Agendas, Meetings and Minutes - Agenda and minutes

Agenda and minutes

Venue: County Hall, Worcester

Contact: Kate Griffiths  Committee Officer

Items
No. Item

621.

Apologies for Absence and Substitutions

Minutes:

Apologies for absence were received from Chris Giles, Matthew Jenkins, Jatinderpal Loyal, Ken Pollock and Yvonne Stollard.

 

The meeting was not quorate as there was no member of Group D at the meeting. It was proposed that the SACRE clerk gain agreement from absent members for any proposals made at the meeting. Members present at the meeting agreed to this proposal.

622.

Confirmation of the Minutes pdf icon PDF 103 KB

Minutes:

The minutes of the last meeting were agreed to be a correct record of the meeting and were signed by the Chairman.

 

Action points from the minutes which were not covered in the agenda:

·       A flyer about the Faith Encounter Programme had been distributed to Members

·       Jatinderpal Loyal was happy to be the Sikh contact for the University

·       The Visits to Places of Worship information had received some minor updates and would be distributed to SACRE members. If no further updates were received within two weeks the list would be made available at various places such as the conferences from 18 June, the Diocesan World Religions course and the Diocesan Moderation meetings. The Diocese would also be able to distribute it to teachers who enquired about it. Tasnim Khawaja agreed to be the contact for visits to mosques and would be able to advise schools on what they needed to know before their visit

·       Stephen Pett had created a survey and following consultation with Jatinderpal Loyal would request conference attendees to complete it following the conference

·       Steph Boulter would ask Kate Brunt about a venue for the October SACRE meeting

·       Tracy Lister requested that the Inter Faith Toolkit be sent round to SACRE members. She hoped that an event could be organised for Inter Faith Week 11-18 November. Ben Smith Education Director from Worcester Cathedral had agreed that the Cathedral could host an event if people wished to support it

·       The Chairman noted that an Inter Faith picnic was taking place on 24 July at Holland House. Members should let her know if they wished to attend.

623.

Monitoring RE in Schools - Sub Group

Minutes:

Stephen Pett explained that previously SACRE had considered workforce data and exam results which had suggested that some schools were not fulfilling their requirements for RE. It was decided that a sub-group would be formed to look at the data more closely.  NASACRE and Natre wanted SACREs to contact schools which appeared to be not fulfilling the requirements.

 

Steph Boulter explained that some Church Schools had appeared to be in that category but it had transpired that RE was being taught but as part of other PSHE or Citizenship classes. Some schools also taught RE on drop down days.

 

Stephen agreed to ask Chris Giles and Robin Lunn to help with the analysis of information and report back to the October meeting.

 

It was clarified that Ofsted did not check the quality or amount of specific subject teaching but instead looked at how well schools prepared pupils for modern life.

 

RESOLVED that SACRE:

 

a)     Agreed that Stephen Pett should speak to Chris Giles to collate and analyse workforce data and exam results; and

b)    A report would be brought to the next meeting of SACRE in October 2018.

624.

Conferences pdf icon PDF 657 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The 2018 conferences would take place on

·       19 June - Primary Schools

·       28 June – Secondary Schools

·       3 July – Special Schools

 

The difficulty of contacting someone who could communicate with schools was discussed. This was partly because there was no representation at SACRE meetings from Babcock.

 

RESOLVED that SACRE agreed to make renewed efforts to send conference details to Babcock, the County Council and any other contacts in order to advertise the conferences to schools.

 

 

 

625.

Draft Annual Report pdf icon PDF 126 KB

Minutes:

A draft SACRE Annual Report for the academic year 2016/17 had been sent to SACRE members. It was anticipated that the Annual Report could be presented to County Council and then sent to the Department for Education and NASACRE.

 

The Commentary on exam results still needed to be included and it was accepted that quality of teaching was difficult to assess. A survey was planned to be ready for the conferences to be completed when delegates accessed the supporting information following the event.

 

RESOLVED that SACRE:

a)     Approved the annual report subject to Stephen Pett contacting Chris Giles to finalise the report and survey; and

b)    Once complete the Annual Report would be sent to the County Council, NASACRE and the DfE.

626.

Hub Leaders Project

Minutes:

Ellie Hill explained that the project had recruited seven hub leaders who had a range of experience, with some teachers being fairly new to RE while some were very experienced. They had all taken part in 2 days of training where particular papers were presented and were then available for the teachers to take away with them to disseminate to other teachers.  The sessions also gave ideas for pedagogy and had time for lesson planning.

 

A third day of training was coming up and would be held at the University when the Hub Leaders would plan some sessions to be delivered at the conferences.

 

RESOLVED that SACRE:

 

a)     Noted that Stephen Pett and Ellie Hill would be taking a paper about the Hub Leaders Project to the joint NASACRE, AULRE and AREIAC conference in October; and

b)    A further update would be brought to the next SACRE meeting in October.

627.

SACRE Funding pdf icon PDF 635 KB

Minutes:

NASACRE had reported that since the Education Services Grant had been abolished some SACREs were having their funding cut by Local Authorities.  NASACRE clarified that SACREs would continue to be funded by central government. From 2018 – 19 funding would be through the central school services block.

 

Worcestershire SACRE has been fortunate to have received an agreement from Babcock that funding had been set for the remainder of its contract with the Local Authority. The SACRE receives £8626 for the academic years 2018/19 and 2019/20 and £4313 from April to September 2020 which is the end of their contract.

 

RE Today had proposed finding out comparator information to see how much funding Local Authorities were providing for SACREs and Agreed Syllabus Conferences. Further enquiries would be made to ascertain where the funding came from and at what level Worcestershire was funding SACRE.

 

RESOLVED that SACRE would ascertain which figures RE Today required for its comparison work and then then request the relevant information from the County Council and Babcock.

628.

SACRE Development Plan pdf icon PDF 92 KB

Minutes:

As SACRE had a guaranteed level of funding for 3 years it had been possible to put a development plan in place.

 

Part 2 of the plan was the 'monitoring and review of Worcestershire agreed syllabus'. As a way of reviewing the syllabus and its use by teachers it was proposed that a survey be made available to teachers who attended the conferences. Attendees would have to complete the survey in order to be able to access the information from the conferences.

 

Part 3 of the plan was to improve partnership working between SACRE, the Local Authority and other bodies. In October Stephen Pett and Ellie Hill would be reporting to the joint NASACRE, AULRE and AREIAC conference. If SACRE members were interested in that conference or any others please let Kate Griffiths know.

 

RESOLVED that SACRE noted the update on the on-going work as detailed in the Development Plan.

629.

Feedback from Members

Minutes:

None.

630.

Any Other Business

Minutes:

Tasnim Khawaja updated SACRE on 'Bromsgrove and Redditch Welcome Refugees'. This volunteer group welcomed five Syrian families to Redditch in 2016 and gave practical help such as sourcing practical items and form filling but also offered friendship and social events. It was anticipated that 50 more people were expected to arrive in Worcestershire.

 

The group also worked on awareness raising and went into schools as part of SMSE teaching. A Syrian refugee evening would be held on 23 June in Redditch.

631.

Future Meeting Dates

The next meeting will take place on Tuesday 2 October at 2pm at County Hall, Worcester.

Minutes:

The next SACRE meeting would be held on Tuesday 2 October at 2pm at County Hall, Worcester.