Religious Studies still most popular subjects in England and Wales

RELIGIOUS NEWS AGENCY (REDNA) – The number of students in England and Wales taking a GCSE course in Religious Studies has  remained stable at 253,906, up by a margin of 0.3 per cent from last year. It is still one of the most popular subjects at GCSE, the seventh most taken, with only Maths, English, English Literature, Geography, History, and Sciences more popular.

30 per cent got the highest grade 7-9,  with RE among the top four subjects for high scoring results. But there is a warning in UCAS data from January, that applications to train to teach RE have fallen by a third on the previous year.

This coupled with the statistic that 26 per cent of RE lessons are taken by teachers with no post A-level qualification, has led the RE Council to continue calls for a national plan for the subject and for the reinstatement of bursaries for trainee RE teachers.