Agenda item

   SA15001

A) NASACRE CONFERENCE AND AGM

The Chairman and RE Consultant had attended the NASACRE Conference and AGM which was held on 21^st May 2015 in Birmingham.

The Keynote Speaker was the Rt Hon Charles Clarke, Secretary of State for Education & Skills 2002-2004, Visiting Professor, School of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication Studies, at the University of East Anglia. The Seminar Leaders were Denise Cush, Professor of Religion and Education at Bath Spa University and Mary Myatt, Lead Ofsted Inspector, and Culham St Gabriel’s Lead Consultant for Teacher Conferences.

The Chairman had prepared notes of the meeting and these were considered by SACRE Members.

At the Conference Charles Clarke made reference to a pamphlet which he had co-authored with Linda Woodhead on Religion and Belief in Schools which was due to be published in the summer. SACRE Members were informed that the document had now been published and could be found on the following link http://faithdebates.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/A-New-Settlement-for-Religion-and-Belief-in-schools.pdf 

(The recommendations made represent the personal views of the authors’, formed on the basis of relevant recent research and their respective expertise in politics and religion.) One of the recommendations made was that there should be a nationally agreed RE syllabus.

During the Seminar on “Meeting the Challenge”, colleagues from different SACREs were able to network and discuss their work in-depth. A proforma was used to collect contributions and comments arising from the discussions. These would be collated and ideas for “Meeting the Challenge” would be put on the NASACRE website in due course. (A training session based on the pro-forma was undertaken by SACRE Members - see item 24B below). 

SACRE Members discussed the role of SACREs, particularly in the light of Local Authorities diminishing role with regard to Academies and Free Schools.

The Chairman remarked that whilst SACREs retain responsibility for ensuring good RE and collective worship they have very little power to enforce this.

B) SACRE TRAINING SESSION

A training session took place to consider issues affecting Bromley SACRE and ways to solve these. SACRE Members divided into small groups and the proforma referred to in the above minute was used to collect contributions and comments arising from the discussions. The proforma was based on the top 8 challenges highlighted by SACREs at the 2014 NASACRE Conference.

SACRE Members briefly discussed a few of the comments made. One in particular was the suggestion that it would be a good idea for SACRE Chairmen to meet once a year to discuss and share experiences. The RE Consultant advised that in the past an annual meeting of London and South East SACREs had been held but this had not taken place for a few years.

The completed proformas were passed to the RE Consultant who would analyse the results and prepare a report to be submitted at the next SACRE meeting.  The results would inform SACREs future work in conjunction with the annual development plan.

RESOLVED that the RE Consultant analyse the responses from SACRE Members and report back at the next meeting.

C) SCHOOL VISITS

SACRE members visit local schools in order to observe the teaching of RE and to offer support to the RE Co-ordinator of the school.

On 3^rd February 2015 the Chairman, RE Consultant and Rev Steve Varney visited Chislehurst Girls School. (Miss Anna Winson, the Head of the RE Department is a teacher representative on SACRE.) The Chairman and RE Consultant also visited Darrick Wood School on 2^nd March 2015. Detailed reports on the very good school visits were considered by SACRE Members.

The RE Consultant expressed the view that both schools would be suitable to apply for the RE Quality Mark, as they are committed to excellent RE teaching and learning. The RE Quality Mark has bronze, silver and gold levels and details can be found at http://www.reqm.org/ The Chairman commented that a lot of church schools had applied for and had achieved the RE Quality Mark. It was noted however that budgetary considerations needed to be taken into account when applying for the Quality Mark.

The RE Consultant informed SACRE Members that the previous week she had visited Hayes Secondary School with Christopher Town and a report of the visit would be submitted to the next SACRE meeting.

Arrangements would be made for school visits to be undertaken during the autumn term and the RE Consultant would contact SACRE Members in due course to see if they would be able to accompany her on the visits.

RESOLVED that

(i) the reports of the visits to Chislehurst Girls School and Darrick Wood  School be noted,

(ii) the RE Consultant to notify SACRE Members of arrangements for school visits during the autumn term.