Philosophy (A Level and IB) is the study of the questions that lie behind all the other things we study in school.

These are not just questions like “How do you know?” or “How do you know that you know?” but ones like “Is it even possible to know anything at all with certainty?”.

We also study morality, ethics and philosophy of mind. For instance, we ask “What is the difference between a thought and the brain at the moment of the thought?” or to put it another way, if we hope that it will be sunny tomorrow does our hopefulness correspond to a particular state of our brain? If not, what does that say about our minds, and if yes, what does that say about the physical world?

In order to answer these questions, we need to look at what philosophers have said about them in the past. We spend time with Rene Descartes, David Hume and Immanuel Kant, among others, and get involved in a conversation that has been going on for centuries and is still growing and changing today.

Religious Studies (GCSE) looks at Christianity and Buddhism, examines their beliefs and then asks how they affect how we live our lives.

Gender and family, the value of life and equality and fairness are all thought about from the perspectives of these religions.

This then gives us an opportunity to reflect on our own beliefs and values. We learn through listening to religions talking about themselves and to their followers, through what they put on YouTube, their art and poetry and their history. This is a way of deepening our understanding and becoming investigators into religion as a phenomenon in the modern world.