Welcome back to a new school year! We hope that this year brings you new opportunities to shine!
The Religious Studies department is excited to be back, supporting our students achievements and creating opportunities to bring out the very best in our pupils!
Miss Bansal
GCSE and A Level Successes
We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate our Year 11s and Year 13s for all of their efforts and hard work last year. We are proud of all our students and the achievements that they have made!
Our GCSE cohort, outperformed students nationally, whereby 67% of our students achieved grades 5 or above. Compared to nationally where only 61% of the students achieved these grades.
At A Level, 100% of our students received grades A-D with 72% of the group achieving A-C.
A snapshot of our lessons
Here's a little snapshot of what's been going on in our classrooms this term!
Year 7: How are beliefs shown in the 6 world faiths?
Over the first half term, our Year 7s have been talking about what a belief is and where their own beliefs come from. They have explored how beliefs are shown in actions across the 6 world faiths and have been encouraged to question why they believe what they believe.
Year 8: How does evil and suffering pose a problem for God?
Our Year 8s started this term looking at what evil is and how this leads to suffering in the world. Students have explored the types of evil including moral and natural evil. They have explored how the existence of evil and suffering can lead to believers questioning God's omnipotence, omnibenevolence and omniscience.
Year 9: How important is the Trinity to Christians?
For the first half term, students have explored the nature of God within Christianity. They have looked at what the Trinity is and how God has three parts. Students have then gone on to explore the importance of Jesus and his role as the son of God. Students have explored the life of Jesus through role play where they have finished this term with re-enactments of the last days of Jesus.
Y10: 'All Sikhs should take part in worship.' How far do you agree?
This half term students have worked through looking at how Sikhs practice their beliefs through worship. This has included looking at the role and importance of Naam Japna, prayer and taking part in an Akhand Path. They have also looked at the role of the Gurdwara for the sangat and the importance of langar. They have concluded this topic by looking at the ways in which Gurpurabs are celebrated within the community.
Year 11: 'All human rights should be protected.' How far do you agree?
Our Year 11 students have been looking at the ways in which Sikh beliefs and practices tackle racism, prejudice and discrimination. They have looked at examples within society today, and discussed how individuals such as MP Tan Desi have realised awareness of the prejudice and discrimination that takes place. We have explored the ways in which prejudice and discrimination can be tackled and how we can promote racial harmony by following the examples of the Gurus.
Our 6th Form
In Year 12 we study ethical and religious concepts of equality, including gender, race and disability. In these photographs, Year 12 are working as a whole class group and looking at significant events in the progress of gender equality in the UK. They are specifically trying to place the events in date order without knowledge of the exact dates! In the majority they were generally correct in their predictions of timeline order, but "First female minister of state" and "The right to vote for women over 30" did cue some good class discussions.
Open Evening
On Tuesday 3rd October, we held our Open Evening for our Y6s.
Within our Religious Studies classroom, we had numerous activities for our students to get involved with including a mini escape room, a blockbusters quiz, a Zen area and a photo booth.
