Religious Education
Head of department: Mrs J Smith
Religious Education begins the year with understanding what the subject means through exploring own spirituality, including the wide range of religious views held by atheist, theist and agnostic, that make up today’s society. This is important for students to explore enabling them to develop their own attitudes towards religious issues. It is also important as it is the backbone to KS3 and KS4 work we do from Year 7 to Year 11.
KS3 schemes of work are of simple teachings from Buddhism to help understanding how morals and values are shaped in the absence of God, we then move to look at beliefs and teaching of Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism and Christianity in Britain and around the world. To further help pupils understand the idea of atheist and theist we study the life of Jesus, Anne Frank and learn how historical events are still impacting on individuals today. KS3 sets the foundations of many GCSE units comprising of Human right and Social Justice, Crime and Punishment and Beliefs and Teachings of Sikhism and Christianity. Within the framework of each scheme of work, from Year 7 to 9, we encourage the skills of recalling key facts to assess knowledge and understanding as well as encourage pupils to learn to appreciate different attitudes about ethical or philosophical issues.
In KS4, all students continue their learning around the main religions, cementing their understanding. Students are encouraged to explore the theme, why and how do we celebrate and how this affects peoples’ lives? It is focussed on key celebrations within the year for Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, Judaism and Buddhism and is taught in two sections within Citizenship to match the key timings of these celebrations to make it more relevant to the students. Lessons are linked to local community celebrations in Leicester where possible. As they move into Year 11, students are then asked to apply their knowledge on ethical questions which will bring in the major religious views and engage in their own views. These include animal rights and testing, capital and corporal punishment, sanctity of life, abortion, population control. The idea is to encourage debate and structured arguments to put forward both their own views and those of different religious and non-religious views.
The KS4 GCSE Religious Education course is in two components: The study of religions: beliefs, teachings and practices of Christianity and Sikhism. We have selected to do Sikhism as it builds on the work that is done at KS3 and pupils enjoyed learning about the core principles of Sikhism: - equality for all humanity. It also allows them to connect to ideas to current issues in society building on how they can be active citizens to obey by the law and not discriminate in gender, race, disability and or sexual orientation. We also recognised that a large amount of Sikhism runs into units of component 2 which comprises of thematic studies of Human rights and Social Justice, Relationships and families, Religion and life and Crime and Punishment which link in well. KS3 skills promoted flow into KS4 but mainly focus on evaluating balanced religious ideas, before arriving to own judgement. There is also more emphasis on revising religious teaching and quotes and learning how to embed this in their evaluative work.
KS4 Religious Education GCSE – AQA 8062 course
Religious education is 100% externally examined completing two exam papers.
Paper 1 is The study of religions: beliefs, teachings and practices of Christianity and Sikhism.
Written paper is 1 hour 45 minutes. Each religion has a common structure of two five-part questions of 1, 2, 4, 5 and 12 marks. Each religion is marked out of 48.
Total marks for this paper is 96, plus 6 marks for spelling, punctuation and grammar (SPaG)
50% of GCSE.
Paper 2 is Thematic studies including:
• Relationships and families
• Religion and life
• Religion, crime and punishment
• Religion, human rights and social justice
Written paper is 1 hour 45 minutes. Each theme is marked out of 24.
Each theme has a common structure of one five-part question of 1, 2, 4, 5 and 12 marks.
Total marks for this paper is 96, plus 3 marks for spelling, punctuation and grammar (SPaG)
50% of GCSE
There are many places to go with the GCSE qualification of Religious Studies. It imposes no limitations but lends its own particular strengths to a number of different career choices. Studying Religious Studies means exploring the beliefs, practices, values and doctrines of people around the world and Religion majors have successfully gone on to professional training in Business (particularly international business), Counselling and Social Work, Education, Journalism, Law, Medicine.
Others have moved directly into the job market, taking up positions in Event planning, hospitality, or the service industry, the Government, foreign service, or the Peace Corps, marketing and management, museums and the arts, non-profit or non-governmental organizations and publishing.