wolfie28

I went to my sons parents evening last week to discuss his choices for the coming school years. He begins year 9 or year 3 at big school as it was when I was a lad. It suprised me to find out that RE (Religious Education) was a core subject and couldn't be dropped at all .

Now I'm not a god fearing type or anything like that but it suprised me as History and Geography could be dropped. Is this throughout all schools or just his one .

Is this a statement to the world we live in that RE is more important today than our history or geography of the planet .

PeteBrant

Is this a church or religious school? Because you can certainly drop RE where my kids go/went.
RE is not a core subject on the national curriculum AFAIK

PeteBrant

oops - looks like it is


The National Curriculum for 11 to 16 year olds : Directgov - Parents

Choosing subjects to study in Years 10 and 11 : Directgov - Education and learning


Well bugger me - My oldest took RE as a GCSE - Not because he is particualrly religious - but felt it would give him a better understanding of the world - Which is fair enough.

I mean I don't think there is anything wrong in doing RE because it teaches you to respect ands understand religions (no matter whether you think they are a load of tosh)

However, I do struggle with the idea of it being compulsary.

wolfie28

Thanks for the reply Pete . No its not a religious school, just made me wonder.

Leslie

I agree with what you say about it providing a more rounded education.

Since this is still officially a Christian country, I think that initial basic RE should be
given to young pupils and which can be dropped if they choose to do so later.

Les

wolfie28

I agree with you Les/Pete however this choice seems to have been taken away by the education authorities.

Is RE more important than History or Geography in todays world? I don't know food for thought maybe?

PeteBrant

It's possibly more relevant. Importance is of course subjective. Like I said, I don't think that after 14, you should be forced to use school time for RE.

STi wanna Subaru

iTrader: (1)

No place for Religious teaching in schools. Well unless you lump it in with greek mythology etc.

Biggest thing they should look to be increasing is PE and don't let the lazy little ***** drop out of doing it with silly excuses. some healthy competition with the emphasis on team sports gives you more life lessons than any Re class could ever. Will also help solve the obeasity problem. An additional side benefit is that the kids who sya they have nothing to do at night may look to join a sports club.

PeteBrant

Of course there's a place for it - Teaching repsect and understand of other cultures and religions is incredibly important. Racism and bigotry is mainly born out of ignorance.

Whether you are religious is secondary. You aren't being taught in order to make you religious, you are being taught to understand those that are religious.

STi wanna Subaru

iTrader: (1)

It seems to create divides and anger in most to me. I get what you're saying but lets start with teaching simple morals and respect for each other without all the mumbo jumbo crap that is religion.

Hoppy

Religion is an extremely divisive subject, with predjudice generally based on ignorance. If RE was taught in an objective manner, covering all cultures and religions, that would be very productive IMHO. But if it's ramming Christianity down your throat, no thanks.

Richard.

r32

Didnt do me or my age group any harm, I think it does give a good basis. It isnt rammed down peoples throats its generally taught with tact and understanding.

The stories in the bible are generally good living standards that were used before lwas were introduced. You donr have to believ in God or Jesus, but the follow the examples to be a good human being.

STi wanna Subaru

iTrader: (1)

The people teaching RE will probably only have it as their second subject and in most cases just stick to the small area they know which will be based on Christianity. I always used to get kicked out of RE for wanting to question too many things. The teacher would get frustrated at not having any answers so saw fit to oust me from the class. Came to a head at a church service at school where I wouldn't sing as I saw it as making me a hypocrite. I was stood in the middle of the isle as an example. I loved it

STi wanna Subaru

iTrader: (1)

Look at the bible bashers marking down the posts against religion. Sad gits!

PeteBrant

That's exactly how it is taught - All religions are given equal prominence. My oldest was taught about all sort of religions and faiths and customs.

PeteBrant

Thing is, that despite what you and I feel about religion, a vast, and I mean a massive majority of the worlds population are religious. So in order to respect someone you have to understand them, and in order to understand them you need to understand the religion and culture they live thier life by.

STi wanna Subaru

iTrader: (1)

and you think that can be taught in a couple of hours a week? People spend their whole lives trying to understand their own religion. The nature of religion is there are infinitely more questions than answers. Maybe we should change it to cultural education and try give a better understanding of cultures. With the influx of eastern Europeans etc to our already multicultural society it makes more sense to me.

SetoN

R.E in schools is about 10% religion studies, and 90% world opinions such as abortion and euthanasia.

I wish i had chosen R.E at GCSE, everybody whom i spoke to got an A. There are no right or wrong answers. Express your opinion well and you get top marks.

PeteBrant

I know that someone that has been in an RE class for a few years will know infinitely more about cultures and religion than someone that hasn't.

But the cultures are based on religion and therefore the most effective way of learning the culture is learning the religion.

I am an Aethiest - But what you are doing is blinkering yourself because something is connected with religion and in your eyes, is therefore completely worthless. In other words, you are automatically dismissing anything to do with religion regardless of whether it might be beneficial - Which, to my mind, is no better than a religious person blinkering themselves to any form of acceptance of ,say, evolution.

PeteBrant

My son got a B






Thick sod.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

RE was made compulsory by the then Tory Government, in the person of Kenneth "Greasy" Baker and Maggie "Milk Snatcher" Thatcher, in the 1988 Education Act.

This was the act that brought in the National Curriculum, took 5 days holidays off teachers, boosted heads' pay at the expense of classroom teachers', and brought in the ridiculous "Baker" days, now known as training days. It also brought in the incredible 1095 hours MINIMUM on a teacher's contract, but NO MAXIMUM And the teaching unions had been neatly divided by the government and the heads' union, so did nowt

The RE thing was done as a sop to the church by the right wing.

Alcazar

myblackwrx

iTrader: (1)

Surely it all depends on how RE is taught (this may have been mentioned in previous posts) but when i were a lad there was no room in the lessons for speaking about the other major religions and if you did mention them you got bollocked so i ended up refusing to do RE.

PeteBrant

Nah, thankfully things have moved on a bit.

myblackwrx

iTrader: (1)

Also is it more important then history and geography as look at the Middle East crisis incoporates all 3 (not wanting to start a fecking debate about it please).

PeteBrant

Like I said, it is possibly more relevant., Importance is subjective.

Flaps

iTrader: (1)

I'm a secondary school teacher and I don't agree with the current curriculum structure at all. I believe students (we can't call them 'children' or 'pupils', stupid eh?) should be given the right to choose the subjects they take. Lets teach them something that they will find useful rather than forcing them to learn about a fictitious character who was meant to be born 2008 years ago!
Geography used to annoy me most. We spent ages learning about cloud formations, but not once did we look at a map of the world or learn how to plan a route from one place to another

PAS

iTrader: (4)

Not alot of parents know this but you can request your child to be withdrawn from RE if you want to. (We didn't know)

I work in a primary school (where my children did attend) and we were called in for a different matter with our youngest son going back 2 years. We got onto the subject of RE and his class teacher who was infact the RE coordinator. She informed us that it was a parents right to withdraw if they wanted to. We gave my son the option and he chose to withdraw. He just went to another class when it came round to RE lessons.

Now at secondary school, I would assume it is the same, I know they can withdraw from collective worship in the mornings if they want to as well.

Tracey

ScoobyWon't

I think RE, PE and Polish should be mandatory (alongside mathematics, English, Spanish and science) after all, we need the health and fitness and competition that PE promotes, RE teaches about different faiths and beliefs and contributes to harmony which can aid kicking racism out of sport and allow social cohesion, Polish will help our new friends integrate into society.

(Spanish should be compulsory so we can talk our way out of police cells after misbehaving at European football games or whilst misbehaving in Ibiza )

Sonic'

IIRC when I was at school we did RE for the first 3 years, after that it was in your options if you wished to continue with it

I opted out at that point as there were other subjects that I preferred to do

I dont think it should be dropped if taught in the correct way, I do have to say though I cant really remember too much of my RE lessons, our teacher was Jewish but also IIRC it had no bearing on the subject matter or biased in anyway

Sonic'

You could say the same about a lot of subjects taught at school where a few hours a week is not enough, thats a poor excuse saying there isnt enough hours