RE at Crofton is taught in accordance with the Agreed Syllabus for Hampshire, Portsmouth, Southampton and the Isle of Wight, Living Difference 3. This document can be accessed: http://www3.hants.gov.uk/education/hias/curriculumsupport/living-difference.htm

 

This syllabus confirms our commitment to an education that takes seriously the importance of children and young people exploring their own lives in relation to what it can mean to live with a religious orientation on life and other ways of life, including those informed by a non-religious perspective, and to engage with this intellectually. It is intended to provide the basis of good teaching in religious education and, as a result, be open to the plurality of ways in which people live within our local and national communities and the world. It gives guidance to teachers regarding what religious education should aim to achieve in a plural society, identifying how teaching in religious education will open educative environments where children and young people can become better able to discern what is desirable for their own life and, with others, for the wider world. Living Difference III therefore recognises a link between religious education and rights respecting education (RRE). (Living Difference 3, 2016:Foreword)

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The approach taken at Crofton is one that is conceptual and follows an enquiry led approach that aims to help students understand what it means to exist in the world. We start with the feelings, attitudes and experiences of the students and what the concepts being studied mean to them, before exploring what the same, or similar concepts, mean to a range of other people, from a range of backgrounds, in a range of situations.

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As the teacher brings the child to question and enquire further they become able to discern what may be valuable in these matters. The Living Difference III approach is a process of enquiry into concepts, where a concept is understood as a name for, or way of referring to, an idea that exists or has the possibility of existing in a particular time or place.