Religion and Worldviews

The Religion & Worldviews department enriches students’ education by introducing them to vast array of cultures, creeds, and ways of living. Creating an environment which steps outside of the classroom, the students engage with key abstract concepts, key life as well as study skills. This is alongside a vast array of extra-curricular activities like Religion & Worldviews Soc. and meeting key people from other faith and cultural groups.

Within Religion & Worldviews students engage with spiritual themes of love, compassion, and forgiveness. The reflective nature of the subject allows for debate in a safe environment and strengthens resilience in challenging their own ideas and promoting tolerance as they engage with opposing worldviews.

• Years 7 and 8 – students will take a broad approach to understanding the key world religions through topical issues, as well as studying some of the key philosophical and ethical ‘Big Questions’ in order to gain a broad range of skills and knowledge from the different areas within the subject.
• Year 8 and 9 – there is a blended curriculum, where students begin their in depth study of Islam in preparation for their GCSE examination, which all students sit as a core part of the curriculum.
• Year 9 to 10 – students move to an in-depth study of Christianity, while building on the analytical, evaluative and argument writing skills introduced from Year 7 to apply them to GCSE style questions and extended answers. In Year 10 students continue to develop these skills while studying in greater depth key philosophical and ethical topics, some of which link back to their Year 7 and 8 study, such as the problem of evil and medical ethics.
• Throughout Year 11, the subject is taught through PSHCE lessons, covering issues such as the value of diversity and sexual ethics, to ensure students continue to consider the impact and importance of religious, philosophical and ethical issues in their own lives and in wider global events.
• Year 12 and 13 – students have the opportunity of A Level study.  Here they will again meet some of the key issues which they have looked at previously, now with the skills and depth of knowledge to consider and evaluate the ideas of different influential scholars, philosophers and theologians and form their own arguments and judgements on these topics.  New theological topics are introduced such as ‘Was Jesus best understood as a political revolutionary?’ and ‘How can we solve the apparent conflicts between God’s attributes?’.