Can a school make Religious Studies GCSE compulsory? Can one withdraw?

[ParentOfOne]

One of the state, non-faith secondary schools we like makes GCSE in Religious Studies compulsory. This is in England.

It is not a deal breaker, but we would like to understand what the rules are.

At the open day, the school said that it's a national requirement. But that's not what the gov uk website says https://www.gov.uk/national-curriculum/key-stage-3-and-4 , and indeed not all schools even offer RS GCSE. So did the school just lie to us? Not a great sign!

So the question becomes: can a school make RS GCSE compulsory, or can parents object?

I am all for kids learning about religions, but my reservations are:

• It may be more useful to take other subjects at GCSE; it is still possible to study RS in earlier years without using up a GCSE subject for it
• No one can know if our child will grow up to be religious or not, but she is the kind of person who brooks no bullshit. The teaching of RS can be dogmatic in some schools.
• It is fine to study other cultures and religious theories and preferences, but we should also call out what is backward and scientifically unfounded - e.g. when the Catholic Church said that the HIV virus can still pass through condoms, or when some fundamentalists think that evolution is wrong.
• My concern is therefore twofold: I worry that some of this nonsense might be taught as valid, rather than as un unsubstantiated theory, and I worry that, with her attitude, she would react very badly to the teaching of this nonsense. These concerns are based on the experiences of some friends, in non-faith state schools elsewhere.

There are things that if written on a GCSE paper can get you disqualified (e.g. anything obscene or offensive). Writing extra information about the Catholic church would not be a problem I don't think. But if it's not in the mark scheme it may not get your child any marks.

@sprucinup Debunking your BS is becoming tiring.

Yes, condoms can fail.
Yes, condoms do not provide 100% safety.
No one has denied this, and no one has criticised the cardinal for saying this.

The cardinal was rightly called out for saying that the HIV virus can pass through the condom. This is bullshit. It's false. There's nothing subjective to opine on - it's simply false, as the World Health Organisation claimed.

And no, the cardinal didn't quote scientific studies to back this up.
He didn't quote a peer-reviewed study published on Nature, Lancet or the New England Journal of Medicine. No: as per your screenshot, he quoted a bullshit article published on the partisan "magazine" Studi Cattolici (Catholic Studies).

The cardinal didn't "clumsy misuse science" - he ignored the science available at the time, and cherry picked a non-peer reviewed article published by a partisan, non-scientific, Catholic magazine, and tried to pass that as the scientific basis for his lies and his backward views.

And no, the press didn't misrepresent this cardinal - he explicitly doubled down on his lies later, eg see https://www.catholic.org/featured/headline.php?ID=488

Of course a lot could be said on why a bunch of sexually repressed men who have decided to, supposedly, live in celibacy are so obsessed about sex, but that's another topic.

It's as if an American creationist tried to use an interview published on "Creationist Magazine" to try to claim that scientists are now doubting Darwin and actually think the Earth is 6,000 years old.

"No: as per your screenshot, he quoted a bullshit article published on the partisan "magazine" Studi Cattolici (Catholic Studies)."

As per the screenshot, he said "see the numerous studies cited by" the article which "hypothesise that ... the process of vulcanisation could contribute to ... the presence of microscopic pores".

@sprucinup
How much do you know about science? Do you know how peer review even works?
Peer-reviewed scientific articles published on reputable scientific journals do not "hypothesise" - they make claims backed by evidence.

I have a PhD in physics, so I know exactly how peer review works.

The "studies" (which I haven't seen) could well have been legitimate scientific studies in peer reviewed journals. Nevertheless, the cardinal should not have cited them in the way that he did. That is his flaw.

I think we broadly agree on this, but you are expressing yourself inaccurately and being confrontational, which brings us back full circle to the benefits of RE - specifically, the ability to express oneself accurately when discussing emotive topics relating to ethics, citing facts appropriately and in context.

My DS dropped RE at the end of Year 9 and never studied the subject again. He did have an ethics module during PSHE in Year 10. But nothing remotely similar in Year 11.

You'll note in the government link you provided that schools do have to teach religious education at KS3 and KS4.

Many schools decide that if you have to teach it and the kids have to learn it, then well, they might as well get a GCSE in it for their troubles.