Year 10 and 11

We follow the AQA specification B for our GCSE Religious Studies course. The course is split into two halves. Unit 2 is based upon Moral Issues, called, ‘Religion and Life Issues’. Unit 4 is based upon Philosophy of Religion and is called, ‘Religious Philosophy and Ultimate Questions’.

Unit 2 – Religion and Life Issues includes the study of the following topics:

• Animal Rights (Food, pets, transport, hunting, entertainment, captivity, fur, ivory, experiments and animal welfare groups)
• The Environment (Religious theories of creation, pollution, deforestation, global warming, environmental organisations)
• Prejudice and Discrimination (causes and effects, types of prejudice, individuals and groups that work to eradicate prejudice, Martin Luther King Jr, Ghandi, Desmond Tutu)
• Abortion (The law, Sanctity of Life, Quality of life, rights of the unborn child, mother and father, pressure groups; arguments for and against, adoption and fostering.)
• War and Peace (Causes, effects, examples of recent wars, types of weapons, WMD’s, terrorism, Peace, Justice, Sanctity of Life, Just War conditions, Jihad, Victims of War, Peacekeeping organisations).

As well as exploring each moral issue, students will learn about the Christian and Muslim attitudes towards them. Different denominations of Christianity are studied to allow students to contrast beliefs within religion and secure the highest grades.

Unit 4 – Religious Philosophy and Ultimate Questions includes the study of the following topics:

• The Existence of God (First Cause argument, Design argument, Religious Experience, Miracles and the argument from Morality. Students must learn all of the arguments for the existence of God as well as be able to explain the pitfalls of them.)
• Revelation (General and Special Revelation, what can be learnt about God through Revelation, the strengths and weaknesses of accepting either forms of Revelation.)
• The Problem of Evil and Suffering (Man-made and natural suffering, types of evil, problems for religious believers by the existence of evil and suffering, religious responses and reasons for God allowing evil and suffering, religious views about the origins of evil.)
• Immortality (How humans might survive death, religious beliefs in Resurrection, Reincarnation and Rebirth, evidence of Immortality through ghosts, channelling, Near Death Experiences, memories of past lives and scripture.       Problems with the evidence of Immortality, arguments against Immortality from Science and Atheism, Dualism and its impact.)
• Miracles (2 types of miracles, evidence of and for miracles, miracles found in religious scripture, arguments against miracles including David Hume, miracles from history and personal history, what miracles reveal about God, problems of believing in miracles for religious believers.)
• Science and Religion (Types of truth, origins of life from religious perspectives, Big Bang theory, Evolution, Cosmological Revolution, can science and religion agree? Absolute truth and Evolving truth, Science and Religion in the modern world.)

The students who do not elect to do Religious Studies as a GCSE will continue to have core lessons, once every other week. In these lessons, they will explore a variety of moral issues, and various religious perspectives about them. The Moral Issues covered over the two year course are:

• Matters of Life and Death (Fertility treatments, Genetic Engineering and Cloning, Caring for the Elderly, Suicide and Euthanasia.)
• Crime and Punishment (Why people commit crime, statistics and profiles of prisoners, forms and aims of punishment, prison and capital punishment.)
• Drugs and Alcohol (Reasons why young people drink excessively or use drugs. What are legal highs and the concerns associated.       Cannabis – arguments for and against. Religious attitudes to alcohol and drugs.)

KS4 Core RE Curriculum

The students who do not elect to do Religious Studies at GCSE will continue to have core lessons once per fortnight throughout Year 10 and 11. In these lessons they will explore a variety of moral issues and various religious perspectives. The Moral Issues covered over the two year course includes:-

• Matters of Life and Death (fertility treatments, Genetic Engineering and Cloning, Caring for the Elderly, Suicide and Euthanasia).
• The Problem of Evil and Suffering (man-made and natural suffering, types of evil. Problems for religious believed by the existence of evil and suffering, religion responses and reasons for God allowing evil and suffering, religious views about the origins of evil).
• Animal Rights (food, pets, transport, hunting, entertainment, captivity, fur, ivory, experiments and animal welfare groups).