Competition - post a photo you've taken of nature >>

Dropping compulsory subjects

Hello I’m in year 9 and I’m wondering what are the rules of dropping a compulsory subject.

I would like to drop re but I’m not sure how to, on my school website it says All students undertake the R.E. GCSE from Year 9. The final exam is sat at the end of Year 10.

Can someone explain what they mean by this and if I’m allowed to drop it, and anything I can do like bring a parent into school

Reply 1

username5794123

Don’t think you can drop a compulsory subject. You have to either take GCSE RE or you have to move to a different school that doesn’t make RE compulsory (and I’m not really sure if any schools like that still exist, tbh).

(edited 2 years ago)

Reply 2

user432

why drop re? you dont even need to revise to pass

Moved to GCSEs

What reason would you give for dropping it? You can't claim it's because don't believe in it. As all RE GCSEs involve more than one religion everyone doesn't believe in some of it.

Reply 5

englishhopeful98

Original post by Depressed44

ask them

Reply 6

black tea

Original post by 0ptics

My old school still makes top set do philosophy rather than RE

Reply 7

EOData

Original post by black tea

My old school still makes top set do philosophy rather than RE

There isn't a GCSE in Philosophy - what do they study?

Reply 8

username5319484

Original post by 0ptics

My school didn't offer re lol

Reply 9

username5794123

Original post by hungrysalamander

My school didn't offer re lol

When you say “didn’t offer”, are you saying that you couldn’t even pick it at your school? That’s weird…

Reply 10

username5319484

Original post by 0ptics

When you say “didn’t offer”, are you saying that you couldn’t even pick it at your school? That’s weird…

Private school things. It wasn't a GCSE option.

(edited 2 years ago)

Reply 11

AliceKS

Original post by 0ptics

When you say “didn’t offer”, are you saying that you couldn’t even pick it at your school? That’s weird…

maybe they couldn't find a teacher for it so didn't have the resources to teach it/offer it

Reply 12

username5794123

Original post by black tea

My old school still makes top set do philosophy rather than RE

How on earth do they decide who gets to go in top set to do philosophy? Do they just look at the student as a whole or do they base it on how they performed in RE in earlier years? Either way, that seems like a bizarre thing to do.

Reply 13

username5794123

Original post by AliceKS

maybe they couldn't find a teacher for it so didn't have the resources to teach it/offer it

That’s a possibility. Could be that.

Reply 14

EOData

Original post by 0ptics

When you say “didn’t offer”, are you saying that you couldn’t even pick it at your school? That’s weird…

As you have to teach it a bit a lot of school used to make students take the short course GCSE (the size of half a GCSE). When that stopped being counted in league tables about 6 years ago a huge number of schools stopped making their students take any RE exams. I expect all the faith schools offer it as an option at the least, but quite a lot of other schools don't - not that many teenagers volunteer to study RE.

(edited 2 years ago)

Reply 15

black tea

Original post by EOData

There isn't a GCSE in Philosophy - what do they study?

They don't do an exam.

Reply 16

black tea

Original post by 0ptics

I'm not really sure - I started in that school during GCSEs and was just put in top set for everything based on my report from my old school

Reply 17

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

RS isn't a course in religious scripture requiring belief, it's a course in comparative religion considering world religions from an academic viewpoint. This is important in fostering cultural awareness, tolerance, and acceptance, which is a key skill you will require well beyond your GCSEs in your personal and professional life. I think it might be a national curriculum requirement in any case to provide RS at all key stages anyway so the government mandate it in any case. Even if you didn't do a GCSE in it you would still be required to attend lessons in the area.

As such I doubt you will be able to drop it, and even if you could you ought not to.

(edited 2 years ago)

Reply 18

imweird

Original post by Depressed44

hi, in my school the only subjects they force you to do is french for GCSE all other subjects (except cores) you can drop make sure you ask a teacher if it's GCSE R.E or it's core where you don't do an exam because in my school students who DON'T pick GCSE R.E still have to do a core for some reason