Religious Studies

At HRSF we recognise the importance of powerful, rigorous and engaging content, equipping students with the knowledge and skills to answer deep and challenging questions around religion and life.

We aim to help students develop a better understanding of the role religions and cultures play in today’s pluralistic world. We want them to know how religious education promotes scholarship, wisdom and faith and enable real holistic growth and development for all our students. We want them to love the exploration of religious wisdom.

"All children need to acquire core knowledge and understanding of the beliefs and practices of the religions and worldviews which not only shape their history and culture but which guide their own development. The modern world needs young people who are sufficiently confident in their own beliefs and values that they can respect the religious and cultural differences of others and contribute to a cohesive and compassionate society." (Michael Gove, 2013).

Adopting a systematic (looking at the ‘truth’ of different world faiths and secular views) and thematic (looking at ultimate questions, key concepts and worldly issues) approach to our schemes of work provides a fundamental contribution to students’ knowledge of different dogmas and ideologies.

The curriculum is designed to provide a rich and broad narrative, so that students are able to think critically for themselves, collaborate, and endeavour to search for their own truth, as lifelong learners. Our curriculum looks to encourage our students to value the opinions of others; not because they have been taught to do so, but because they have an academic understanding of the inherent nature of all human beings and their right to express their views.

Year 12

Year 12 builds on the foundations that students have secured at GCSE level, with this being said, it is not compulsory for students to have studied RE at Key Stage 4, though it does assist in the acquisition of the philosophical language and abstract thought.

In Year 12, we study components of Philosophy of Religion, ethics and developments of Christian thought. This entails exploring philosophical arguments about the existence of God and their various strengths and weaknesses as well as how the existence of evil challenges claims of an all-loving and powerful deity. In addition, they spend studying depth the foundations of philosophy by looking at the works of Plato and Aristotle.

This is coupled with an in-depth analysis of ethical conduct, learning a range of ethical theories from across religion and secular societies from Catholic Natural Moral Law to Utilitarianism. Here, we are challenged to apply theory to every changing ethical parameter of the modern-day world such as that of euthanasia and business ethics. We are aiming to assess and critique what it means to be ‘morally good’ and whether there can truly be a universal standard of morality.

Year 13

Year 13 builds further onto the Year 12 knowledge and sees us develop our understanding of the overall themes that run through our modules. Here, we start to work on synoptic knowledge in which students envision the modules that they have learnt, not as separate and unrelated but as a linked continuous flow of knowledge. For example, in Year 13 students are able to ask more challenging meta-ethical questions like ‘what does good actually mean?’, and what it means to be human by studying the nature of the human conscience.

Students then apply all the ethical knowledge they have gained to sexual ethics which covers a range of topics such as abortion and the use of contraception. In Philosophy, students also study the use of religious language in depth and in Christian thought students are able to explore some of the biggest debates within religion such as the role of women within Christianity and the impact of increasing secular views.