1. Religious Studies GCSE
Edexcel 5RS01

2. Year 10
Pupils started the course in year 9 and will continue through until the end of year 10
Pupils will be assessed by two, 1 ½ hour exams in June.
Exams now take into consideration spelling, punctuation and grammar.

3. Religion and Society Topics
Religion: Rights and Responsibilities
How Christians make moral decisions using the Bible, Church Teachings and their conscience. Genetic Engineering, what it is and the Christian arguments for and against
Religion: Environmental and Medical Ethics
Global warming, pollution, Christian and Muslim stewardship, infertility treatments, religious views on the treatments, transplant surgery, religious views on transplant surgery.
Religion: Peace and Conflict
Issues of war and peace including the work of the United Nations, Pacifism, why wars occur, just war theory. Issues around bullying, issues around conflict and reconciliation
Religion: Crime and Punishment
The need for law and justice, including types of punishment especially Capital Punishment , why justice is important to Christians and Muslims. Issues around drugs and alcohol including Christian and Muslim beliefs.

4. Religion and Life Topics
The exam is split into 4 sections made up of the following topics:
Believing in God
Arguments for and against the existence of God including religious upbringing, religious experience, design and causation argument, the big bang theory, unanswered prayer and evil and suffering.
Matters of Life and Death
Issues relating to life and death including why Christians and Muslims believe in life after death, the morality of abortion and euthanasia and media coverage of religious views on these topics.
Marriage and the family
Religious views on aspects of family life including sex outside of marriage, importance of family life, divorce, contraception and homosexuality.
Religion and Community Cohesion
Issues concerning community cohesion in Britain including equal rights for women, multi ethnic and multi-faith society, government and religious actions to promote community cohesion.

5. Skills required for the exam
Defining key words
Justifying own beliefs
Explaining views of Christianity and Islam on topics studied
Evaluating a statement stating own opinion and recognising why people would disagree with their opinion.

6. Challenges
Pupils complete all of their exams at the end of the course (for us, the end of year 10).
This means pupils have to retain 2 years worth of information for the exams.
Pupils need to remember which topic is for which exam paper.

7. Response A joint text book has been made available.
Teachers will set homework essays on both papers through-out the year.
Additional lunchtime/after school revision sessions will be in place.
Additional revision may be offered at other times e.g. Easter Holidays, May Half term.

9. Ideas to help
Pupils need to have the opportunity to discuss the issues studied and hear a number of different views- it may work for some good dinner time debates!
Pupils need to watch the news, many of the topics are issues spoken about on the news e.g. locking in syndrome man requesting euthanasia back in July.
Pupils need to complete past paper questions for both units
Pupils need to be completing own revision for both units

10.
Past Papers

11. Past Papers

12. Final Grade Each paper is marked out of 84
The mark is then converted to a UMS mark out of 100
The two marks are added together to give a score out of 200
This score out of 200 is graded as follows
180- A*
160- A
140- B
120- C
100- D
80- E
60-F
40- G