Pondering Time
This area includes further information about Pondering Time, including theory and practical examples of its introduction into religious education curriculum.
Living Difference IV click the image to download PDF
Living Difference IV is the legal document to be followed for the teaching of religious education in Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Portsmouth and Southampton schools. Informed by current educational research, as well as research into religion and worldviews, it builds on the approach to religious education used in Hampshire, Portsmouth and Southampton since 2004. This revision demonstrates the ongoing and fruitful partnership that exists between the four authorities, ensuring a syllabus capable of securing high-quality religious education for all children and young people who encounter it, at this point in history.
Further information
For information about religious education in your school, contact Justine Ball justine.ball@hants.gov.uk
For further information about using Living Difference IV, please download the flyer or visit Living Difference IV HIAS web page.
The Agreed Syllabus for religious education (RE) in Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Portsmouth and Southampton
Informed by current educational research, as well as research into religion and worldviews, it builds on the approach to religious education used in Hampshire, Portsmouth and Southampton since 2004. This revision demonstrates the ongoing and fruitful partnership that exists between the four authorities, ensuring a syllabus capable of securing high-quality religious education for all children and young people who encounter it, at this point in history.
Living Difference IV: Agreed RE Syllabus (2021)
© Hampshire County Council / Isle of Wight Council / Portsmouth City Council / Southampton City Council
What is distinctive about Living Difference IV?
Living Difference IV, rather than being a precise prescription, offers a set of principles for teachers to make their curriculum to ensure religious education is open to the plurality of ways in which people live in our local, national and international communities.
Living Difference IV describes an approach for teaching, seeking to explain the educational value not only of children engaging with new material intellectually, but also of them becoming better able to discern what is desirable for their own lives, and with others, for the world.
Living Difference IV seeks to introduce children and young people to what a religious way of looking at, and existing in, the world may offer in leading one’s life, individually and collectively.
It recognises and acknowledges that the question as to what it means to lead one’s life with such an orientation can be answered in a number of qualitatively different ways.
These include the idea that:
- to live a religious life means to subscribe to certain propositional beliefs (religion as truth)
- to live a religious life means to adhere to certain practices (religion as practice)
- to live a religious life is characterised by a particular way of being in and with the world: with a particular kind of
- awareness of, and faith in the world and in other human beings (religion as existence).
Living Difference IV recognises the link between religious education and rights respecting education (RRE).
Teaching with Living Difference IV
Religious education in Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Portsmouth and Southampton intends to play an educational part in the lives of children and young people as they come to speak, think and act in the world.
This entails teachers bringing children and young people first to attend to their own experience and that of others, to engage intellectually with material that is new and to discern with others what is valuable with regard to living a religious life or one informed by a non-religious or other perspective.
Curriculum making with Living Difference IV
Living Difference IV uses three broad, and at times overlapping, groups of concepts/words which assist with the making and organising a spiral curriculum.
This is so that the material encountered and studied by young people through the teaching activities is well sequenced, connected and revisited over time.
End of year expectations (EYEs) are included in the syllabus and must be used to inform curriculum making; both in terms of what should be taught, as well as to ensure appropriate challenge over time.
Can I use Living Difference IV
Living Difference IV is the legal document to be followed for the teaching of religious education in Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Portsmouth and Southampton schools.
This Agreed Syllabus is the basis on which the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) determines the effectiveness of the delivery of religious education in these areas. Converter academies, multi-academy trusts (MATs) and free schools in these areas are welcome to use this syllabus; it meets all legal requirements for religious education.
Please note: MATs with any schools outside of these areas will need to apply for a licence to use it in their schools.
1. How to adopt Living Difference IV
Local authorities (LAs), multi-academy trusts (MATs) and individual schools outside Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Portsmouth and Southampton that wish to adopt this syllabus will need to obtain a licence. See below for costs.
For further enquiries contact email Justine Ball justine.ball@hants.gov.uk, HIAS General Inspector/Adviser for Primary RE
Training and support
An extensive programme of continuing professional development for those wanting to use Living Difference IV is available and can be run in any part of the UK by specialist advisers. To find out more visit Hampshire Teaching and Leadership College (HTLC).
For general RE enquiries, please email re.centre@hants.gov.uk
Further support is available from the Hampshire Inspection and Advisory Service:
For HIAS fees and charges or email hias.enquiries@hants.gov.uk
2. Resources to support Living Difference IV
The HIAS RE website offers comprehensive support for Living Difference IV.
Our curriculum website includes:
- comprehensive long and medium-term plans for Foundation Stage through to Key Stage 2
- advice and guidance on RE including withdrawal, SMSC and collective worship
- visits and visitors for RE
- useful website links
- details of professional learning courses and meetings
- information about current issues and practices
- details about our RE curriculum centre
- contact details for the HIAS RE curriculum team.
Access to RE resources
*Hampshire funded schools: you will need your username and password to access these pages
*Other interested users: HIAS RE website is available on a subscription basis
Subscription to the RE website
Individual person or establishment: £101 for an annual subscription
Local authority: £562 for an annual subscription
If you would like to subscribe, please complete the online subscription form.
To access the curriculum update section of the RE website you need to be subscribed to the updates. To check your subscription status please email HIAS Enquiries: hias.enquiries@hants.gov.uk
HIAS RE Moodle
Moodle+ is, in addition to open resources, our new annual subscription service, offering schools access to a range of quality primary and secondary resources.
3. Purchasing a licence
As stated, Living Difference IV is the legal document to be followed for the teaching of religious education in Hampshire, Portsmouth, Southampton and Isle of Wight schools. Converter academies, multi-academy trusts (MATs) and free schools in these areas are welcome to use this syllabus. It meets all legal requirements for religious education. MATs with any schools outside of these areas will need to apply for a licence to use it in their schools.
Other local authorities, MATs and individual schools that wish to adopt this syllabus will need to obtain a licence. The cost of the minimum induction package required is given in the table below, up to a maximum of 25 teachers per course. If more teachers are involved it may be desirable to augment this minimum requirement and a bespoke package can be designed to fit the needs of a particular school or group of schools.
Price list
The costs given below are on a sliding scale depending on the number of schools involved.
| Number of schools | Licence fee | Minimum mandatory training costs* | Total cost |
| A single, stand-alone school not part of a MAT | £450 | £875 | £1,325 |
| 2-3 schools | £1,200 | £875 | £2,075 |
| 4-5 schools | £2,000 | £875 | £2,875 |
| 6-10 schools | £2,500 | £875 | £3,375 |
| 11-15 schools | £3,000 | £875 | £3,875 |
| 16-20 schools | £3,500 | £875 | £4,375 |
| 21-25 schools | £4,000 | £875 | £4,875 |
| 26-30 schools | £4,500 | £875 | £5,375 |
| 31-35 schools | £5,000 | £875 | £5,875 |
| 36-40 schools | £5,500 | £875 | £6,375 |
| 41-45 schools | £6,000 | £875 | £6,875 |
| 46-50 schools | £6,500 | £875 | £7,375 |
| 51 schools and above | £7,000 | £875 | £7,375 |
* Plus travel costs if outside the Hampshire border.
Fees are exclusive of venues, which will need to be organised and funded by the participating organisation.