Secondary Religious Education With Qts

Religious education in secondary schools addresses some of the most fundamental questions about human existence: what we believe, how we should live, what happens when we die, and how different traditions have answered these questions across cultures and centuries. Teaching RE well requires not just knowledge of world religions and philosophical traditions but the pedagogical skill to engage adolescents with questions that are both intellectually serious and personally significant. Secondary Religious Education with Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) at Edge Hill University prepares you to do exactly that, combining academic study of religion and ethics with intensive professional training in secondary schools.

This three-year full-time programme integrates university study of religious education with substantial time in secondary classrooms, developing your teaching skills in real settings from an early stage. You will study major world religions, including Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism and Sikhism, alongside philosophical and ethical traditions and the theory and practice of religious education as a curriculum subject. You will develop your understanding of how adolescents think about religious and moral questions, how to design and deliver lessons that are both academically rigorous and genuinely engaging, and how to assess and support pupils with diverse backgrounds and beliefs.

Graduating with QTS means you are qualified to apply for teaching posts in maintained secondary schools immediately. RE teachers are in demand, and the qualification opens a stable and meaningful career that offers genuine intellectual engagement alongside the satisfaction of helping young people think carefully about the biggest questions in human experience. Many RE teachers develop leadership roles as heads of department, contribute to pastoral work and citizenship education, and some move into advisory, training or leadership roles in education more broadly.