Whole year group RE lessons. Odd?

[youarenotkiddingme]

Just wondering how usual this is.

Secondary school now having 'mass RE'

Basically like an assembly in the hall with whole year group for the hours lesson - run by 1 teacher and is called the RE lesson.

It's obviously acceptable and 'legal' or they wouldn't be doing it but I'm wondering if it's really going to be a decent level of RE education and if it's worth doing RE at all this way?

It's compulsory to teach the subject to GCSE age-but it is not cumpulsory to take the exam. Maybe the school is not offering it as an option, and is using this to meet the statutory requirement?

Particularly as the new RE GCSE is much harder than the old one.

I know of a school where due to cutbacks and staff shortages RE was dropped as an actual subject and the compulsory content was covered in other lessons, assembly or specific off timetable days during the year.

Sadly schools are being forced to take very difficult decisions due to funding.