HAMPSHIRE schools and Hampshire County Council have launched a new way of teaching pupils about religion.

It builds on the approach to religious education which has been in use since 2004, enriched by current educational research as well as philosophical and theological enquiry.

Councillor Peter Edgar, Executive Member for Education at Hampshire County Council said: “On behalf of the county council, I would like to convey our thanks to the teachers and members of the respective Standing Advisory Councils for Religious Education (SACRE) to whom we are especially grateful for their work, as part of the working group, to ensure that we developed a syllabus that meets the needs of children and young people at this point of the 21st Century.

“Good teaching in religious education will have a positive impact on the way children and young people think, speak and act in a complex and diverse world.”

Every state maintained school in England must provide a basic curriculum (Religious Education and Sex and Relationships Education) and the National Curriculum.

Over the past seven years, the number of young people studying for a full course GCSE in Religious Education has almost doubled from 2,444 in 2007 to 4,490 in 2015.

The new Living Difference III timetable will provide the basis of good teaching in religious education.

It will also help children and young people to explore their own perspectives on life, understand what it can mean to live with a religious orientation, as well as considering other ways of life, including the non-religious.

And it will help foster awareness of the wide variety of ways of life in our local and national communities, and around the world.