Ethics

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. ”

Department Vision Statement/ Curriculum Intent

The studies in Ethics have a strong cross-curricular intent to encourage the relevance and development of moral character traits valuable for students overall well-being and fostering their mindset of excellence for this and other subjects.

In Ethical studies, students explore religious cultures to understand various perspectives and become aware of beliefs and lifestyles around the world, nonetheless, to develop a sense of tolerance towards 'unknown' and 'different'.

In this context, we follow Kent Agreed Syllabus for RE 2017-2022 guidelines and discuss chosen questions such as "Is religion a power for peace or a cause of conflict in the world today?", "What is so radical about Jesus?" or "How does it feel to be a teenage Buddhist in the UK today?" (see below). Prior to exploring these suggested questions by Kent RE Syllabus, the Ethics curriculum covers studies of key beliefs, practices, symbols, places of worship, moral codes and holy scriptures in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Sikhism. Still, it is not limited to only these religions, and any discussions will include non-religious views and sometimes philosophical theories, such as utilitarianism and virtue ethics. "Should happiness be the purpose of life?", "Why is there suffering?", "Moral dilemmas", "Family life and values" are themes students will contemplate by expressing their own opinions based on moral evaluations of given examples. Boosting students' knowledge of human worldviews diversity today should enable them to be open-minded, develop respect towards 'different', and at the same time encourage resilience to express their independent opinion. Both moral character development and fostering critical thinking are explicit aims of Ethical studies. Students will learn how to form proper arguments from premises to conclusions into a logical structure, hence, increase certainty in their own beliefs and evaluations (skills relevant for all future GCSE's essays).

The Ethics Department Team in The Malling School puts great efforts into delivering high standard lessons by creating a relaxing, fun, engaging atmosphere where students gradually gain confidence to share their opinions, communicate their visions, solutions and reach conclusions as an outcome of class teamwork.

 YEAR GROUPS