Agenda and minutes

Venue: The Auditorium, Christ the King College, Wellington Road, Newport, Isle of WIght

Contact: Sarah Philipsborn  Email: democratic.services@iow.gov.uk

Items
No. Item

22.

Reflection

To be provided by the head teacher of Christ the King College.

Minutes:

Cllr Debbie Andre read out a prayer about the war in Ukraine for reflection

23.

Apologies for Absence

Minutes:

Beth Feltham, Cllr Claire Critchison, Simon Bligh, Ben Britten, Alison Burt, Liane Chalmers, Beryl Miller

24.

Declarations of Interest

To invite Members to declare any interest they might have in the matters on the agenda.

Minutes:

None were received at this stage

25.

Minutes pdf icon PDF 207 KB

1.    To confirm as a true record the minutes of the meeting held on 5 October 2021.

 

2.    To discuss any actions from the minutes

Minutes:

1.THAT the minutes of the 5 October be amended.

 

Page 2, Item 6. Monitoring Report, paragraph 2 to read- it was asked if it could be recorded that Beth from The Bay was noted by AQA

 

Thanks were also given to Ryde

 

Page 2, Item 6. Monitoring Report, paragraph 3 to read- The committee were advised that on the Ofqual website

 

THAT the minutes of the 5 October 2021 be approved with the above changes.

 

2.Discussion arising from actions from the minutes to include;

 

THAT a verbal report was given to the Policy and Scrutiny Committee for Children’s Services, Education and Skills, by Sacre on 9 December 2021 be noted.

 

26.

Membership Update

To receive a verbal update.

Minutes:

The Committee were advised that Nikki Mobley had resigned for personal reasons, Ben Britten had joined representing the Free Church following Sue Cox’s last meeting in October 2021.

 

 

It was stated that the committee needed a representative from the Hindu religion and a new member to represent Primary Heads. It was also queried whether any members of the committee knew any replacements for these positions and for a further member of the Church of England.

 

It was suggested that a list of all the vacancies be populated and circulated.

 

RESOLVED:

 

THAT the membership of the SACRE be circulated.

 

THAT any members who knew contact details for people wishing to join would be provided to the clerk.

27.

Living Difference IV pdf icon PDF 264 KB

To receive a report updating SACRE regarding developments in relation to Living Difference IV.

Minutes:

The Hampshire Advisor presented a report to inform SACRE of events that had taken place regarding the launch of Living Difference IV, and of training and developments around the launch of the syllabus.

 

It was stated that full day conferences had taken place in November 2021 and January 2022, with a further half day event scheduled on 14 June 2022 for those who were unable to attend previously. These events were deemed a success, and the work relating to the meetings and workshops, was able to be viewed on the R.E moodle. Committee members could access the link by contacting the RE adviser for further information.

 

A part of the meeting’s focus was on ‘pondering time’ which was introduced so that young people could pursue topics that were of interest and focus their studies around these topics for one unit of RE. This had been trialled in secondary schools and special schools where it had been well received, as was the case with Early Years. The chair of the Island SACRE had also undertaken a lot of work on pondering time and placed her work on the RE moodle for other teachers to view. As more examples were produced, they would be placed on the RE moodle for teachers to access.

 

The SACRE discussed the teaching and understanding of different faiths and the focus in the syllabus for learning about a religion in depth, while also providing an opportunity for an overview study. It was raised that the main difficulty schools faced was the lack of time.

 

It was mentioned that there was a talk on-line by Michael Rosen with the Parks Institute, on how the Holocaust should be written about for young readers, which might be of interest to SACRE members, and was  accessible by using the link below; https://www.southampton.ac.uk/parkes/news/events/2022/06/parkes-lecture-2022.page

 

Regarding the issue of the syllabus, it was explained that a small adjustment had been made with the text which removed the words ‘The Office for Standards in Education 9 (Ofsted) from the third line of the third paragraph.

 

It was also mentioned that further training was available to teachers through network meetings and events, and that virtual meetings had encouraged many more people to participate.

 

RESOLVED:

 

THAT the report be approved.

28.

Monitoring Report pdf icon PDF 137 KB

To receive a report.

Minutes:

The Hampshire Primary RE Inspector reported on the activities of the SACRE Monitoring Group.

 

It was explained that the Monitoring Group fulfilled the statutory requirement of SACRE to monitor the effectiveness of the agreed syllabus and the group comprising of 3 members met on the 31 January 2022.

 

Discussions took place around GCSE 2022 examinations and the difficulties schools had faced during the past 2 years due to covid and how students were impacted.

 

Collective Worship was highlighted as being an area that the SACRE would focus on this year as well as the monitoring of RE. The Monitoring Group looked to share best practise in both primary and secondary schools. It was explained that there was a range of training available for the development of Collective Worship and that Collective Worship could be done in a variety of ways.

 

It was stated that the Withdrawal Survey 2021 showed that 26 Island Schools completed the survey, and the numbers of children that were withdrawn from all or parts of RE and collective worship, were very few.

 

It was confirmed to the committee that face-to-face SACRE monitoring visits had begun again, and that the planning and date setting of future visits were underway. Suggestions were made about circulating a calendar of proposed visits, so that committee members could attend if they wished. The feedback, resulting from the SACRE monitoring visits, was seen as highly beneficial as it concentrated, not only on successes, but also on the sharing of new ideas that were best practice.

 

It was stated that SACRE monitoring group would review the ways it should monitor and support RE and Collective Worship in the year ahead and discuss ways to do this with the SACRE advisor. Cllr Debbie Andre declared a financial interest as Cabinet Member for Children’s Services, Education and Lifelong Skills if there were discussions around budget.

 

The idea of a newsletter that came out every term was discussed. Suggestions were made about including photos and the names and faiths of SACRE members to help teachers know who might be available to come into school and talk about their faith or belief. Topics of interest coming out of SACRE meetings could also be included.

 

RESOLVED:

 

THAT the Monitoring Report be noted with thanks.

 

THAT if any one thought of anything to include in the newsletter to contact Justine Ball

29.

Activities of National and Regional RE bodies including South Central SACRE Hub meetings

To include an update regarding activities of National and Regional RE events and meetings, including South Central Hub and Future NASACR meetings.

Minutes:

It was explained that the South Central SACRE hub comprised of any individual members of the various SACREs in the defined region. The hub was a forum to discuss relevant issues and that the next meeting was on 26 April on Microsoft Teams.

 

THAT the above be noted.

30.

Brief updates or notifications of items to be brought to future meetings

To receive updates and notification of future agenda items.

Minutes:

It was reminded that SACRE needed to organise a sub-group for looking at the SACRE constitution. This was deemed as needing 4 members and had to go to the local authority. It was suggested that one member from each Committee section would be helpful.

 

THAT this be taken away as an action point.

 

31.

Date and venue of the next meeting

The next scheduled meeting is on 27 June 2022: 16:00-18:00.

Minutes:

27 June 2022 at 16:00 – Venue to be confirmed at a later date.