All students in the fifth forms will follow the AQA Short Course GCSE. This is taught in two lessons per week, fulfilling the legal requirement for Religious Education, but also allowing the pupils to obtain a Short Course GCSE grade on their final certificates. The demands are not great as the students sit 2 x 1 hour examinations. There is no coursework.

This syllabus is proving to be extremely popular. The aim of the course - Thinking about God and Morality - is to allow the students to identify, investigate and respond to the fundamental question of life raised by religion and human experience. We consider arguments for and against the existence of God, the problems of suffering and evil and the meaning of religious experience.

In order to understand the effect of religious belief, we investigate the meaning of moral authority and absolute and relative morality. This is then applied to issues of life and death, to relationships and to global issues. Such topics as euthanasia, marriage and animal rights belong to this section.

We believe that this course will teach pupils to think, to reason and to evaluate the fundamental issues concerning our existence in this world. AQA Syllabus D2344