Wiltshire RE Starter Stimulus
Starter ideas for the following key question from the 2011 Agreed
Syllabus:
KS2.4 How does a Christian follow Jesus?
This resource aims to provide some stimulus images
and ideas to help pupils begin to address the above
question.
It links to the following learning outcomes from p52 of
the syllabus:
Pupils can:
• describe events in the life of at least one modern day Christian,
making a link between their actions and the teachings and
example of Jesus;
• ask and respond to questions raised by stories from the life
Jesus and contemporary followers
What’s important to Sarah and
her family?
Look at the pictures on the
following slides.
What do you think Sarah
and her family are doing?
Can you work out what is
important to them from
these pictures?
Sarah and her family are
Christians and try to follow the
example and teaching of Jesus
in the way they live their lives.
The next slide gives some
teaching of Jesus that Sarah’s
family try to follow in their lives.
Here are some of the things Jesus said:
Love the people you don’t like and pray for
people who upset you. Why should God reward
you if you only love people who love you?
That’s what everyone else does!
Luke 5:43 & 6:32
In the next slides,
Sarah explains how
being a Christian
affects her everyday
life.
Sarah says…
‘I try to read my Bible
every day. I use some
special Bible reading
notes for children.
These help me to learn
more about Jesus.’
Sarah
says…
‘Before we eat our tea, we join
hands to say a prayer of thanks
to God for everything he gives
us.’
Sarah says…
‘Abi, Tim and I love
to praise God by
singing action
songs together.
Sometimes we
even do songs in
sign language!’
Sarah says…
‘In the Bible it tells
us to give money to
the poor. Mum and
Dad encourage me
to put some of my
pocket money into
a charity collection
box.’
Sarah says…
‘Every Christmas, as
we remember Jesus’
birth, we fill a
shoebox with toys
and gifts to send to
children in Eastern
Europe.’
‘Jesus teaches us to
look after the sick and
lonely. When I know a
friend is unwell, I make
them a special card to
cheer them up’
‘I believe it is important to
show people all over the world
that Jesus loves them.’
Ideas for using this resource:
1. Questions: connections
Use the opening set of images to allow pupils to raise as many
questions as they can. After looking at some of Sarah’s
answers, give pupils a Venn diagram. Ask them to put on one
side the things that Sarah does that they don’t do, on the other
side, things that they do that Sarah doesn’t. In the overlap in
the middle, see if there are any things that they do that are
similar to Sarah’s everyday life.
2. Having an impact
You might ask pupils to take one of the teachings of Jesus and
present their own ideas about how things might change if we
all followed this advice. They could improvise a scene, or put
together a news bulletin, or do a drawing and label it.
3. Face to face
Find out if anyone in your school community belongs to a
Christian church.
Work out some good questions to ask about how and
why they follow Jesus at home, at church and in their
everyday lives.
Invite them in to your class to answer your questions, or
email the questions to them.
4. Comparing
Use the replies to work out how Sarah and her family are
similar to and different from the Christian family in your
own school community. Sarah attends a Baptist church –
Baptists are one part of the Protestant Christian church.