Agenda and minutes

RESOLVED that Mr M Sweet be elected as Chairman and Councillor Mrs Anne Manning be elected as Vice-Chairman of SACRE for the 2010/11 academic Year.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Mrs Manning, MacMull and McBride, Rev Varney, Mrs Hawkes, Ms Honey, Ms Tranchina, Mr Hagley, Mrs Michaelis, Mr Riat and Mrs Polydorou. Apologies were also received from Dr George Searle. The Chairman welcomed the following new Members to the meeting: Mrs Colling, (Roman Catholic Representative), and Ms Thompson (Church of England Representative). Ms Honey, the new Teacher Representative was unable to attend the meeting due to a prior commitment.

None

Resolved that the minutes of the meeting on 27^th May 2010 be confirmed.

Matters Arising :

Item 8) It was noted that the “Reporting and Evaluating Tool Kit” was still awaited.

a)  Agreed Syllabus – Update

b)  Report of London SACRE AGM

c)  Islamic competition 2010

d)  Youth SACRE

a)  Agreed Syllabus - Update

The RE Adviser informed the meeting that Ofsted (Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills) had published a report in June 2010 entitled “Transforming Religious Education”. The report evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of religious education in primary and secondary schools, and was based on evidence from visits to 94 primary and 89 secondary schools in England between 2006 and 2009. The RE Adviser remarked that the number of schools inspected represented only half a percent of the number of schools in the country and only two schools in the Greater London area had been included. The RE Adviser gave a presentation to the meeting of the key messages outlined in the report (Appendix 1).

The RE Adviser reported that a number of Local Authority RE Advisers were looking at a revised RE syllabus across the country and 42 different local authorities were involved. They were not looking at a national syllabus but at something which had national base with local arrangements. The Bromley SACRE RE Adviser informed the meeting that she had joined the group on behalf of the three SACREs she represented, so that she could keep abreast of what was happening. Members of the group involved Alan Brine (Ofsted Specialist RE Adviser) and Mark Chater (QCDA RE Consultant). The next meeting of the group was due to be held on 9^th December 2010.

Following a general discussion the Chairman suggested that the RE Adviser give an update on the work of the group at the next SACRE meeting, and consideration be given as to how this might affect the future agreed syllabus conference.

b)  Report of London SACRE AGM

The Chairman, RE Adviser, Councillor Manning and Mr Mahmood had attended the annual meeting of the London and South-East SACREs held at Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church on 18^th June 2010. The RE Adviser had spoken on the 6^th Form Event and a lot of enquiries were received asking how the event had been set up. Mr Mahmood had also spoken about the Islamic competition. The Chairman made the comment that Bromley SACRE was regarded as a “keen and enthusiastic”.

c)  Islamic competition 2010

Mr Mahmood confirmed that this event would take place at Darul Uloom on 4^th November 2010 between 7-9pm.  If Members of SACRE wished to attend they were asked to notify Mr Mahmood at least one week before in order to assist with catering. There was a “modesty” dress code and ladies were asked to wear a head covering. The Chairman asked if it might be worthwhile inviting local church ministers to attend.  Mr Mahmood said that he would email details to the Chairman for him to pass these on.

d)  Youth SACRE

The RE Adviser informed SACRE members that so far there had been one meeting of the Youth SACRE during the Autumn Term and the next meeting was due to be held on 8^th November 2010. Rae Michaelis, the Jewish  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

Report No. DCYP10140

NASACRE had produced training materials in the form of a CDROM for individual SACREs following a very successful national training programme. The training materials would help towards Bromley SACRE achieving advanced SACRE status. A document outlining the statutory work of a SACRE and other information on SACREs had been circulated to Members.

SACRE Members present at the meeting took part in a training exercise organised by the RE Adviser, in response to the question “What should a good SACRE be doing?” The RE Adviser gave each of the four groups (ie: elected councillors, representatives of the Church of England, representatives of other religions and teacher representatives) a list of 24 statements relating to SACRE activities.  The groups were asked to consider how they would rate each of the activities and agree on ranking for them, the most important first, and the least significant last, discarding any that they thought were inappropriate.

Following the exercise discussion took place on some of the responses given by the groups. The RE Adviser informed SACRE Members that she would analyse the responses and the results would be circulated with the draft minutes of the meeting (Appendix 2).

RESOLVED that the training materials on improving the role of Bromley SACRE be adopted.

Report No. DCYP10139

In order to highlight the importance of Religious Education in Schools there would be a national month of Celebration in March 2011. A “flyer” advertising the event had been circulated to SACRE Members.

The RE Adviser showed SACRE Members the website which had been set up for this purpose (http://www.recelebration.org.uk/). The website contained a range of ideas for classroom activities with downloadable materials.  There were also ideas for SACREs, and Members could sign up to the website to receive updates on activities and events which were taking place. Schools were being encouraged to celebrate and the website had competitions with prizes for Infant, Junior, Primary and Secondary Schools. The RE Adviser commented that unfortunately there was no provision for older children as the website related to activities involving children up to the age of 16 years.

Jan Thompson commented that during Celebrating RE Month, Bishop Justus, Church of England Secondary School was planning an event to bring together their Year 7 students with Year 6 pupils from Bromley’s C of E primary schools to showcase curriculum RE on the theme of Easter. She agreed to send details of the event to the RE Adviser. 

RESOLVED that Members visit the Celebrating RE Website and consider what Bromley SACRE might do to help ‘Celebrate RE’, with the matter being discussed at the next meeting.

Report No. DCYP10142

 At the meeting held on 27^th May 2010 it was noted that further discussions would take place regarding the Bromley SACRE Annual Event. The RE Adviser informed SACRE Members that it had been decided to organise a twilight session on Philosophy for Children. The event would take place at the Education Development Centre on 24^th November 2010 between 4.30pm – 6pm. The session would be led by Jed Stone, SACRE teacher representative from Bullers Wood Secondary School.

RESOLVED that the arrangements for the SACRE Annual Event be noted.

Report No. DCYP10143

Bromley SACRE now had a page on the internet Managed Learning Environment ‘Fronter’ which was available at a charge to Bromley schools. (It was not known at present how many schools had taken this up.)

The information on faith speakers and visitors to schools had been collected and discussed over the last year and all those who had volunteered to go into schools would be contacted by the SACRE representative of their faith to check their continued willingness to participate. They would be given training/guidelines for protocol in schools by the RE consultant, Penny Smith-Orr.  The information would then be uploaded onto the SACRE section of Fronter so that teachers can access it and make their own arrangements for speakers. Schools which do not buy into the Fronter system would be encouraged to contact the RE Adviser for a list of speakers.

The Chairman suggested that the SACRE website page and faith directory be revisited once a year to ensure that it was up to date and asked that this item be put on the SACRE forward work programme, to be discussed at the meeting in the Summer Term.

RESOLVED that the information regarding the SACRE faith directory and webpage be noted and the matter receive further consideration at the meeting to be held in the Summer Term 2011.

 Report No. DCYP10141

 The RE Adviser reported on the successful visits to Bullers Wood and Hayes Secondary Schools during the Summer Term 2010. The RE Adviser and Rev Michael Camp attended the visit to Bullers Wood School and the Chairman, RE Adviser and Councillor Mrs Manning attended the visit to Hayes School. The RE Adviser commented on the excellent and enjoyable visits which had taken place.

It was noted that no arrangements had yet been made for visits during the Autumn Term, but it was hoped that visits to Kemnal Technology College and Hillside School could be organised. The RE Adviser would email SACRE Members when the necessary arrangements had been made to see if they would be available to accompany her on the visits.

RESOLVED that the reports of the school visits be noted.

     The Chairman suggested that at the next meeting consideration could be given to the idea of inviting guests to attend the Summer Term meeting of SACRE. He thought it might be useful for Members to invite someone from their faith group/teachers group to find out more about the role of Bromley SACRE.

     RESOLVED that members could consider who they might invite to the summer SACRE meeting being held on Wednesday 25^th May 2011.

Wednesday 16^th February 2011 at 6.30pm

Wednesday 16^th February 2011 at 6.30pm.