Fatuma Ahmed,15, says love is a complicated concept when your sisters are driving you up the wall at home.
She said: “Yesterday me and my mum were having an argument. She was saying you cannot love someone without liking them. I was saying I don’t like my sisters but I do love them.”
Fatuma was one of six pupils discussing the complexities of the heart and head in an RE lesson at Cumberland school, in Plaistow, east London.
John Asein, 16, said: “Love is a deep emotion you feel for someone that will make you do anything to protect that person. It is more than caring.
Love is connected to everything and gives you the strength to carry on.”
Natasha Cosgree, 15, said: “People often say the word love but they don’t mean it. If you are boyfriend and girlfriend you can be with them for a week and say ‘I love you’, but that is not true because it’s not long enough.”
Henriette Eck, 15, said: “Love influences what you do every day of your life. At home everybody talks about it because I was raised as a Christian.
Relationships should be based on love.”
Denise Powell, their teacher, said: “A lot of parents and pupils are against teaching religious education, but I believe RE is about love and life and so many decisions are connected to it.”
