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Department Reviews

RELIGIOUS STUDIES

We started off the year celebrating yet again an excellent set of exam results. For the first time two girls had taken an Advanced Extension Award in RS; both were awarded distinctions and Rosy Hall, last year’s winner of the AC Grayling prize for Moral Philosophy, was commended for achieving one of the top ten marks in the country. This year’s SFC2s have impressed us with their commitment to Religious Studies and we are pleased that more than a third of them have chosen to go on to study Theology at university next year.

We have welcomed a series of well known speakers to College again this year. In February, we held our fourth RS conference for A level students with over 400 in attendance, including some parents and friends. The first talk was by Julian Baggini, editor of The Philosophers’ Magazine who spoke on the objectivity of moral statements. He made connections between the two parts of the A level syllabus, philosophy of religion and ethics, raising again the perpetual problem of the Euthyphro dilemma, first stated by Plato – ‘Is what is pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved?’. Next we heard the eminent scholar Professor Brad Hooker examine new approaches to utilitarianism and the relationship between morality, rules and consequences. The final session of the morning was led by Revd Canon Professor Martyn Percy who provoked us into examining our own moral boundaries. Amongst other things, he has been Director of the Advertising Standards Authority and he thrilled the audience with his racy slide show of poster adverts. Some of those which were not approved by the ASA were not for the faint hearted! In the afternoon, the three speakers debated in a panel-style question and answer session, facing difficult questions on war and politics. Martyn Percy had been due to leave us early in order to meet the Archbishop of Canterbury, but was so enthralled with the standard of debate and the comments of the girls that he decided the Archbishop could wait!

For the first time this year we organised a conference for RS teachers in the summer term. The aim was to keep us up to date with developments in Theology and Philosophy and to provide an opportunity to discuss common areas of interest and concern with other RS teachers. We were addressed first by Revd Professor Keith Ward, former Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford University, who has spoken at College regularly over the past few years but never fails to inspire and encourage. This time he spoke to us about current issues in Religious Studies and on the religious possibilities of quantum mechanics (to which we welcomed several members of the Science department). He was followed by Dom Henry Wansbrough, well known teacher at Oxford University and Ampleforth, famed not only for his Biblical scholarship but also for his rollerblading skills! He dealt with issues in Christian Ethics and the problem of resurrection and the afterlife.

Philosophy Society remains as popular as ever for SFC girls, with talks this year by Reynaud de la Bat Smit on the existentialist Camus, Dr David Webster from the University of Gloucestershire on Kant, Alistair McConville on Marx and Ben Morrison from Oxford University on language games. We took all SFCs studying RS to hear AC Grayling talk at the Cheltenham Literature Festival on the subject of liberty. Lower College Philosophy Club has seen a make-over this year and has been rebranded as Philosophy Café, complete with milk, cookies and beanbags. The themes this year have included philosophy in art, dance, literature and film, with the Harry Potter session attracting the largest crowd, unsurprisingly! Sixth formers have helped to run these sessions this year and everyone has benefited from their enthusiasm.

The department is now running more trips than ever before and the hands-on experience which this gives the girls is of great benefit when they return to the classroom. We repeated our joint RS/Biology trip for the LC3s to London with visits to The National Gallery and The Natural History Museum. The girls responded with great maturity to the paintings and produced some excellent follow-up work on religion and art which has since brightened up the walls of the RS department. We have some budding future art historians amongst us! The visit to The Natural History Museum enabled them to consider the response of religion to evolution and questions of the compatibility of religion and science. The trip ended with our customary visit to Pizza Hut on the way home, whose staff say that they are amazed how much pizza and ice cream can be devoured so quickly by 143 hungry girls! The UC4 trip to Coventry Cathedral and The Buddhist Forest Hermitage monastery was as successful as ever with the girls ending the day with a meditation session led by one of the monks. In the summer term, all LC1 girls enjoyed the vivid play of the life of Jesus, enacted every year at Wintershall, near Guildford, featuring live camels and fishing on the lake! Shorter local visits have been paid to Christ Church and to the mosque in Gloucester with LC1 and to the Cheltenham Synagogue with LC2. LC2 girls also spent a Saturday morning re-enacting the Passover festival in College. Although the drinking of Ribena and the eating of horseradish and apple sauce may have seemed inauthentic to some, our speaker, Mrs. Hervey-Bathurst pointed out that Jews have always adapted their customs to fit with different times and cultures, whilst retaining the central theological ideas.

Saturday activities continue to be well supported by the department. In addition to our regular sessions with different year groups, several SFC courses have taken off in popularity and other members of staff have reported amazement at numbers opting to attend the Bible and Western Culture course. We have been determined to prove that the Bible is not boring and that it contains great riches which inform our study of art, music, literature, ethics and philosophy. Another course, Philosophy goes to the Movies, remains an ever-popular option. All SFC2 girls attended a Saturday conference called What’s the Point? in the autumn term, designed to get them thinking about different ethical theories and how these might best fit with their own views on life. They had to consider some very challenging ethical problems too and reach a decision about how they would act in difficult circumstances.

We invite visitors into lessons whenever this could add expertise in specific areas. The Bishop of Gloucester made a return visit to several classes. Mike Laver gave a very moving presentation to SFC2s on the realities of war from his front line perspective in the RAF. The UC General classes have enjoyed a new programme this year, including a session led by a practising Buddhist, Mr Ivan Hatvany. All LC1 girls held Christingle services before Christmas and enjoyed making their christingles and learning about their symbolism. Girls have helped to present Prayers for the department on topics ranging from philosophical ideas in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, to Business Ethics, to the Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops. This reflects the wide range of issues covered by the department and their relevance to today’s world. RS continues to attract a strong following at College and we are lucky to teach such thoughtful, questioning and open-minded girls.

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