Agenda and draft minutes

RESOLVED that Councillor Dr Barnard be elected Chairman for the academic year 2021/22.

RESOLVED that Madeline Diver be elected Vice-Chairman for the academic year 2021/22.

The minutes of the meeting held on 5 July 2021 were approved as a correct record.

There were no matters arising.

SACRE noted an update on its membership which included the appointment of Ebrahim Walele as the Islamic representative.

SACRE also considered the appointment of Alan Montgomery, Humanist representative, as a co-optee on its membership. Alan had been appointed for a year’s term in November 2020.

Having discussed the matter, SACRE agreed to extend the appointment of Alan Montgomery, Humanist representative as a co-optee member of SACRE until November 2023.  

It was suggested that in the future, SACRE may consider a standard term of office for all its members.

Madeline Diver updated SACRE on the work of the forward plan subgroup.

The subgroup had been meeting regularly to deliver progress on the priorities and actions on the SACRE forward plan. A key element to this work was considering how best to support teachers during the COVID pandemic.

The pandemic had meant that Priority 3: Monitoring religious education and collective worship had been almost impossible. The subgroup had established a new plan to work with schools and promote religious education and collective worship through other means.

It was proposed that the subgroup could make use of the RE network meetings to include different perspectives from faith representatives on topics relevant to RE.

The subgroup was working to develop resources to accompany the Real People, Real Faith films. It was hoped that SACRE members could prepare accompanying materials for the films.

The subgroup also proposed introducing faith leaders to schools with a view to producing video clips for Collective Worship.

The subgroup also proposed to introduce faith leaders to schools.

In response to questions, the following points were noted:

·        The local secondary RE department leads had begun meeting more regularly, to build shared resources and standardise marking. Clare Hawkins offered to feed any relevant messaging into this network.

·        NASACRE were planning a training session on how best to monitor and evaluate collective worship going forward, so it was suggested that pausing the priority may be the best option for the time being.

·        It was noted that the SACRE artefacts were stored at the Open Learning Centre but would need to be packed away into storage by Christmas 2021. Tracey Bradshaw was in discussion with Richard Skegg about an online resource and booking arrangement for the artefacts to be booked out by schools.

Including the new SACRE Self-Assessment tool and feedback on any training sessions attended

SACRE members were reminded that NASACRE training sessions were available for Bracknell Forest SACRE members to join, as the one-time membership fee had been paid. All training would be continuing online for the time being.

Anne Andrews notified SACRE of the new Annual Report format. It was noted that NASACRE would be looking closely at Annual Reports going forward, and the submissions would be analysed.

The Annual Report needed to be submitted in February 2022, and would be circulated to SACRE for their comments by email.

SACRE noted the RE and Schools Workforce Data, which had been produced in conjunction with NATRE. Overall, it was noted that the Bracknell Forest secondary schools were much smaller than average. The data would provide useful contextual data for the upcoming syllabus review discussion.

It was noted that while the data suggested that schools’ offering around RE was not as expected, there were some inconsistencies in recording.

It was also noted that the inclusion of relationships and sex education in some schools had resulted in a decrease in the number of hours for RE.

SACRE noted the Autumn newsletter, and were encouraged to submit articles for the Spring edition to Anne Andrews.

Anne Andrews updated members on the work of the Berkshire SACRE Hub, which had primarily been putting together a survey to all Berkshire schools on the syllabus review. It was hoped that this work would establish a list of teacher contacts who would like to participate in the upcoming syllabus review, for a launch in Summer 2022.

The Hub had also discussed funding arrangements for the Agreed Syllabus Review.

It was noted that the Catholic film for Real People, Real Faith was now available and would be published on the NATRE website.

·        SACRE artefacts at the Open Learning Centre

SACRE was asked to let Tracey Bradshaw know if anyone would like to attend the upcoming RE Network meeting.  

SACRE members asked that a glossary could be included in future reports, to explain any acronyms.

16 March 2022

4 July 2022

8 November 2022

16 March 2022

4 July 2022

8 November 2022