Minutes:
The Chairman reminded members that a revision of the current Bromley Agreed Syllabus was a legal requirement, and was in hand. The SACRE RE Advisor said that in order for the Revised Syllabus to reflect the viewpoints of the SACRE and teachers, she was suggesting that a network be established to discuss the document. It was noted that the current syllabus offered lots of guidance, but teachers still needed to write their own schemes of work.
The SACRE RE Advisor said that in Hackney, teachers were provided with schemes of work, each with linked resources and lesson plans. This helped to support inter-borough competitions to take place. The SACRE RE Advisor proposed that this could be considered in Bromley. In addition, it was suggested that a sub group of the SACRE could be set up to contribute to the Revised Syllabus discussion.
A member said that her understanding of the current Agreed Syllabus was that the required element was just a small section of the document, and the bulk of it was not statutory guidance, it was ‘stuff’ to support the requirements. A teacher representative echoed that this was how the use of the document had been presented to teachers by the previous RE Advisor, with a suggested plan included which allowed for a good level of flexibility. The SACRE RE Advisor responded that this was not as clear as it could be, and problems would arise when a new RE leader took over and this information was lost. The Chairman noted that part of the issue had been the naivety of providing the Agreed Syllabus to schools on a CD-Rom, thinking that the different sections would be obvious, when in fact it was not clear and made it look like a huge document. A teacher representative advised that Church schools had moved away from lesson plans, which had improved the teaching of RE. Teachers were conducting more of their own research and developing a greater understanding of the subject, however it was noted that this was unlikely to be reflected across the borough as a whole.
A member considered that they thought it would be good to open discussions with teachers on what the purpose and character of RE might be, and noted that there would be a need to engage teachers and school leaders. There could then be a round table discussion with school representatives and SACRE members. The SACRE RE Advisor suggested that she could set up teacher networks with which the SACRE members could then link with at a later date.
The Chairman highlighted that the Revised Bromley Agreed Syllabus was a framework that would need to be approved by the Agreed Syllabus Council. Legally, this was a separate entity, but had previously involved all SACRE members who formed the Agreed Syllabus Council for final sign-off of the document. When it came to voting, the result had to be unanimous and not a majority. Each Committee group had one vote, which also needed to have all members in agreement. Going forward, it would need to be considered if the whole SACRE would become the Agreed Syllabus Council, or if it would be done on a smaller scale, with just one representative from each Committee group. Following a discussion, it was agreed that a separate meeting would be set up for those SACRE members who wished to be involved in the deliberations regarding the Revised Bromley Agreed Syllabus.
ACTION: SACRE RE Advisor