may be against intermarriage as they believe that people should stay within what people like to call their own kind.
I think people are scared of the change. They don't want to have something different because it's not what they know.
If you were like, say, a strong Christian, it might be hard for you to accept the practice of, like, what a Muslim would do.
There will always be a problem when it comes to marriage, like, obviously when it comes to, like if she was a Muslim, she has to pray five times a day, she's not allowed to eat pork, she's not allowed to drink, like to smoke. If I'm choosing to marry the woman I love, I will have to believe what she believes in as well. And, like, not saying I will be a Muslim as well. I will still be Buddhist, however I will, I will understand why she does what she has to do.
In Islam, if you are going to marry someone from a different religion, then the child has to follow the man's religion.
I disagree with the fact that men are allowed to marry someone out of faith, and we're not. I think from back in the days it's all changed.
I don't think it matters if I married someone of a different religion, because if I love them, that's all that matters. I would want to have a Muslim wedding because it's my background and I love being a Muslim. I wouldn't mind also doing their way but incorporating it with mine.
I think intermarriage is neither good or bad. I think it's just two people marrying each other for love.
I feel like everyone should have the choice to like and get married to anyone they want. They shouldn't have to conform to 'Oh, you can only marry, you know, your own religion or your own race'. I feel like the world would be a very boring place if that were to happen.
I think intermarriage is happening much more these days, since it's much, it's much, like, widely accepted in today's society. I think it's a sign of healthy society.
I think intermarriage is a good thing because it brings communities together. It brings everyone together. Um, and it lets, it lets us learn the differences between everyone else. And it, it could end racism.
I think it's a sign of a healthy society if we have intermarriage, because it's showing that we have diversity and that we accept everyone for who they are, and we don't think of someone as Muslim or Christian. We think of them as a human and that person's personality.
Now I Can Breathe – It’s not your fault. You didn’t ask for it. You are not weak. You are strong.
Amina tells the story of how she was sexually harassed over several years by other pupils, and describes the work she is doing now to help teachers put a stop to sexual harassment in their schools.
A film by Adam Tyler
Created in collaboration with the Advocacy Academy
Winner of the Children’s Broadcasting category at the Sandford St Martin Awards 2020.
Winner of the Educational Film Award at the Learning On Screen Awards 2020.
Nominated for the Content for Change Award at the Children’s BAFTAs 2019.
Advice for young people about sexual harassment can be found at the following sites:
…and teachers can find the government’s guidance about sexual harassment in schools here.
The Demon’s Head – The Collector welcomes you to his House of Horrible Things to tell the gruesome story of the demon Mahishashura, his confrontation with the Goddess Durga, and how he came to lose his head.
A story for the Hindu festival of Navaratri, narrated by Tim McInnerny.
Animation by Ceiren Bell.
Nominated for the Animation Award at the Children’s BAFTAs 2019.
Fine – Joe returns to school after his mother’s funeral, and has to cope with his bereavement surrounded by friends who don’t understand what he’s going through, and teachers who are unsure how to help him.
A film by Emily May Smith.
With thanks to Portsmouth Grammar School.
If someone close to you has died, or if a friend is trying to cope with the death of someone they knew, you can find support and guidance at Child Bereavement UK.
One-to-One – James has been outed at school before he could come out on his own terms, and he’s afraid of what his parents will say when they discover he’s got a boyfriend. With everything getting too much for him, James visits his youthworker to talk it all out, one-to-one.
A short coming-of-age drama by Toby Lloyd and Conor Deedigan.
Nominated for the Teen Award at the Children’s BAFTAs 2019.
Living With ADHD – Matteo has ADHD – Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder – which means that he’s very active and very excitable (which can be good), but it also means that he finds it hard to concentrate, forgets things easily and has little sense of danger (which can be bad). Matteo’s Mum wants him to take medication which will help him at school, but his Dad is worried that it will affect his chances of becoming a professional rugby player.
Directed by Lucia Clements and made during the BFI Film Academy’s documentary filmmaking residential course run by our friends at VividEcho.
