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.

But the same point there is nothing to stop parents asking for it.

Most parents are usually quite happy with the provision of subjects that schools provide.

I suspect that the OPs school have gone down the route that many schools have and made all children sit the EBACC and included RE as a GCSE to help meet their obligations.

This then limits the subjects that the students can take, the OP's son has identified 2 that he would rather take than music, its a good lesson to learn that you can't always have everything you want.

My son's school had gone down the route of making RE a proper GCSE do that kids don't muck about. I am still exploring the possibilities of my son doin either drama or music after school. I am going to write it the county music service to see if they can organise an affordable GCSE course.

TBH in your situation, I'd take the drama outside school - as it has the biggest support network

do the music in school

and then threaten the school with the opt out information I linked

RE can be one of the most subversive subjects in the curriculum so I'm surprised if it is there because the "powers that be" benefit from it in some way; they don't.
Although not compulsory for your dcs to attend, it is compulsory for schools to provide it. Not necessarily as a GCSE obviously.

Why shouldn't ministers have to have experience themselves on the subject they're dealing with? Are there really no suitable candidates in the whole country who'd have such experience?

Civil servants who actually do the work never work out in the areas where their legislation impacts
why should politicians ?

Most MPs have never had ANY job outside politics nowadays

Most people don't want to be MPs. The pool of people who have relevant experience in a specialist area and want to be politicians is limited.

Yes you can withdraw your child but you're playing with semantics.

Practically, it is compulsory. The OP cannot withdraw her child so that he can do the Music GCSE he wants to, she can only withdraw him so he sits in the library twiddling his thumbs/getting other homework done.

Not shouldn't... just don't and it would be difficult to fit in a proper job when they start their political careers often before they leave university.. Its what they call the Westminster bubble. They do a degree in PPE (usually at Oxbridge), migrate onto being a MP's researcher, get a chance to stand in a constituency and work their way up from there.

Ministers used to have proper jobs before going into politics - until the 1980s - but the current batch don't.

Ed Miliband is a good example:-
After completing his A Levels, he read PPE at Corpus Christi College at the University of Oxford, gaining a BA, followed by the London School of Economics (LSE), where he studied Ecomonics and obtained an MSc. Before being famous, becoming first a Labour Party researcher and rising to become of Chancellor Gordon Brown's confidants, being appointed Chairman of HM Treasury's Council of Economic Advisers. He has been the Member of Parliament(MP) for Doncaster North since 2005 and served in the Cabinet from 2007 to 2010 under Gordon Brown.

Teachers do advise the Dept of Education, usually through the unions. Sometimes they are paid advisors, always they are lobbyists.

I know a senior civil servant. She was in a quango that got absorbed into a government department after she'd built up 20 years experience and had worked her way up the quango.
When the quango got absorbed she became a senior civil servant in that dept. However, it was seen as a disadvantage to be a specialist - probably because she started to recognise fresh policies as something that was tried and found flawed 20 years earlier. She kept quiet about this, but neither politicians nor more senior civil servants appreciate someone who actually knows their stuff.

There was no pressure, but it was made obvious that the only way she could develop her career was to move to a dept that she had no specialist knowledge in e.g. Health moving to Forestries.

I can see advantages in Ds using re time to do homework or have his guitar lesson.

another
The school could very easily make RE an option among others
It chooses not to

Practically, it is compulsory. The OP cannot withdraw her child so that he can do the Music GCSE he wants to, she can only withdraw him so he sits in the library twiddling his thumbs/getting other homework done.

That could be a distinct advantage, particularly if he ends up doing music or drama outside the school - he could use the time working on those. It's only fair given that he will have less time to work on school subjects out of school hours. Win-win.

As a convinced atheist, I nevertheless think it's fascinating to look into why humankind finds it necessary to worship a supreme being or beings - the trouble is that that isn't something that is covered in schools, mainly because the government won't let them. I think however that there is a value in making children study religions in the plural, if only so as to minimise prejudice based on religion; but that should be limited to including it in the compulsory curriculum up to the end of year 9. It should be unlawful for schools to make it compulsory to continue studying it for GCSE.

Dipankrisanevan

Surely pychology would answer your questions better than RE. I think that a basic understanding of the beliefs of the five/ six main religions/ world view points is valuable. It's a pity that atheism us not studied when quite a large part of the world's population has no religion.

However I am not sure that studying RE beyond GCSE is so essential as to make a whole GCSE compulsory. All GCSE subjects have some merit for study, but there is not enough hours in the day to do everything. Sadly it would be very easy to do RE or history or geography by correspondence course, yet there is very heavy pressure to do these subjects.

Bloody hell, you lot are precious aren't you.

"I can see advantages in Ds using re time to do homework or have his guitar lesson."

If he were to do homework then he would have to be supervised, or in the back of some other teachers class, not convinient and not cost effective for one on one supervision. Would you like him to go to isolation for this period, as thats how I can see it being workable.

The guitar lessons are not arranged around when it is convinient for your son but for the teacher or the peripatetic teacher. If neither of these are avaialable at this time then your son will be doing the above.

"It should be unlawful for schools to make it compulsory to continue studying it for GCSE."

But in fact the opposite is true, schools are required to provide some religious education.

So what they do is, make the students sit the full or half course GCSE so that they take it seriously and these lessons do not cause big behaviour problems. It also allows schools to hire and retain RE specialists and put it on the timetable for the whole school, rather than shoehorning it in somewhere else with non-specialsts. Also the latter shoehorn option has oft been criticised by OFSTED so having formal RE lessons just makes things clearer and easier for the school, and the majority of parents do want some form of religious and moral education.

Mumsnet is the only place where state schools and teachers are mistaken for customer service, you want bespoke service go private. You knew what the schools policy was when you joined, and if you didn't more fool you. As stated before, the dropping of RE will probably not result in the ability to take music. Nor is not getting a GCSE music at school a hinderence to progression to do it at higher levels.

Your just making a fuss, and the people backing you are the typical mumsnet fantasists and moaners, of course your precious children are more valuable than anyone elses in the school community, but only to you, remember that.

Mumsnet is the only place where state schools and teachers are mistaken for customer service, you want bespoke service go private.

Not an option for most people...

You knew what the schools policy was when you joined, and if you didn't more fool you.

Schools need more, not fewer, interested parents to suggest and help with improvements. Not all will be possible but why put people off at least asking?

But the suggested improvement is to drop something that they are required by the government to provide, and the school have chosen to do it in a way which makes it effective for them, as outilined above, no amount of "suggestions" will change that.

Yet again on MN this is another point when the school are being asked to change major things for the benefit of one child. There have been plenty of reasonable solutions set out for the OP, quite frankly she should have him do the LAMDA/Associated board exams and be done rather than ask the school to change policy.

When you work it out, your chlld's £4,500 funding ( if years 7-11) works out at the equivilant of £4.16 per lesson, pretty good value for money, stop stamping your foot because you didn't get one thing you wanted.

Also as a member of SLT, I'd say that schools do need feedback from parents, but not " suggestions" on how to improve from indiv iduals. We need a majority of parents to suggest and agree on policy changes through consultation, not changing things to suit the needs of one student.

If you did it by correspondence course, OP, it would completely remove the opportunity for discussion, debate, learning about and from the views of others. Pointless in other words!

longtimelurker
and I guess your SLT never choose to look at the practice in other schools - which includes making RE optional from year 10 - to see if it might enhance the education you offer

longtimelurker101, if you are truly a member of a school's SLT I despair of our future. You cannot spell, you cannot punctuate, yet you posit yourself on an internet forum, as a leader and an expert.

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/10480702/Religious-education-being-edged-out-of-school-timetables-illegally.html

Talkin making RE optional from Y10 isn't supposed to happen!

So what they do is, make the students sit the full or half course GCSE so that they take it seriously and these lessons do not cause big behaviour problems. It also allows schools to hire and retain RE specialists and put it on the timetable for the whole school, rather than shoehorning it in somewhere else with non-specialsts.

Given that religious education is compulsory, any secondary school that doesn't employ specialist teachers and put it on the timetable for the whole school would be extremely foolish - regardless of whether they make it compulsory for GCSE.

I really want to know what school employs longtimelurker and places him/her in the SLT team. Purely so that I can avoid it.

Sorry, first paragraph above should have been in bold to show it was a quote.