Religious Studies

Junior Cycle: Junior Cycle Religious Education focuses on developing knowledge, understanding, skills, attitudes and values to enable young people to come to an understanding of religion and its relevance to life, relationships, society and the wider world. The course is built around three interconnecting strands: Exploring Beliefs, Exploring Questions and Living our Values.  This is a non-exam subject and there are no CBAs to be completed.

Leaving Certificate: Religious education in the Leaving Certificate programme calls for the exploration of issues such as meaning and value, the nature of morality, the development of diversity and belief, the principles of a just society, and the implications of scientific progress to name a few. It has a particular role to play in the curriculum in the promotion of tolerance and mutual understanding. It seeks to develop in students the skills needed to engage in meaningful dialogue with those of other or of no religious traditions. It can be studied at Higher or Ordinary Level. 

The Religious Education Leaving Certificate programmes place particular emphasis on the preparation of students for the requirements of further education or training […] The syllabuses for Leaving Certificate emphasise the importance of a spirit of inquiry, critical thinking, problem-solving, self-reliance, initiative and enterprise. […] The student who pursues this course of study must assume the roles of critical questioner and reflective searcher.

It’s aims are: 

1. To foster an awareness that the human search for meaning is common to all peoples of all ages and at all times.
2. To explore how this search for meaning has found and continues to find expression in religion.
3. To identify how understandings of God, religious traditions, and in particular the Christian tradition, have contributed to the culture in which we live and continue to have an impact on personal lifestyle, inter-personal relationships and relationships between individuals and their communities and contexts.
4. To appreciate the richness of religious traditions and to acknowledge the non-religious interpretation of life.
5. To contribute to the spiritual and moral development of the student.

The course and its aims build on the topics that have been studies during the Junior Certificate programme. Students will study four sections and complete a Coursework project which is worth 20% of the overall mark. The final exam at Ordinary Level is 2 hours and at Higher Level 2.5 hours long.

Part one: This section is obligatory for all students. Section A: The search for meaning and values 

Part two: Students must study two sections from the following: Section B: Christianity: origins and contemporary expressions Section C: World religions Section D: Moral decision-making

Part three: Students must study one of the following for the terminal examination. The topic selected for examination must be different from those designated for coursework. Section E: Religion and Gender Section F: Issues of Justice and Peace Section G: Worship, Prayer and Ritual Section H: The Bible: Literature and Sacred Text Section I: Religion: The Irish Experience Section J: Religion and science

This year (2019/2020) in Donabate CC Religious Education was be offered as an extra subject, i.e. students have the possibility of sitting eight Leaving Cert subjects instead of 7. It will be offered during the current Ethics classes and PE classes.