Subject Intent

The Religion, Philosophy and Ethics curriculum at John Ferneley College focuses on the development of students’ spiritual, moral and social attributes and cultural knowledge and awareness. Within these lessons, we create a safe space for students to have discussions about sensitive topics; this in turn, strengthens their cultural and moral personal development and aids them in forming their own opinions, free from judgement and outside influences. Religion, Philosophy and Ethics provides a framework and a structure to help students unpick the big questions of belief and practice, of society and culture and of morality and philosophy. We have carefully created a bespoke curriculum which is responsive and designed to meet the needs of our students at John Ferneley College.  

Students will learn about how religions have evolved throughout the centuries and will be taught, in depth, about the impact that religions have on our lives today. We will help students to develop the skills to approach situations with empathy, respect and understanding. Students will explore the importance of community, the injustices of prejudice and a range of both religious and non-religious world views. This will allow students to have a deeper and broader understanding of other subjects within school, and understand why Religion, Philosophy and Ethics is such an important subject within the curriculum. Religion, Philosophy and Ethics currently targets our KS3 cohort, but there will soon be the opportunity for GCSE. 

The curriculum focuses on three key themes. These themes are woven throughout our curriculum, enabling us to focus on a wide breadth of topics: 

• Religion and Life
• Peace and Conflict
• Human Ethics and Morality

During our Religion and Life theme, we focus on beliefs about omnipotent deities, how people express their spirituality and Leicestershire and Nottingham’s multiculturalism.  

Within our Peace and Conflict theme, we focus on the nature of suffering, the differences between Moral evil and Natural evil and how religion, previously and in the present day, has been a cause of conflict. 

We also want our students to have an acute focus on morality and what this means in different situations. Our Human Ethics and Morality theme seeks to understand different philosophical thinkers and assess their ideas, and to understand the difference between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ and how, at times, this can be conflicting.  

We apply these themes, ideas and thoughts to current situations and through this, support students in understanding their own behaviour and developing their own opinions.  Students will be able to use the skills acquired in this subject to improve their moral judgement and develop their knowledge and awareness of different cultures and worldviews. 

 

Subject Journey