Religious Studies

Where The Subject Can Take You

Religious Studies at Norwich School aims to facilitate critical thinking, enable understanding and promote intellectual curiosity through collaborative learning to broaden personal development. These highly transferable skills as well as their ability to understand other people and what drives them make Religious Studies pupils highly desirable in a vast array of careers. Religious Studies is uniquely placed to foster and develop this process whilst maintaining a link between other subject areas in the school.

It offers pupils an opportunity to study the beliefs and practices of those who are both similar and different from them. It gives pupils a chance to explore their own response to different approaches to life and different perspectives on some of the big questions which all human beings face. It enables them to consider complex moral, philosophical and religious questions in a structured, justified and intelligent way and, at the same time, gives them an ability to understand and appreciate alternative and equally valid points of view. This allows students of the subject to have a wide range of options once they leave Norwich School. Aside from the more obvious theological or philosophical routes, pupils have gone on to study medicine, journalism, law and education.

Religious Studies is not just about conceptual thinking or critical textual analysis. It is also about feeling. It is about the development of an inner voice through inquisitive study. The subject can nurture the development of spirituality both in the classroom and in the wider school community. It is about heightening awareness of a reality which is greater than the purely tangible or material. Ultimately, it is about the opening up of the human spirit to its own potential. This clearly allows pupils a myriad of options once their education in the Close comes to an end and it has always been a delight to speak with Old Norvicensians about how their study of the subject at school has impacted them in their chosen pathways.

Despite the obvious secularity of modern life, the need for a more informed understanding of the great religious questions is as important as ever. Religious Studies at Norwich School aims to foster empathy, compassion, understanding and tolerance of religious traditions wherever they are found. It aims to allow pupils to approach difficult moral and ethical problems, some of which they themselves may well face in the future. Above all, the hope is that pupils leave Norwich School feeling confident to face up to life’s many challenges having embraced the unique experience and rich tradition of life in and around Norwich’s Cathedral Close. Consequently, no door is closed to pupils of Religious Studies.

Trips

The Religious Studies department runs a range of popular trips and activities. The department takes all U4 pupils to Neasden temple in London designed to support their study of Hinduism.

In M5, pupils visit Walsingham which is designed to enhance the delivery of the Pilgrimage unit of the GCSE but also give useful experience of topics such as Worship which they also cover at GCSE.

Those who have opted to take Religious Studies at GCSE also have the opportunity to visit a Buddhist temple in London during the Lent term of U5. This trip complements their study of Buddhist places of worship and worship (topics on the GCSE specification). It has always been an interesting and informative trip, giving the pupils experiential knowledge which can be used to enhance their examination responses.

The Sixth Form PRE groups attend relevant conferences in London and Cambridge as a means through which to consolidate and extend their learning.