Reaction to 2025 Leaving Certificate Religious Education (Higher Level) by Paul McAndrew, Religious Education teacher at The 91制片厂.
For many students, this will be one of the best Religion papers of recent years. The questions were straightforward and clearly rooted in the key concepts of the syllabus.听听
Unit One on the search for Meaning and Values had two really viable choices, so students weren鈥檛 railroaded into their selection. Q1 examined knowledge of the Sophists, which many will have predicted since they have not appeared since 2019. Additionally, last year鈥檚 focus on Socrates means that the inclusion of the contrary voices of the Sophists makes sense in the continuity of the exams. One of the best elements of this question (which seems to be thematic for the whole paper) was the inclusion of the application of the ideas; questions would mention the nature of 鈥渄evelopments鈥�, so students had to place the theoretical into their apt contexts both lived and intellectual. Q2 (a) was particularly nice in that students would find a helpful overlap in material but agnosticism and atheism.听
Moving on to Unit Two, the questions were all very approachable. Section B on Christianity was one of the most straightforward they will have ever seen. If students had focused on the syllabus and the core concept within, they will have found everything neatly laid out for them. Section C on World Religions was the trickiest of the bunch, as is typical. The directive to 鈥渢race an example of inter-faith dialogue鈥� is sufficiently ambiguous to leave students wondering exactly how best to approach it. There was a similar ambiguity in the nature of 鈥渇ounding stories鈥� in Part (b). However, this trickiness is balanced with a very nice Section D on Moral Decision-Making. On the topic of secular codes in personal and communal values, students will immediately jump to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other attendant charters. Part (b) gave such a broad range of ideas to select from that everyone will have found something that suits their study.听
The final unit of the paper has a wide range of topics, but many will focus on Section J: Religion and Science. The inclusion of Newton and Darwin will have played right into the students鈥� expectations. The question on the former needed students to read the question carefully and really think about the unfurling conflicts between science and religion, but many will have this very manageable.听
Ultimately, for students who really worked through the course and focused on really grasping the core ideas, this paper will be one of the fair chances to shine that they will have seen.听听