Choosing subjects & tiers
What's on the GCSE Religious Studies specification?
GCSE Religious Studies (full course) studies two religions in depth - most commonly Christianity and Islam - covering the beliefs and practices of each, plus thematic papers on ethics and philosophy: relationships, life and death, crime, war and human rights, examined through religious and non-religious viewpoints. It is all written exams, no coursework, untiered. Schools choose the religions and themes from their board's menu, so confirm yours before revising.
Last updated 30 August 2026 · Written and fact-checked by the GCSEwiz team
The two halves of the course
The national requirement is depth in at least two religions, and every board builds the same two-part structure around it. On AQA Specification A (8062), the most-entered version, Paper 1 covers the beliefs, teachings and practices of your two chosen religions; Paper 2 covers four thematic studies chosen from a menu of six. Both papers are 1 hour 45 minutes and carry half the marks each.
| Component | What it actually covers |
|---|---|
| Beliefs and teachings | Each religion's core beliefs - the nature of God, key figures, scripture, life after death - and the reasoning behind them. |
| Practices | How each religion is lived: worship, festivals, pilgrimage, rites of passage, and the work of religious communities in Britain and worldwide. |
| Thematic studies (ethics and philosophy) | Contemporary issues - typically relationships and families, religion and life, crime and punishment, war and peace, human rights, and the existence of God - argued from religious and non-religious perspectives. |
The question ladder every paper climbs
RS papers use a fixed ladder of question types, worth learning cold. On AQA each topic runs 1, 2, 4, 5 and 12 marks: short recall at the bottom, "explain two ways" and "explain two beliefs, referring to scripture" in the middle, and the 12-mark evaluation at the top. That final question hands you a statement and asks you to argue both sides before reaching a justified conclusion - and it is where the grade is largely decided, because it carries as many marks as the rest of the topic's questions together. Practising the 12-mark structure until it is automatic is the single highest-value habit in the subject.
Quotations and sources of authority
The mark schemes reward answers that cite sources of wisdom and authority - scripture, teachings, named thinkers - and the 5-mark question type demands it explicitly. As with English Literature, the productive approach is a small, flexible bank: a dozen short quotations per religion, chosen because each one serves several topics. "Love thy neighbour" works for relationships, crime, war and human rights alike; a precise surah reference on the oneness of God anchors half the Islam beliefs topic. Short, exact and multi-purpose beats long and single-use.
Non-religious views are on the specification too
The thematic papers explicitly require awareness of non-religious beliefs, such as atheist and humanist positions, on the ethical issues - a change from older RS courses that catches out anyone revising from an out-of-date guide. Evaluation answers that engage seriously with a non-religious argument, rather than mentioning one to knock it down, are what the top band describes. Note also the distinction between the full course (a normal GCSE) and the short course (half the content, half a GCSE) - the shape above is the full course, which is what the overwhelming majority of entries are.