...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?

Should be like in the US and forbidden in public education.

I can understand though if you sent your child to a Catholic school you have to expect it though. Anything you learn in an RE lesson you can easily learn outside. It was the most pointless subject when I was in school. Anything I want to know about religion I Google it.

As well as the subject content being really useful the skills this subject gives young people such as essay writing, forming a balanced argument etc are useful for so many careers and will also support their learning in other subjects. I am biased as my son did A level and my daughter is doing GCSE and absolutely loves it. Some of these parents have very closed minds.

I'd guess your issues stem from the kids being forced to sit a GCSE in a subject they're not interested in.

I'm an ex Science teacher and we (as a main subject) got a lot of kickback from kids who hated the subject and didn't want to sit an exam. We tried running a BTech but that is a lot of work too and the kids were miserable.

At the end of the day, by GCSE year the kids mostly know what they need to go on to study what they want to and I'd wager RE rarely features.

I do agree that your subject is an important one in terms of knowledge of different religions (especially in these days of right wing nutjobs like Tommy Robinson spreading blatant lies about Islam on SM etc) and I'm glad all kids have to do some RE but would I suggest my child study it or use their time to revise for that rather than eg Maths and English, absolutely not.

I do think an understanding of RE is semi important, just because so much of our cultural heritage is based in religion. You can’t study literature or art (or even medicine or politics) without a knowledge of RE for example. That said, requiring RE all the way up to GCSE is a bit excessive.

Career-wise, having RE as a GCSE makes no difference to about 99.999 percent of people. No job description I have ever seen has specified GCSE RE. It is kind of baffling that it is required for GCSE.

I did RE for A level and really enjoyed it. It was a RC grammar but I don't think I recall anything presented as 'fact' but factually correct in how certain religions came to be, their rituals, practice, morals etc. I also enjoyed the morality aspect (euthanasia, abortion, death penalty etc). I think that RE really supports critical thinking.

Regardless of whether parents think it's a worthwhile subject or not, we were encouraged to study hard for every subject to get the best change for moving into 6th form.

Very important to learn religion and different faiths at school. Don't agree with schools connected with faiths as it increases segregation.

I took RE for GCSE as I knew I would get an A in it.
My brother's school had to do RE GCSE in year 8.

For some people, RE is just not important as they don't see the transferable skills it can bring in a secular society

I went to a Catholic High school where is was mandatory to take RE as a GCSE subject. My parents are Catholic and we went to church every week. Whilst they encouraged me to do some revision they also said it was more important to focus on the core subjects and epescially maths and science which weren't my strong points. So even though religion is important to us a a family I would have preferred using the option to chose soemthing else I wanted to study (I miraculously!! scraped a B with very limited revision)

From a quick google it looks like the Catholic RS GCSE has them look at either Islam or Judaism and half the marks are for a paper solely on Catholicism. So much for learning about other faiths and cultures.

yes but there is a big difference in just having lessons in it and having to spend time revising it for a gcse exam and having your options narrowed down because of it.

My daughter hates school, but she absolutely loves RE, she will be keeping it as a subject for GCSE. I also think if you send your children to a school that keeps that as a subject you should be encouraging them to excel as you would later in life. To say they start a job and hate one element of it, isn't to then say well just don't do that bit then!

I don't think it is important and if my kids had to do it and were under pressure it would be the first subject I'd suggest that they sacrifice. I'd be really annoyed if the best school locally was a faith school funded by the government, but the children needed to do RE to get to a good school. I think I'd look to make all schools secular.

Its paramount we learn about other religions, cultures and belief systems to allow for societal cooperation and peace. Very important and not to be shrugged off. That said I can see how it's deemed less important at that age when literacy, numeracy skills etc are so vital. RE is important but I understand that the other subjects take precedence by default.

It's not taken seriously in schools where I live but it's as important as history, politics, social studies.

Around 85% of the world population identifies in someway with Religion so it isn't going anywhere despite rises in religious apathy and atheism etc.

Religion for better or worse informs people actions, thoughts and how they operate within society. Understanding how these belief systems work and how they interact with other systems is actually incredibly important to understanding our world. I don't disagree op but I'm not sure how you reconcile that with younger students who are focusing on other vital skills acquisition.

So you're not unreasonable to expect it but I'm not sure you'll see the change you want anytime soon!

Yes and it our school the reason they do RE gcse is because they get good results for it as a lot of the students are muslim, so they do christianity and islam. So teaching islam to a cohort who are a high proportion of muslims. So, where's the whole argument for expanding their knowledge of other faiths and cultures etc? Just doing it for the results obviously.

Comefromaway, good point. But if parents have chosen to send their children to a religious school and have presumably had to confirm their adherence to that religion they should be encouraging their children to take the subject seriously. Otherwise the word hypocrisy may apply.

Raised RC and went to Catholic school where RE was compulsory to GCSE. Yes some of the content is interesting but it can be covered in other pastoral care classes or in history (knowledge of other religions for example was on our history syllabus). For me, RE was an utter waste of a GCSE and I argued at the time that I’d prefer to do individual sciences or History. However I don’t agree with parents telling their students that a specific subject doesn’t matter, that’s not helpful for anyone. Out of interest, how many students do you think would choose to keep RE as a subject if it was elective rather than compulsory?

@TeacherAnonymous123 I wonder if you teach at my DS's secondary school!!

He's at a Roman Catholic state secondary school in London. All pupils have to take RE GCSE, but a year early (end of year 10).

Yes, I fully support it. It's interesting. It's another GCSE. But then I did it at A-level as I found it interesting.

However, DS knows that he has no choice but to take all his subjects seriously!!

In my school everyone had to do it as a short course GCSE (if they didn't choose it as a full option) and hardly anyone took it seriously. I didn't either, put in zero effort (still managed to get an A* somehow) but I ended up doing it for A Levels and found it much more interesting then, when it was more about philosophy and ethics than comparing different religions and things like that as it was in GCSE. If it had been like that at GCSE level I would have taken it much more seriously. I'm glad my DD gets to do philosophy and ethics instead of religious studies (live abroad now, children have to do religious studies if they belong to a church - been christened - but if they don't then they can do 'worldviews' studies instead which is far more interesting)

We were forced to do CDT, because it had been proposed as a National Curriculum change. It never went through, but our Head of Key Stage 4 insisted we all continue as “it’s an extra GCSE”.

Endless hours of drawing useless diagrams and trying to build a wooden CD Walkman case (showing my age here) - all for a useless black box and an even more useless E grade GCSE. I could have done a useful (for me) subject and earned the money to BUY a bloody CD case!!

Not that I’m bitter 😏

Absolutely agree - the parent knew the situation when they choose the school and therefore that is what they agreed to. I think its really poor if they then do not take the subject seriously.

I was so glad mine wasn't forced to do it at GCSE. There were so many more useful and relevant (to him) things to choose. Some still choose to do it at his school and IMO it's definitely one of the easier ones (from what I've seen as a reader/scribe in exams). If mine had been doing it as a GCSE though I would have supported the teacher and got him to revise.

This isn't anything new I went to Catholic high school where RE was compulsory along with the GCSE, I didn't take it particularly seriously I enjoyed the lessons but put in zero effort apart from completing homework and course. I did no revision and managed to scrape a C in the gcse which in my book was bonus GCSE as I didn't need it for further studies etc. My parents were indifferent to RE as a subject and ranked it well below maths, English, science subjects, geography and history probably putting it in the same group as art, music etc so nice to have but not an essential for what I wanted to do (science based).

The Academy Trust schools my children went/go to all required Ethics (RE) as a GCSE topic that they sit in Year 10. Youngest does the 1st paper tomorrow. It is a good way to for them to get an idea of what to expect in Year 11 when they sit the rest.

I do think learning about Ethics is important as many don't learn about such things at home around here by the look of it. As for the Religion element, I'm an atheist, but I do think that learning about the various religions is important. It can't all be covered in History classes, but religions are the 'reason' for so many events in history, it's something people need to understand and learn from. It's not about 'believing' in religion; it's about understanding the world and religious views of others and learning to work with them somehow. Current wars and migration/refugee patterns are linked to religious disputes/differences, and people need to understand the various things that are driving it, including religion, and that involves education.

I do believe state schools shouldn't be allowed to 'be' religious, though. I think schools should be secular and worshiping any gods shouldn't be a part of the state school system.

But that’s not true. Maths English science and whatever you want to study for a level comes before RE.

@ThisKookyBlueSnake they do study religion in American schools.
It will come under titles like "World Religions" or "Comparative Religions" - I believe they are optional (an "Elective") in High School.
In Elementary and Middle schools (up to age 14) it will come under Social Studies.

@DataColour I followed up with did you mean it's compulsory for a GCSE subject at your children's school?
I agree it shouldn't necessarily be an exam subject.
I am a bit believer in there should be more learning because it's important, interesting and useful - not because you might get a grade at the end of it.