We have had a really busy half term thinking about our enquiry question about being a Hindu in
Britain. Whilst exploring this question, we have asked some other pretty big questions!
Through our enquiry journey, we have explored the questions below which will then help us to
answer our big question next week.
What makes me who I am?
What do Hindus believe?
How do Hindus show their faith?
What is Dharma?
Why do Hindus try to be good?
Why is Mahatma Gandhi a Hindu Hero?
Through this journey we have learnt a lot about Hinduism and reflected on how the lives of British
Hindus are influenced by their beliefs.
When answering the question; What do Hindus believe? We learnt all about Hindu worship. To
help us experience what this would be like, we created our own shrine and recreated some of the
traditions and practices. This was really fun and helped bring our learning to life!
You can see pictures of this on our RE board, if you are able to come into the book look next week!
We have also explored the concept of Dharma – this is a way of being for Hindus – the children
have thought about the concept as duties – ways of behaving or responsibilities Hindus have to
achieve their goals in life. The children reflected on these and decided which duties they felt were
important to them and also explored duties they felt they would want in their lives.
Following on from this, the children learnt about Moksha, Karma and how this relates to Dharma.
The children learnt that Hindus believe in a cycle of birth death and rebirth. Hindus believe that
they will be reincarnated after death and their aim is to be very good to achieve Moksha, which is
being reborn with God and therefore escaping the cycle of rebirth. These are all really big ideas,
but the children explored what their beliefs are about what happens when we die and many
children considered the idea of heaven. This would be a great conversation to continue at home!
What do you believe? We all have different ideas - that’s what makes life so rich!
We are finishing our topic with some learning about a very influential Hindu – Gandhi. We will
reflect on his life and teachings in light of our earlier learning.
