Triangle

Congratulations to our 2024 David Garlick GCSE and A level video competition winners.

This year’s theme was “Our Changing World: Census 2021 and Religion”.

We invited video submissions to bring the Census 2021 numbers to life by telling us a story about how religion is changing in the area around your school.

We were so impressed by the GCSE entries that we would like to give both prizes to GCSE entries. Our prize winners this year are:

The David Garlick Prize is named in memory of a former student, David Garlick, who made a generous bequest to the department, and is intended to promote our joint disciplines of Theology and Religious Studies.
 
 

The Year 10 Religious Studies group at the Meoncross School

The Meoncross entry notes that the percentage of Christians in the United Kingdom has declined over the last two decades and the percentage of those confessing no religion has increased. This is explained to be a result of technology providing increased access to evidence against Christianity.

It is concluded nonetheless that the United Kingdom is still a Christian country because King Charles III is head of the Church of England.

Meoncross School entry

Our judges commented, ‘The visual design is clever and interesting’.

Eloise Thomas, Year 10, Cheltenham College

Eloise’s entry notes that secularization theory suggests that the influence of religion diminishes as societies modernize. Census data from Cheltenham appears to confirm this, with a sharp drop in Christians and a rise in those confessing no religion as social media has spread diverse perspectives.

However, the stability of religious adherence in Tower Hamlets with its large number of Muslims appears to question the secularization thesis. This could be due to religion functioning more communally for Muslims than it does for Christians.

However, citing Charles Taylor, Eloise argues that this does not necessarily disprove the secularization thesis because the secular and religion as a choice still constitute the wider context.

Eloise Thomas' entry

Our judges commented, ‘Really interesting argument made about reasons for secularisation’.