Cover lesson · RE · Year 10 · Intermediate

Online communities and religion

DCF: Citizenship → Identity, image and reputation

Name: Class: Date:

Cover teacher — you need no subject knowledge

Print: this sheet and the stimulus sheet “Three faith communities, three online problems”, one of each per pupil. No computers are needed.

Run: 4 min — explain that the three communities are invented but the problems are real · 8 min — read the three cases · 15 min — complete the decisions table, one row per case · 15 min — draft the six-clause charter · 5 min — two pupils read a clause each and the class says whether it would actually have prevented the problem in Case 3 · 3 min — collect.

Collect: this sheet with the decisions table and all six charter clauses written.

Ground rule to state at the start: we discuss practices, not people. Nobody is asked to explain or defend their own family’s beliefs, and nobody has to say what they believe.

What you are doing

Three faith communities each face a decision about how they use an online space. You will decide each case and say what you traded away to get there, and then write a six-clause code of conduct for a shared interfaith youth space that all three communities could sign.

The thread running through all of it is reputation: once something is posted, the person in the picture, the person who spoke, and the community as a whole all carry the consequences, and none of them can take it back.

Step by step

  1. 8 min — Read the three cases and the “Facts you can rely on” box.
  2. 15 min — Complete the decisions table. For each case, give a decision, the strongest objection to it, and what you would say to the person making that objection.
  3. 15 min — Write six charter clauses in the frame below. Each must be a rule someone could actually follow or break, not a slogan.
  4. 7 min — Answer the identity question at the bottom.
  5. 5 min — Test your charter against Case 3: circle the clause that would have stopped the clip spreading. If none would, add one.

Decisions table

Case Your decision Strongest objection to it Your answer to that objection
1. Capel Bethel — the camera angle
2. The synagogue — notices and Shabbat
3. The mosque youth group — the clipped sermon

Charter for a shared interfaith youth space

Six clauses. Each one should be specific enough that you could tell whether someone had broken it. Cover at least: images of people, sharing outside the group, timing and availability, clips and context, moderation, and what happens when a clause is broken.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

The identity question

A member of the youth space keeps two accounts: one where their faith is obvious from the name and the photo, and one where it is not. Give one good reason a person might do that, and one cost of doing it. Write 80–120 words.

Success criteria

If you finish early