Religious Education Department

Introduction

Religious Education is part of the Humanities Faculty along with Citizenship, Geography, Leisure & Tourism and History.

Our aims are to provide opportunities for pupils to:

Engage with religious and spiritual beliefs and practices in an open and informed manner.
Learn about a variety of religions: specifically Christianity, Islam and Sikhism. In particular we focus on beliefs and their applications to real life experiences and decisions.
Learn from religions by understanding that religions provide insights into how to interpret and respond to life experiences.
Develop a reflective approach to one’s own experiences and beliefs.
Understand religion in the context of a variety of worldviews.

Accommodation & resources

Religious Education is taught in 2 specialist rooms. Both rooms have interactive whiteboards. These boards are used to enhance learning by presenting stimulating visual materials and can be used for showing videos and DVDs. They are also used to present a variety of ICT functions and software. The internet can also be accessed. The school library and computer suites can be pre-booked for lessons where pupils require access to a number of computers.

The department is well resourced with textbooks, artefacts, videos and DVDs. We also have an impressive range of Teacher resource packs.

Curriculum

Key Stage 3

Pupils are taught Humanities in forms in Year 7. They have 5 lessons per week. They have 1 lesson per week of Religious Education in Year 8 and 2 lessons per week of Ethics in Year 9. Each lesson lasts 50 minutes. Pupils are taught in line with the Dudley Agreed Syllabus.

Key Stage 4

Pupils who opt for GCSE Religious Studies take the full course OCR World Religions syllabus. Christian Perspectives on Personal and Social Issues and Islam are the 2 components studied. Each year between 25 and 50 pupils choose Religious Studies, so there are usually 2 teaching groups which are mixed ability. Results have been consistently significantly above the national average, although results vary according to the ability level of each cohort. All pupils in Year 10 currently study OCR Short Course Religious Studies: Philosophy and Ethics.