· Special RE with Purpose – 29 April 2014
· Secondary RE Conference – 19 June 2014
· Primary RE Conference – 23 June 2014
Minutes:
Stephen Pett explained that three secondary network meetings had taken place, as well as Primary, Secondary and Special Schools conferences and a Year 10 RE Day. He felt that the network meetings had been successful and useful for those who had attended but unfortunately not many teachers had attended.
Network Meetings
Norman Mills attended the network meeting at Wolverley and was very impressed with the teachers from the School. Kerry Poole subsequently won the Silver Teacher of the Year Award. He felt that all the teachers were keen to network and were interested in the materials that Stephen could provide.
Chris Giles explained that the network meeting at South Bromsgrove led to teachers sharing information on useful websites as well as other ideas. He felt that such meetings helped to build confidence for teachers.
Stephen noted that he was looking to see who would be able to host network meetings for next year. The meetings were held at 4.00 – 5.30 on Mondays which caused some discussion as to whether that was too close to the end time of school to allow teachers to attend and that Mondays were often the day when staff meetings were held. However there was an acknowledgement that some teachers were reluctant to attend extra meetings on top of their normal work so arranging network meetings to follow closely on to school time was helpful to some teachers and Stephen pointed out that he had offered a choice of days and the school themselves chose a Monday.
There was some discussion about whether SACRE members could help more with spreading information about the network meetings and conferences. The information could be sent to the Head of RE in secondary schools but often such a position did not exist in Primary or First schools. A Member of SACRE who was a Head of a Primary School said that emails were the best way to communicate with schools, rather than phone calls or visits because staff were likely to be teaching.
Some members suggested that they could find people who would be willing to help spread the information to schools but all members did not agree that this would be a useful solution and one member stated that he objected to the idea of SACRE members bringing in other volunteers. The Chairman asked Members to let her know if they were willing to help to contact schools to advertise network meetings and conferences, she would then pass their details on to Stephen.
It was pointed out that it took time in Herefordshire for attendance at the conferences to increase and the good feedback received from the recent events would certainly help to advertise future events.
Year 10 RE Day - The Hive hosted the RE Day for students. The Chairman explained that the day had gone well. Students from different schools were mixed at each table and teachers were kept separate. Pupils were asked to take their learning and information back to their schools and bring back feedback to SACRE.
Primary Conference – The Vice-Chairman attended this conference and found attendees were positive and enthusiastic.
Special Schools Conference – This took place at a special school in Herefordshire. The Chairman led some meditations which went down well with the attendees.
Three Counties Secondary Conference – Stephen reported that 10 teachers from Worcestershire attended and 95% of all attendees marked the value of the conference as excellent.
It was proposed that a primary and secondary conference be organised for next year, jointly with Herefordshire SACRE, subject to the needs of the Agreed Syllabus launch.
RESOLVED that
a) the information about the conferences be noted,
b) A Primary and secondary conference be organised for 2014/15, subject to the requirements of a syllabus launch,
c) Feedback from pupils who attended the Year 10 RE day to be followed up by the Chairman.