Our Religious Education curriculum “Living Difference” promotes children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural development through a wide variety of experiences and enriched by philosophical enquiry.
Children are taught to respect and understand different religions and beliefs which form part of contemporary society. Living Difference offers an educative approach to religious education, emphasising a process of enquiry into concepts. Children and young people have the opportunity to respond from their own experience before being introduced to the way others appreciate things. Living Difference gives young people the opportunity to evaluate; that is to make a judgement about why something is important for someone else as well as to discern what may be important for themselves. Living Difference identifies three groups of concepts:
- concepts common to all people
- concepts shared by many religions
- concepts distinctive to particular religions.
Concepts suitable for enquiry in religious education are included in the Agreed Syllabus.
The process of enquiry has five steps: communicate, apply, inquire, contextualise and evaluate.
Each enquiry begins with the teacher inviting the children and/or young people into the enquiry by communicating the concept; bringing the child or young person to attend first to their own experience of the concept through an activity, before at apply exploring their own responses in relation to others’ experience. At inquire, material that is new to the children and young people is introduced in varying complexity, children may also reflect collaboratively, for example in a community of philosophical enquiry, recognising that there are many different ways of looking at things.
At the contextualise stage children examine the concept in a specific context for example a religion.
At the evaluate step children and young people are asked to weigh up their experience of the concept in two ways. First from the viewpoint of someone living a religious (or non-religious) life, as in the context studied. Secondly, the children and young people come to discern what may be of value from their own point of view.
We are currently using Living Difference IV – for further information visit the Living Difference webpage.