To think my son should not be forced to do a full GCSE in religious education

[ReallyTired]

He would far rather do GCSE music. He had done RE since he was five. Surely an extra two years is not going to increase his knowledge of other religions that much.

So why isn't history compulsory? I think it's really important that our young people have a sense of history. Why specifically RE?

Why should history be compulsory?

Why can't parents withdraw their kids from history or maths or French or drama? Why does RE have that option?

I don't think it should be a case of opting out- I hust don't think it should be compulsory. I don't understand why it is I i also think it should be an Ebacc subject.

I think it should be compulsory in ks3 at least, and that schools should do as much as they can to promote religious tolerance. And I agree with you, it should also be on the Ebacc as an option.

But our opinions count for nothing, nada, zip, because it's not us who make the decisions about what is taught in schools.

Why do you think it should be compulsory?

Why don't you think it should be?

My DCs school teaches RE 1 lesson a week and everyone pretty much gets a GCSE from this. They couldn't teach another subject in this amount of time and get a GCSE from it. The subject is more about "issues" and explaining how two world religions approach them.

DC do also get 4 options one of which is usually a MFL, and another suggested to be EBAC which includes computer science.
However your son wants to study computing at Uni then Maths should be his priority.

Is your DS in a small school that only has a limited range of options?

The schools in the city where we now live [not the city in my name] generally have between 1300 and 2000 pupils and 250-300 per year and they generally all offer a wide range of choices and only the church school actually insists on pupils taking a RE GCSE exam - all the other schools here just have one period a week for those not doing it to GCSE in order to comply with the law.

Just as an example of what they can choose:-

They have to do Eng lang, Eng lit, maths, either core and addit science or BTEC science.

Then they have to do one of history or geography and choose three further subjects which can also include history or geography if not already chosen.

They can only choose to do triple science or two languages if they are ''invited'' to do so.

So, certainly locally to me there is generally no compulsion in the schools to take RE as an exam and they do - at least in this school - get quite a wide choice of subjects.

Perhaps it's the size of the school that is also an issue?

Why is RE compulsory, Bertrand? Simply because the people in charge want it to be.

Just like they haven't got rid of the ridiculous requirement for a daily act of worship even though most schools don't do anything remotely approaching that.

Our Education Secretary is Nicky 'anti-gay-marriage' Morgan, who has just side-stepped a High Court ruling that would have forced schools to include humanism in the RE curriculum. Schools are thus free to ignore atheism. Can you see NiMo, under Dave 'Christian values' Cameron getting rid of compulsory RE?

Are you saying aethism or humanism are religions?

Well technically not but they should be studied as part of religious education.

Far too much crap on here, blame the government, not the school.

I learnt far more about religion in history lessons than I ever did in RE, although to be fair that was 20 years ago.

No, var they are not religions.

But a subject that says 'some people believe in x god, some people believe in y god and some people believe in z god' is pretty useless for understanding religion if it fails to include 'and some people believe in no god'.

Noblegiraffe - I thought RE wasn't so much about giving God a name as describing the way people live their lives with respect to their belief systems. Once atheists have asserted that they are non-believers, they've nothing else in common, have they?

Maybe I am wrong. I am only guessing what somehow fills up 5 years of secondary school for nearly two hours a week.

Our Education Secretary is Nicky 'anti-gay-marriage' Morgan

... who has no experience of state education as she attended a private school and hasn't been a teacher.

and being trained in economics isn't a pre-requisite to be chancellor
nor having worked in the NHS to be minister for health
nor having been in the armed forces for even a day to be Minister for Defence
nor been a diplomat to be Foreign Secretary
Nor been in the police or the prison service to be Home Secretary
nor ever have held down any job whatsoever, never mind managed their own company to be Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and President of the Board of Trade

Politicians aren't experts. It would be interesting what they'd come up with if they were though..!

She's not alone. These are the people who have controlled state education since 1990.

Kenneth Clarke - private school / Cambridge
John Patten - private school / Cambridge
Gillian Shepherd - grammar school / Oxford
David Blunkett - school for the blind / uni of Sheffield

Estelle Morris - state school / MMU / teacher

Charles Clarke - private school / Cambridge
Ruth Kelly - private school / Oxford
Alan Johnson - grammar school (state)
Ed Balls - private school / Oxford
Michael Gove - private school / Oxford
Nicky Morgan - private school / Oxford

No I wouldn't expect the minister to be an expert. What I would expect is that there was a panel of current teachers and headteachers that advised closely.

var it was the British Humanist Association who brought the court case. They've got a bit more to say about stuff than simply 'I don't believe'. Certainly worth a double page spread in a textbook anyway.

It was humanism, not atheism that was referenced. Plus so many people have said that it's really ethics and not religion that's in the GCSE so no reason to exclude a non religious set of beliefs.

My ds is in a secular schooling system. They only cover religion in a broad based social studies class (which is fundamentally history). We're in Canada which I think most people would say is a pretty tolerant society.

I don't have an issue with children learning about religions, they have shaped the world after all, but I think it's a bit of a reach to say that the religious/Christian requirements in English education result in a more tolerant society.

He had done RE since he was five. Surely an extra two years is not going to increase his knowledge of other religions that much.

On the basis of that logic, I presume he is also not taking GCSEs in English and Maths.

Have not RTFT
BUT
RE is not compulsory.
You can withdraw your child from it.

Many schools have the opt out as part of year 9 options
so that only those who want to study RE have to

Bertrand
It is not compulsory for children to study RE if the parents sign the opt out form
and there is nothing to stop the school handing that form to all parents

Its compulsory. Not sure why you want to change the curriculum.

RE IS NOT compulsory : parents can request the opt out at any time
www.secularism.org.uk/your-rights--withdrawal-from-re.html