Agenda and minutes

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Items
No. Item

The Chair welcomed to the SACRE, Professor Alan Gillies as a Committee Member representing Methodist; Mr Peter Lumsden as Community Representative for Building Bridges Burnley; and Mr Keith Pennington as an Observer, representing Humanists.

1.

Apologies

Minutes:

Apologies were received from County Councillor Azhar Ali; County Councillor Peter Steen, Mr Robert Ash, Mrs Tibret Safraz and Mrs Sally Elton-Chalcraft.

2.

Minutes of the last meeting held on 3 February 2020 pdf icon PDF 281 KB

Minutes:

The minutes of the last meeting held on 3 February 2020 were agreed as a true and accurate record.

3.

Agreeing Membership of the Agreed Syllabus Conference

Minutes:

The Chair pointed out to members that this was a statutory procedure for the SACRE to revise its syllabus every five years, it was highlighted that not much would need to change in the syllabus.

 

In order to convene an Agreed Syllabus Conference (ASC) the SACRE had to ask Lancashire County Council to agree to convene an Agreed Syllabus Conference. This would be done through a report being presented to the Cabinet. The SACRE needed to agree who would sit on the ASC. The number of meetings that would be required to agree the syllabus would also need to be agreed. It was noted that only members of the SACRE were able to sit on the ACS and Co-opted Members and Observers were unable to sit on the ASC.

 

Alison Lloyd, School Advisor for Lancashire County Council, explained the local authority was aligning the syllabus more with the new Ofsted expectations around intention, implementation and impact. The format of the syllabus would be redesigned. This all had to be achieved by September 2021.

 

Representatives were required from the four bodies to sit on the Agreed Syllabus Conference. The four volunteers to be representatives on the ASC were:

 

·  Lisa Horobin, Church of England Representative.

·  Peter Martin, the Teachers Association Representative.

·  County Councillor Anne Cheetham, Lancashire County Council Representative.

·  Harsha Shukla, other Christian Faiths and Other Faiths Representative.

 

It was proposed that the first meeting of the group would take place in December.

4.

SACRE Update Report pdf icon PDF 208 KB

Minutes:

 

Alison Lloyd, School Advisor for Lancashire County Council, explained that there had been challenges during the pandemic. During lockdown and the partial closure of schools the opportunity was taken to work on some new materials and these had been added to the Lancashire SACRE website.

 

A new RE policy template for primary schools had been added to the website. In regards to the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) exemplifications, the SACRE was informed that all exemplification materials to support the syllabus had now been completed for all year groups. Also added to the website was additional guidance relating to developing spirituality across the curriculum. A newsletter signposting schools to resources to support online learning had also been added to the website.

 

Planned training with LAT Blaylock, the National RE Advisor, on improving subject knowledge in the teaching of Hinduism and Islam had been cancelled during the pandemic and had now been moved to 21 October 20 and would be held virtually.

 

The free network meetings had been cancelled. At the moment the schools did not have the capacity to release the associate consultants. These might be provided online in the future.

 

The monitoring report could not be provided due to a lack of data for analysis. Outcomes from inspections, assessments and pupil attitude questionnaires were unavailable. A draft, slimmed down annual report would be shared with members in November.

 

The local authority had maintained the same level of funding for the SACRE for the following year 2020/21. The financial support had not changed which was positive news. The Chair stated that the Lancashire SACRE was indebted to the county council for its continued support.

 

Meetings of NNWHub had been postponed due to the Covid restrictions and no face to face meetings were planned for the immediate future. There was a possibility that a virtual meeting could be arranged but this was not a priority. The Hub was a useful forum in which 9 to 10 North West SACRE representatives took part in.

 

It was noted that meetings of the Lancashire SACRE QSS had not taken place during the pandemic but hopefully they would begin again soon virtually.

 

The Chair stated that there was still a lot of work going on in the background and thanked Alison for keeping things flowing.

 

5.

School Visits Protocol pdf icon PDF 117 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Over the last two years school visits had been arranged for members of the SACRE and the response had been positive. It was noted however that there were no arranged protocols for school visits. As there were not now any school visits allowed it was thought that now would be a good opportunity for members to agree some protocols for school visits.

 

Examples of school visit protocols had been shared with members in their agenda packs showing what other SACREs were doing around protocols for school visits. It was noted that there was a consistent approach and agreement about what members did when they visited a school.

 

Members felt the guidance they had been provided with was excellent and did not need a lot of adapting and would prove very useful.

 

It was felt that the school visits were a mutual benefit for the schools and for the SACRE members. The visits were also a way of identifying good practice and they were a positive experience.

 

It was felt that the Enfield Schools Visits Protocol document was very helpful, clear, concise and to the point. It was agreed that Mr John Wilson, representing the Church of England; and Dr Malcolm Craig, representing the Bahá’i Faith, would look at the Enfield document and modify it for Lancashire. This would then be circulated to members asking for their comments.

 

6.

Annual Report Arrangements

Minutes:

The SACRE was informed that an Annual Report would be drafted but there would be no data for analysis. The draft report would include things that the SACRE had done over the last twelve months. It was a statutory requirement to submit an annual report to the Department for Education and the NASACRE.

 

7.

Monitoring School Websites - NASACRE approach pdf icon PDF 90 KB

Minutes:

The SACRE was informed that NASACRE had produced a framework within which it thought it was appropriate to judge school website entries for RE.

 

8.

Website Evaluation Grid

Minutes:

SACRE members were informed that schools had to make sure their curriculum was on the website. The statutory requirement was for the content of a school's curriculum for each year group and each subject to be published on the school's website.

 

It was important to make sure the curriculum was very clear on the website. It was pointed out that school governors were responsible that the websites conformed to what was required and were responsible to ensure that RE was delivered as a statutory subject within the curriculum of the school.

 

9.

Burnley Building Bridges Update

Minutes:

Mrs Sajda Majeed presented the SACRE with a Burnley Building Bridges (BBB) update. It was noted that since March 2020 and the outbreak of the pandemic, BBB had not been able to deliver any sessions.

 

Since 2019, 44 primary schools had signed up to the BBB project. Out of these schools there were 39 outstanding bookings. BBB had agreed to honour these outstanding bookings. BBB would spend the rest of the year rebooking these outstanding visits and delivering the sessions. The schools would be offered on site visits subject to Covid guidance.  Alternatively, the sessions would be offered as interactive virtual sessions by the Faith Speakers. One Secondary Community School had also signed up.

 

Any additional schools requesting to sign up for the service for 20/21 would be accepted.

 

It was noted that the same applied to Places of Worship visits. Many of the Places of Worship visits were not open for group visits at present. BBB was working closely with its faith speakers in order to set up interactive virtual live sessions from Places of Worship.

 

From January to March 2020 the visits managed by BBB were:

 

·  2 Buddhism

·  8 Hinduism

·  5 Islam

·  5 Judaism

·  2 Sikhism

·  6 Christianity

10.

Interfaith Week 8 - 15 November 2020

Minutes:

 Dr Malcolm Craig informed members that in Preston during Interfaith Week events would go ahead virtually.  He was still waiting to hear what was going to happen on Remembrance Sunday.

 

Mrs Harsha Shukla explained that in Lancaster the Remembrance Sunday Service would be going ahead virtually via Zoom.

 

Mr Peter Lumsden pointed out that in Burnley the Lancashire Forum of Faiths was meeting online to discuss getting leaders from different faith groups engaged in Interfaith Week.

 

11.

Lancashire Youth Voice

Minutes:

The Chair informed the SACRE that no real progress had been made with the Lancashire Youth Voice under the present circumstances.

12.

Correspondence

Minutes:

There was no correspondence.

13.

Members' News

Minutes:

Mrs Sajda Majeed explained that while BBB had to put its Lancashire Interfaith Schools Project on hold during the pandemic, it did spend this time working with the Local Community Hub and supporting a local food bank as well.

 

14.

Observers' Contributions

Minutes:

Regarding the School Visits Protocol, it was felt there should be an alignment between the existing protocols and the protocols for SACRE school visits. In the NASACRE guidance there were two sections addressing both protocols and also what the purpose of the school visit was.

 

Members were informed that BBB had a Service Level Agreement with schools. It was also pointed out that the protocols for each school were slightly different.

 

During the pandemic the Lancashire Forum of Faiths had held virtual meetings regularly and there representatives from each of the eight faiths on it. The forum would be happy to work with the SACRE.

 

15.

Date of Next Meeting

The next scheduled meeting of the SACRE will be held at 10.00am on Monday 30 November 2020 at 10.00am.

Minutes:

The next meeting of the SACRE would be held at 10:00am on Monday 30 November 2020.