As part of the GCSE studies, 77 Year 10 students went on a places of worship trip to Jamyang Buddhist Temple in Kennington and St Paul’s Cathedral.  This was a time to explore different symbols and rituals, what each of them mean for a religious person and how they help people to practice their faith.

You can read below what two of our students have written about the trip:

We first visited a Tibetan Peace Garden in the grounds of the Imperial War Museum. This was a garden opened by the Dalai Lama in the 1990s which helps Buddhists to reflect on different Buddhist teachings, such as the Four Noble truths and the Six Perfections. In the garden were a lot of symbols including a large metal mandala and we took time to walk around the garden and find the different meanings.

We then visited the Tibetan Buddhist Temple where we got to sit inside a meditation hall that was full of decorations, symbols, statues and offerings, all designed to help a Buddhist practise meditation and try and get rid of suffering. We were spoken to by a lady who has been involved in the centre for a long time and she told us all about the life of the Buddha and what it means for Buddhists. We were given the opportunity to ask questions and find out about the Tibetan branch of Buddhism, we even got to take in a small secular meditation, where we sat on the floor and focussed on our breath.

We then went to St. Paul’s Cathedral where we went on a sacred object treasure hunt. We looked for different objects in the Cathedral like the baptismal font, Easter mosaics and the alter, and linked them to different beliefs using our knowledge from the last term to work out what each object meant. We were also able to take in the Cathedral as a whole and its incredible architecture. It was an amazing spiritual place to visit. The day was a great educational opportunity to see two different religions and learn all about its practices.

Tommy C, 10 Ludgate and Natalie C, 10 Walbrook