...to expect students and parents to take my subject seriously?

[TeacherAnonymous123]

Issue coming from another thread I posted, so thought I would ask for people's opinions.

I teach Religious Studies at a Catholic Secondary School. As it is my subject, I am clearly biased, but I believe that students learning about other religions and cultures is extremely important for their development and attitude towards the world and other people.

As it is a Catholic school, students must take RS at GCSE. Their first exam in it is tomorrow morning and some of them are still apathetic, telling me that parents have said not to bother trying as it isn't an important subject and it doesn't matter if they fail.

Obviously this leads to a battle in lesson which I cannot win as I do not have support from parents.

So parents - do you think RS is an important and relevant subject? If not, why not?

I think it's a really interesting subject. Does it cover ethics too?

My DD goes to a Catholic secondary school and they have to do RS for GCSE. I'm quite happy with that. She is on Y7 now and they have RS 3 times per fortnight. I was actually surprised how much they study it, but no problem considering it being a Catholic school and as I said I think it's a great subject anyway. Lots to learn and understand that will be useful in life.

I think the parents are being really disrespectful and no wonder the students are like that if the parents tell them it doesn't matter. And while I actually don't really believe in church schools because I think all DC should get a good education - I certainly appreciate the funding that comes from the church which means there is a school my DD can attend that meets her needs.

I don't think there are many practicing Catholic girls as a percentage at DD's Catholic school. I think maybe 2/30 in her form. Firstly you have all those who might pretend to be practicing, then those who were baptised but don't practice, then Eastern Orthodox church probably most not practicing, then other Christians who may pretend to practice but don't, then Muslims practicing or not and then others who just want a well funded school applying to the school.

Coming back to this over a week later and still not a shred of evidence for why RE needs to be an independent subject, and more strawman accusations of ignorance from OP. I disagree heartily that it needs to be a GCSE subject in its own right, let alone a compulsory one; I disagree that it's always taught in a useful, comprehensive, thought-provoking and non-proselytising manner; and I disagree that any of that makes me more ignorant or less tolerant than anyone else on this thread. It's perfectly possible to be enlightened and tolerant without an RE GCSE 🙄

There isn't always a lot of choice, though. The only school that could meet my DC's needs was the Catholic school because they have extra funding and so have a good SEN department.

What is RPE?

@Riversideandrelax
Religion, Philosophy and Ethics.

I don't think you can. They have been told that it's a core subject, and they have to take it. Most see no validity in it, and so treat it as a less important GCSE because it isn't going to get them where they want to be having an A in RE, but a C in maths (for example) depending on what they want to do going forward for A levels, I'd probably tell me child to focus on the exams which will get them where they want to be, not the ones that won't. All you can rally hope for, is that you peak their interest, or tech them about world religions and beliefs in an engaging way, whilst also accepting the exam component may be poor

But if you are a catchment school then there will be kids who go there for that reason and they may not have an option of anywhere else.

to answer your question, in an ideal world, yes I want my kids to do their best and put in effort in every class. But for instance my oldest was very stressed during GCSEs and found juggling so many subjects difficult so I did tell her to not worry so much about PE and Geography as they were her weaker subjects and to concentrate on her stronger subjects to get the required grades in them to stay on for A levels.
Like it or not, RS isn’t as important to future study/employment as other subjects.

I do think though, if you go to a Catholic school, your kids should expect to study RE. Just like people from England move to Wales, then kick off when their kids have to do a Welsh gcse in a school in Wales.

I grew up Catholic. Catholic family, Church, the lot. Hated RE and was an atheist by gcse, but got an A, because I'd been to church and could formulate a good argument. It was the easiest gcse I took, so I really don't get why kids, especially in faith schools, don't just get on with it. Regardless of where it gets you, it's still a gcse on your list.

But frankly, when it comes to GCSE, none of the subjects that you dont take further mean anything apart from English and maths. I have a B in Chemistry ( and RE). Neither of them are any use, because I didnt go into a science related area. My RE was arguably more important as it enabled me to practice argumentative writing, looking at ethical issues etc. The chemistry has been absolutely of no use.
I agree that if you go to a Catholic school you just have to get on with it and do the RE GCSE. Same as if you go to any other Christian denomination school. Most Catholic schools are not catchment schools. They are there for the Catholic community. Even the first looked after children category is Catholic looked after children. If there are spaces after that, then they will take children from other Christian denominations, and then they will take others. Non Christians is about 7th on the list of criteria for all the Catholic schools I know. Church of England may be different re catchment schools, But most of the time, parents have looked at the results of the school, done some quick baptism on their kid and have tried to get into the school and them moaned when the religious school has religious teachings. DS thinks he has messed up his RE GCSE, so this probably wont happen, but he wants to do history and politics at A Level. The RE A Level, where they look at religious beliefs and practices and comparisons between different beliefs and none would have been quite useful to do at A Level and complimented those subjects well. Most of DS's class is now either atheist or agnostic despite all being brought up Catholic, so if they are indoctrinating children into religion, they aren't doing a very good job of it.

I think it depends on the area. At one point, the only state school option that was open to us was the local Catholic school, which is undersubscribed. Luckily, we got a place off the waiting list for our preferred (non-religious) school in the end, but I know others who ended up going to the Catholic school because they had nowhere else. I don't think you can always assume that people have made an active choice to send their kids to a Catholic school.

I do think it varies a lot from school to school. Most of the teaching at my DD's Catholic school is about Catholicism including about personal faith. For example in Y7 topics are 'revelation and faith', 'the saviour', 'the sacraments'. They do learn about another world religion each year in KS3- Hinduism, Islam and Judaism. Looking at the curriculum map it looks like there's some ethics in the older years. But much less so than when I was at (non-Catholic) secondary school.

You don't have to confirm your adherence to that religion to get into a faith school.

Yep, and sometimes a faith school might be the only state school available to you, even if you'd far rather send them to a school with no religious affiliations. It really annoys when people assume that it's always a choice.

IMHO YABU - RS isn't actually a vital subject. It's like studying Classics or Citizenship - a filler GCSE for people who don't know what else to take.

As for expecting students and their parents to take it seriously on the basis that it's at a Catholic school - I imagine assemblies and events are already saturated with Catholic themes. Why would they want to think about other religions?

YANBU - learning about other religions is crucial to understanding the world around us. Just look at what is happening at the moment.

I'm relieved to hear it's a syllabus where the learning is about other religions. My catholic convent school also made us do RE and it was all bible based study.

It depends on the curriculum though. In a massive comp I would expect they look at a range of religions. The OP only teaches about RC Christianity and Judaism. That's not really helpful in understanding the rest of the world.

2.38 billion Christians in the world in 2021 (World Population Review) and 15.7 million Jews. Around 8 billion people in the world altogether. I think it's probably worth learning about the beliefs of over a quarter of the world's population. And others, too, of course.

But the OP isn't teaching Christianity, she is teaching RC Christianity, that is 1.39 billion in the world who are baptised, that includes people like myself, I'm an atheist but happened to have an RC Christening when I was too young to know what was happening.

For someone living in England you would think there would be some teaching of the Church of England.

Jewish people make up tiny percentage of people in the UK.

Teaching / learning about two minority faiths doesn't really broaden your horizons, make you appreciate different cultures or understand world religions.

I think time is better spent on other subjects.

The only thing I remember about RE is the abortion video they wanted to show us but my parents wouldn't allow me to take part.

That would only be at GCSE level though, and only one exam board. My DC's GCSE syllabus is Catholic Christianity and Judaism, but before gcse they study all major religions. It looks like religious schools choose to do the Edexcel syllabus because you can concentrate on one religion and do another religion in less detail. And even then, you have to discuss the validity of the beliefs against what others believe. You can discuss atheistic beliefs in conparison to religious beliefs and other christian denominations.
If you don't do RE, you wouldn't study any of them, so are people saying schools should teach all religions all the way through or no religion at all? In the US, the public schools are strictly secular. If people want religious education, they have to pay. It has done nothing for harmony or tolerance at all and seems to have had the opposite effect.

@DramaLlamaBangBang in the US they do learn about religion. It will come under the social studies umbrella.
It's learning ABOUT religions - not having a religious education.

But the OPisn't teaching Christianity, she is teaching RC Christianity
Isn't that a bit like saying, 'Oh, Miss isn't teaching Shi'ite Islam, she's teaching Sunni!'? And what do we say about Hinduism, 'religion of India'? Which version or aspect of Hinduism would you consider canon?
The people who teach religious studies will do so in a way that suits the people who are paying them. In an RC school, you might get RC Christianity. But you'll get teaching about belief and practice just as you would studying any religion. It's incredibly helpful.
I was very fortunate in having a very thorough and committed RE teacher in Year 9. In one year, she taught sound rudiments of Judaism, which we needed to understand the Christianity we would study for GCSE. Jesus not being a Christian, but a Jew. That was in a C of E church school.
At University, I studied aspects of religion, including some Biblical Studies, some Church History, some Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Ancient Greek religion, philosophy and sociology. I didn't study Islam and Sikhism until later. Overall, I spent about forty years involved in the study of religions.
GCSE Religious Studies used to involve gathering information, forming your opinions, expressing both sides of an argument and supporting your own position. If it still does that, I am in favour of it.