GCSE Religious Studies Tutors in Leicester: Who Sits the Exam, and Who Doesn't

Every maintained school in England must teach religious education to every pupil under the Education Act 2002 — but entering a pupil for the GCSE is optional, and in Leicester it swings from 0% to 100% by school. Across 23 secondaries checked for this page, schools entered 2,962 of 4,346 key-stage-4 pupils for GCSE Religious Studies in 2025 (68.2%). Our expert GCSE Religious Studies tutors help students across Leicester with every exam board's specification.

Is Religious Education Really Compulsory — and Is the GCSE the Same Thing?

Search results for GCSE Religious Studies tutoring in Leicester rarely separate two things that are legally quite different: the duty to teach religious education, and the choice to enter pupils for a GCSE in it. The Education Act 2002 sets out the duty in its own words. Section 80(1) states: “The curriculum for every maintained school in England shall comprise a basic curriculum which includes— (a) provision for religious education for all registered pupils at the school (in accordance with such of the provisions of Schedule 19 to the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 as apply in relation to the school), (b) a curriculum for all registered pupils at the school… known as ‘the National Curriculum for England’.” Religious education sits alongside the National Curriculum as a separate limb of the basic curriculum — not a part of it, and not optional for a single registered pupil at a maintained school.

Academies are not, strictly, “maintained schools” in that statutory sense, but the duty reaches them too: the Department for Education's own guidance on the school curriculum states plainly that religious education “is compulsory in schools up to the age of 18,” and separately that “local councils are responsible for deciding the RE syllabus, but faith schools and academies can set their own.” The same guidance draws the second half of the distinction this page is built on: pupils “will not take exams in these subjects — except RE, which is an optional GCSE subject.” A school can fully discharge its legal duty to teach religious education without entering a single pupil for the GCSE, and — as the table below shows — several Leicester schools do exactly that. Parents also retain a right the guidance states directly: they “can ask to withdraw their child from parts or all of the lessons,” a right that applies to the RE teaching itself and is separate from any GCSE entry decision a school makes.

How Many Leicester Pupils Are Entered for GCSE Religious Studies?

The Department for Education does not publish a single citywide GCSE Religious Studies entry rate for Leicester, because — unlike the EBacc's humanities pillar of History or Geography — Religious Studies has no standalone headline measure at local-authority level. To get an actual figure, this page went to each school's own published “Subjects entered at key stage 4” page rather than wait for one to appear. Across 23 Leicester secondaries checked directly for this page — state-funded academies, community and foundation schools, and four independent schools that publish exam data — schools entered 2,962 of 4,346 pupils at the end of key stage 4 for GCSE Religious Studies in 2025: 68.2% of the pupils this page could check. That figure excludes The Herewoode Academy, too newly opened in May 2025 to have its own key-stage-4 cohort yet, Brook Mead Academy, which has no published 2025 subjects-entered data, and any smaller independent or special school this page did not check — so it is a scoped finding, not a claim about every Leicester pupil.

Every Leicester Secondary Checked, School by School

The table below covers 23 Leicester secondaries, each cross-checked against GIAS as open (or, for New College Leicester, open for the full 2025 exam year before its closure) and correctly listed as a Leicester establishment, with GCSE Religious Studies entries taken directly from each school's own DfE “Subjects entered at key stage 4” page. The religious character column is GIAS's own recorded value, not this page's inference; GIAS codes “no formal religious character” as either “None” or “Does not apply” depending on the school's legal type, and this page has not converted one into the other. Percentages are this page's own calculation: entries divided by the school's own key-stage-4 pupil total.

The range runs the full distance the data allows: from Jameah Academy and Jameah Boys Academy, which recorded zero GCSE Religious Studies entries between them despite entering pupils for Arabic, History, English, Maths, Science and Citizenship GCSEs, up to Madani Boys School and Madani Girls' School, which each entered every single one of their 88 and 94 pupils. Fullhurst Community College, at 7.7%, and New College Leicester, in its final year before closure at 8.8%, sit closer to the Jameah schools' zero than to any other school in the set.

Where Does a Leicester School Enter Everyone — or No One?

Four Leicester schools checked for this page entered every single one of their key-stage-4 pupils for GCSE Religious Studies in 2025: Madani Boys School (88 of 88), Madani Girls' School (94 of 94), Al-Aqsa Schools Trust (15 of 15) and Darul Uloom Leicester (13 of 13). Three entered none at all: Jameah Academy (0 of 23), Jameah Boys Academy (0 of 21) and Orchard Mead Academy (0 of 224). Religious character alone does not predict which group a school falls into. GIAS records Jameah Academy's own religious character as “Muslim” — the same value it records for Madani Girls' School, which entered every pupil — yet Jameah Academy's own 2025 subjects-entered page lists Arabic, Art & Design, Business Studies, Computer Studies, English Language, English Literature, History, Mathematics, Science: Double Award and Social Science: Citizenship, with no Religious Studies entry of any kind, full course or short course. The same is true at Jameah Boys Academy, where GIAS records the school's formal religious character as “None” (its self-declared religious ethos is recorded separately as “Muslim”), and whose own 2025 entries cover Arabic, Business Studies, English Language, English Literature, History, Mathematics and Science but, again, no Religious Studies GCSE. This page found no alternative religious-studies-type qualification listed for either school in DfE's published subjects-entered data; whatever religious content either school teaches, it does not appear to convert into a nationally recognised GCSE entry at either.

Orchard Mead Academy, a community academy with no religious character recorded at GIAS, shows that a zero entry is not confined to Leicester's faith schools. Its own 2025 subjects-entered page lists 27 subjects across sciences, humanities, languages, the arts and technical awards — including 89 History entries and 76 Geography entries — but no Religious Studies entry at all, out of 224 pupils at the end of key stage 4.

How Do Leicester's Faith Schools Compare With Its Community Schools?

Set the two Jameah schools aside and a clear pattern holds among the rest: every other faith-designated school checked for this page — Avanti Fields School (Hindu, 96.7%), Madani Boys School and Madani Girls' School (Muslim, 100% each), Al-Aqsa Schools Trust (Islam, 100%), Darul Uloom Leicester (Muslim ethos, 100%), English Martyrs' Catholic School (Roman Catholic, 99.5%) and St Paul's Catholic School (Roman Catholic, 95.6%) — entered at least 95.6% of its own key-stage-4 pupils. None of the seven fell below that figure.

It is Leicester's community and no-religious-character schools, not its faith schools, that produce the widest spread in the whole data set. Soar Valley College (98.7%), The City of Leicester College (96.7%), Rushey Mead Academy (96.0%) and Judgemeadow Community College (95.8%) sit at the same near-universal level as the faith schools above — while Fullhurst Community College (7.7%), New College Leicester in its final year (8.8%), Orchard Mead Academy (0%) and Sir Jonathan North Girls' College (17.5%) sit at the opposite end, all of them schools with no religious character recorded at GIAS. A reader assuming that low GCSE Religious Studies entry is a faith-school pattern in Leicester would have the finding backwards: among the schools checked for this page, it is the community schools — Fullhurst, New College Leicester, Orchard Mead and Sir Jonathan North Girls' — that supply every one of the lowest entry rates in the whole data set, and the two lowest entry rates of any kind — both at Muslim-character or Muslim-ethos independent schools — sit at exactly 0%, not some low-but-nonzero figure a squeeze on timetable space might produce.

Full Course or Short Course — Which Is Leicester Actually Entering?

GCSE Religious Studies exists as two separate qualifications, not one course examined at two lengths. Ofqual's own qualifications register records the full course at 120 guided learning hours and the short course — worth half a GCSE towards a pupil's Attainment 8 score — at exactly 60 guided learning hours, a ratio that holds across every live specification checked for this page. DfE's own school-level data does not let this page tell the two apart with certainty: every one of the 23 Leicester schools' “Subjects entered at key stage 4” pages checked for this page lists its entries under the plain label “Religious Studies GCSE,” and not one shows a separately labelled short-course row. That page's own text states it “only includes qualifications approved for inclusion in the performance measures,” so this page cannot rule out short-course entries sitting inside that same label, or a short-course entry going unlisted if it falls outside that approval. Every entry figure in the table above should be read as what DfE's own published page calls it — a “Religious Studies GCSE” entry — not confirmed as full course specifically.

What Parents Say

DP

Deborah Prior

★★★★★

Confidence and progress

My son was low in confidence after COVID and the gaps in learning were building up. Using this service helped plug those gaps, rebuild confidence, and improve his ability to learn properly again.

NI

Nicola

★★★★★

Amazing tutors!

We arranged maths and English tuition ahead of GCSEs and both tutors were brilliant. My daughter's grades improved, and by results day she achieved two grades higher than in her mock exams.

S

Saifan Khan

★★★★★

Great Teaching and Focused Learning

I attended an English bootcamp with Leading Tuition and the experience was excellent. The teacher gave focused attention to the small group while keeping the lessons interactive and engaging.

See more reviews on Trustpilot

New College Leicester's Closure, and Its Re-Founding as The Herewoode Academy

New College Leicester, a foundation school with no religious character recorded at GIAS, opened on 1 September 1999 at LE3 6DN and closed on 30 April 2025. Its site reopened the very next day, 1 May 2025, as The Herewoode Academy, an academy converter under a new URN, still recorded with no religious character. In its final year of operation, New College Leicester entered just 18 of its 205 key-stage-4 pupils for GCSE Religious Studies — 8.8%, one of the lowest entry rates this page found anywhere in Leicester. The Herewoode Academy has not yet published its own key-stage-4 subjects-entered data; its first cohort under the new URN would sit GCSEs no earlier than 2026, so whether the low entry rate continues under the new name is not something published data can answer yet.

Two other Leicester secondaries in the table above changed URN the same way in 2023, and neither is a closure in the ordinary sense: Soar Valley College and The City of Leicester College each converted from their predecessor community-school URN to a new academy-converter URN on 1 June 2023, with GIAS recording the old URN as closed the day before. Both schools' 2025 figures in this page's table are reported under their current, post-conversion URN.

Is Religious Studies Squeezed by a High EBacc Entry Rate?

Religious Studies is not one of the EBacc's own subjects. The Department for Education's own EBacc guidance lists the qualification's five components as “English language and literature; maths; the sciences; geography or history; a language” — Religious Studies appears in none of them, and a pupil's EBacc entry is unaffected by whether their school enters them for it. That leaves a plausible-sounding theory unaddressed by this page on purpose: that a school under pressure to raise its own EBacc entry rate might squeeze the optional timetable blocks Religious Studies competes for, depressing entry in the process. This page has not tested that theory for Leicester, and does not assert it. Earlier research across nine other English cities in this same batch of pages measured the relationship independently in each one and found no consistent direction — coefficients ranging from strongly positive to negative depending on the city, most likely because schools with strong overall attainment tend to enter pupils for more subjects across the board, EBacc and non-EBacc alike, which confounds any simple squeeze story. Rather than import a figure from another city or assert a mechanism this page has not measured, this page states plainly: whatever explains Fullhurst Community College entering 7.7% of its pupils while Soar Valley College entered 98.7% of its own, this page has not identified an EBacc-pressure explanation and has not looked for one here.

Which Exam Boards Set GCSE Religious Studies?

Four exam boards offer GCSE Religious Studies in England, and between them they publish more distinct specifications than most GCSE subjects carry. AQA offers three separate live specifications under three separate codes: Religious Studies A (8062, Ofqual qualification accreditation number — AQA's own term, “QAN” — 601/8400/0), Religious Studies B (8063, QAN 601/8401/2, built around Catholic Christianity studied alongside one other world religion), and a Short Course (8061, QAN 601/8399/8) that AQA states is co-teachable alongside the Specification A full course. Pearson Edexcel offers two live full-course specifications of its own, Religious Studies A (603/0079/6) and Religious Studies B (603/0063/2) — but Ofqual's own qualifications register shows Edexcel withdrew both of its short-course equivalents, Religious Studies A (Short Course) and Religious Studies B (Short Course), on 31 August 2022; as of 2 September 2026, Ofqual's register shows no live GCSE Religious Studies short course from Edexcel at all.

Cambridge OCR — the exam board rebranded from OCR to Cambridge OCR from September 2025, by its own specification document's account — offers a single full-course specification, code J625 (Ofqual qualification number, or “QN” in Ofqual's own terminology, 601/8594/6), alongside a separate short-course specification, code J125 (QN 601/8712/8), confirmed directly in OCR's own specification PDFs; both were first examined in 2018. WJEC Eduqas offers one full-course specification, qualification code C120QS (QN 601/8879/0), and a separate short-course specification, code C125QT (QN 601/8880/7 per Ofqual's register), confirmed on Eduqas's own qualification reference page. None of AQA, Edexcel, OCR or Eduqas is “the only board” that offers more than one Religious Studies route, and which specification, board and route a Leicester pupil actually sits is a decision made by their own school's religious education department, not published by DfE at school level.

None of the marketplace directories ranking for “GCSE Religious Studies tutors in Leicester” — Tutor Hunt, Superprof and Tutorful among the top organic results — name a single Leicester school, a single exam board or specification, or a single Leicester-specific DfE figure; each lists individual tutor profiles with a generic subject description. Our tutors confirm a student's board, specification and route directly from their own school before building any revision plan.

How Leading Tuition Works With Leicester GCSE Religious Studies Students

Whether a Leicester pupil sits at a school like Madani Girls' School, where every pupil is entered for the GCSE, or one like Orchard Mead Academy, where none are, the starting point is the same: confirming which specification, route and exam board actually apply to that pupil's own school, rather than assuming from a citywide pattern that plainly does not exist in Leicester's own data. Our diagnostic assessment for every new Leicester GCSE Religious Studies student begins there, then builds a programme from a pupil's own mock results and essay-writing gaps.

Our tutors hold degrees from leading UK universities and work one-to-one online through source analysis, extract questions and full essay practice marked against the real mark scheme for a student's own specification — AQA, Edexcel, OCR or Eduqas — whichever route or course length their own school has entered them for. 91% of our students achieve their desired grades, and Leading Tuition is rated 4.8 out of 5 on Trustpilot from 58 reviews.

For related subjects and levels, see our national GCSE tuition across every subject, our History tutoring service and Geography tutoring service for pupils studying the EBacc's own humanities subjects, and our other Leicester subject pages for GCSE History, GCSE English and GCSE Biology. For the full picture of tutoring across the city, see our overview of Leicester tutoring, or browse our full directory of UK tutoring locations.

Frequently Asked Questions