Key stage 4

While there is no legal requirement that students must sit public examinations, students deserve the opportunity to have their learning in the statutory curriculum subject of religious education accredited, and therefore there is an expectation that all pupils will follow a public examination syllabus throughout key stage 4.

For schools that do not offer the GCSE, the school must ensure that students are taught the following four core units and a minimum of three optional units. The course can be delivered from a single religious perspective or by using a thematic approach where more than one religion is studied. Where a thematic approach is used, a comparative study is expected. Links to personal experience and the wider community is needed throughout this key stage, and it is hoped that pupils will reach an understanding of the commonalities of spiritual experience as well as the diversity both within and between different traditions.

Core units	Related external link
Ethical issues: religion and equality
Ethical issues: religion and human relationships
Philosophy of religion: nature of belief
Philosophy of religion: nature of God

Optional units	Related external link
Good and evil	Philosophy of religion: the problem of evil
Death and the afterlife	Philosophy of religiion: life after death
Religion and medical ethics
Religion, peace and justice
Religion, wealth and poverty	Files on REStuff re: poverty and wealth