Agenda and minutes

To approve as a correct record the minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 8 November 2018.

The minutes of the meeting held on 8 November 2018 were approved as a correct record.

There were no matters arising.

Anne Andrews updated SACRE on the comments regarding the Agreed Syllabus from Robyn Lynch who said the Agreed Syllabus was still not as concise as teachers were requesting. It was also commented that the 2 learning strands do not help with planning for non specialist teachers.

Following questions and discussion, the following points regarding the Syllabus were raised:

·         The section about process should be moved to higher up in the document

·         There are two planning processing being set which looks different. It was questioned whether the points on page 10 could be located at the start of the document along with some examples

·         Arfan agreed to feedback on the key principles of Islam listed.

·         It was noted that the theme of charity was not listed but an important aspect of all religons

·         The syllabus should be simple and straight forward and easy to use

·         The forward was too long and it was recommended a succinct summary could be useful for teachers.

·         Concerns were raised that the length of the document could mean it wasn’t inspiring for teachers.

·         Concerns were raised that there were lots of fact presented in the syllabus, but not much regarding British values and wellbeing which was important for children to have  emotional resilience and wellbeing.

·         No assessment criteria currently existed in the Syllabus. However, this could be included in the summary pages.

·         It was noted that assessment could be done via a presentation

·         It was considered important that the criteria which the students were being judged against had age related expectations with outcomes based on acquiring knowledge.

·         The aim of the syllabus was for children to be able to discuss a range of faiths in an informed, inclusive and respectful way and this should be reflected in the assessment aims.

Following discussion it was agreed that as part of the Bracknell Forest forward to the Syllabus that a summary is produced to draw teacher’s attention to the main points and what is available to be used as a resource.

It was suggested that the key questions could be listed on the first pages and the rest could be an online resource. This  would be less intimidating for teachers to have a look at and had the advantage being able to be printed and sent to local teachers. This would also mean SACRE could adapt the syllabus year on year following feedback from Teachers.

The Agreed Syllabus would be published once it had been agreed by a quorate SACRE at a later meeting

It was noted that another local SACRE was having a teachers conference to launch the event which had raised lots of interest and it was suggested that Bracknell Forest could do the same. Potential dates were considered as the start of July with venues and potential dates being investigated further outside of the meeting.

It was noted that the launch would need to be before the summer holidays so teaching could commence in September 2018.

It would be investigated whether elements could be recorded for anyone who could not make the conference. Any videos or snippets could be circulated and also put online via social media.

SACRE training sessions would be discussed at the next meeting.

A meeting would be held in May to discuss the Agreed Syllabus and an email would go out to SACRE members to confirm.

There was no other business.

As detailed the next meeting would be held in May with the  date to be confirmed depending on availability.