Religious Studies

‘Innovative’, ‘Creative’, ‘Open-minded’ and ‘Socially aware‘ are just some of the adjectives used to describe the Religious Education department at Sion Manning. The R.E. department aims to teach students about the importance of Religion to the individual and its role in society. Students are encouraged to think deeply about the world we live in and form educated opinions about the problems facing us as a human race.  Our aim is not just to develop educated students, but spiritually and morally aware human beings. The department strives to challenge the pupils to become active, positive participants of their community through the instilling of a strong sense of self-worth and compassion for others.  It is for this reason that R.E. is seen by the pupils as one of the most popular subjects in school.

Key-stage three focuses on the development of the Catholic Religion from its roots in Judaism, the Protestant Reformations, up to and including the main developments from the Vatican Councils. In doing this, key aspects such as the Local and Universal Church are studied with the emphasis on the Church as a means to Salvation.

At Key-stage four students have the opportunity to look at emotive, world- wide issues such as poverty, discrimination, war, personal relationships and birth and death. Topics that are studied include abortion, euthanasia, life after death and community cohesion. The R.E. team proves students with a well balanced curriculum with many and varied opportunities to express and develop their opinions and to enable them to become valuable members of their communities with a strong moral core.

Not all students who attend Sion Manning are of the Catholic faith, in fact this is what makes our lessons rich in debate and discussion. All students are encouraged to bring their beliefs, ideas and traditions to the classroom in a spirit of mutual respect, tolerance and understanding.

All content is taught via the use of literacy, numeracy and ICT skills. Drama, Humanities and Art are also incorporated into our interactive R.E. lessons. Many students find this cross curricular use of skills to be helpful in their learning and engaging. Students who show particular skill at R.E. have been given the opportunity to sit GCSE exams early. This year sees the beginning of the first Fast Track GCSE year 9 group. They will be allowed to sit their R.E. GCSE early and will so have the opportunity to study A Level Philosophy / Ethics in Year 11 in addition to all the other GCSEs.

The R.E. department has seen many successes in recent years, a particular success is the phenomenal improvement in A*-C grades from 48 % in 2007 to 64 % in 2009, an increase of 16 %.  With the change in the exam board to EDEXCEL, the present year 11s had the opportunity to sit their short course R.E. GCSE at the end of year 10. This cohort achieved 58 % A*-C which now means that they are well on their way to improve on the 64% achieved this year. The change in exam board also affords the year 11s the opportunity to re-take their year 10 exam and so improve their grade. Those students that have had good results will only have to concentrate on the year 11 work thereby reducing the workload and stress in year 11.

The R.E. department offers our students many opportunities to travel and learn in inspiring locations. Students recently had the chance to visit the bones of St Theresa that were being displayed at the local Carmelite Convent as part of their worldwide tour. We also visit Canterbury Cathedral annually and visit local places of worship in order to study the differences in the different Christian denominations. Last year saw the first international trip to Italy. During the February half term students and the R.E. department visited the ‘Eternal City’ where pupils had what many described as "the experience of a lifetime". This year the number of students going on the trip has doubled and we intend to add to the experience with a visit the tomb of St. Peter as well as to have an audience with his Holiness the Pope.