Welcome to the Religious Education Department at Rushcliffe School

Rushcliffe School is a multi-cultural and multi-faith community. This is reflected in the aims of Religious Education to create a better understanding about other religions in a student friendly and happy environment. We learn about the beliefs of all six major religions and how these beliefs affect people’s lives .

Location

There are two specialist R.E. rooms, 114 and 115, located in A Block and well known for their bright and colourful displays. All our resources are located in these rooms for easy access both rooms are equipped with a digital projector.

Staffing

Head of Department: Miss C Taylor

KS4 staff also includes Miss Jenkins, Mr Watson, Mr Rick and Mr Boothroyd from the History Department.

In Year 7 the students investigate Rushcliffe as a multi faith, multi cultural society using IT investigative skills / personal resources. Judaism as a major world religion is studied in more detail.

Students in Year 8 study Religion as a journey of life, learning about & from Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism.

1. VALUES IN ACTION– looking at decision-making and what is important to people
2. CHRISTIANITY- Learning about and from Christian beliefs and practices, focusing on looking at the life, teachings and death of Jesus through art
3. PREJUDICE AND EQUALITY (GCSE MODULE):

• Introduction to key terms and the history of racism
• Case study - Martin Luther King
• Christian teachings about prejudice and equality

In all units of work we learn about and from major world religions in a well structured, organised class setting using group work, IT, project work, discussion, display, art, role play and other active learning tasks.

All units are assessed in a positive way using the Eight-Level scale (adapted for individual tasks from the Nottinghamshire Agreed Syllabus) .

In Key Stage 4, pupils follow the OCR GCSE syllabus, studying the units:

• Christian Perspectives on personal, social and world issues
• Islam

Year 10 - Take the Christian Perspectives course which includes studying units on:

• Christian beliefs and how Christians make moral decisions
• family and relationships
• birth and death issues
• war and peace

Year 11 - Study Islam which includes the following units:

• Beliefs and sacred writings
• Community an Family
• Places and forms of worship
• Festivals and Special Days

At the end of Year 10 pupils choose whether to complete:

the ‘Short Course’ = half a GCSE

OR

The ‘Full Course’ = oneGCSE

Assessment at KS4

In both Year 10 and 11 pupils will complete exam questions on each unit that they study. Between April and May in Year 10 pupils sit an internal exam and in December Year 11 pupils have a mock exam. These are marked according to internal mark schemes using the OCR grade descriptions (Grades = A*- G) for guidance

Full course pupils complete a 1,500 word essay for the Islam unit in October of Year 11 and a 1,500 word essay for the Christian Perspectives unit in February of Year 11

GCSE RESULTS (2007):

As a department we are always rewarded with excellent GCSE results.

Full Course – 100% pass (A*-G grades)

(95 students) 78% A*- C grades

Short Course – 97% pass (A*-G grades)

(114 students) 24% A* – C grades

AS Results (13 Pupils)-

Grade A - 4 Students
Grade B - 3 Students
Grade C - 3 Students
Grade D - 1 Student
Grade E - 1 Student

We introduced the AS course at Rushcliffe School last year and hope to build on the success of our GCSE students in our AS results.

Pupils follow two main strands throughout the AS and A2 course:

• Buddhism
• Philosophy of Religion

We follow the OCR syllabus and students can access past papers on the internet.

In Year 12, pupils study a foundation module in both strands followed by more detailed units on Buddhism and Philosophy of Religion.

In Year 13, pupils study further units on Buddhism and Philosophy of Religion followed by a synoptic unit that connects Buddhist philosophy with the philosophy of religion.